Lawsuit: Starbucks Coffee Was Too Hot

CBS ^ | July 19, 2006

[the OlLine Rebel]

I'm surprised (almost) after all these years after that MacDonald's travesty, this woman isn't too embarrassed to start something like this.

Of course, at least this time it was not SHE who spilled the coffee on HERSELF!

[Señor Zorro]

You make a lot of argument about 185° vs. 210° and rightfully so, so I'll make my counter case here. First of all, I'd like to ask, is it reasonable to serve at 185°? If so, then McDonald's is not liable. I am sure you would agree so far. Where we differ is that you say that 185° is unreasonable, whereas I say that it is. An interesting note is that the National Coffee Association of the USA gives their recommendations on how coffee should be served on their website (at http://www.ncausa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=71). They recommend that coffee be brewed at 195-205° and served at 180-185°. Therefore, when McDonald's serves their coffee at the temperature of 185°, they are doing precisely what is recommended. I will not pretend that the National Coffee Association is somehow infallible, however for a company to serve coffee at their recommended temperature does not at all seem unreasonable.

Secondly, I would like you to think about home cooking. Take baking. Most things (cakes, cookies, bread, etc.) are baked at 360°. Is someone who does this engaging in reckless conduct? If you do any of your own cooking, then you come into contact with things much hotter than 185° all the time.

Then why not serve it at 210° instead of 185°? That should get them lots more customers!

Apparently McDonald's doesn't think so. If you find the coffee too hot on a routine basis, here's a stunning insight: don't buy it.

It tends to show that McDonalds has knowledge of the temperature issue, and that this woman's claim wasn't an isolated, greed-motivated lawsuit, when so many quickly write it off as such.

As has already been pointed out, it actually proves the opposite. The lawyers said that there were 700 incidents in the decade and that McDonald's sells approx. 1 billion cups of coffee a year. 700 / 10 billion ~= 0.00000007%. According to this site (http://www.medicalofficer.net/index_files/Page3378.htm) you have a 1:3000 chance of being hit by lightning or approximately 0.000333% chance. Are you trying to pawn off on me that something with a lesser probability than being hit by lightning is a chronic problem that should have been addressed?

Your analysis seems to suggest that as long as a business is serving the desires of its customers, then anything goes. No liability if they're making sales, right?

Not quite. You are accusing me of arguing that the ends justify the means. I am arguing no such thing. I am arguing that the woman was at fault, she did something stupid. Sad and unfortunate, but stupid.

And, I would add, if it was partially McDonalds' fault, as the jury found, then McDonalds deserves to pay something

And I am arguing that it was the woman's fault 100% of the way (we all know how the trial actually turned out; honestly, all of us here are just playing arm-chair lawyer). McDonald's gave her a product at a reasonable temperature, she spilled it on herself, after she had left the McDonald's , at a stop. It is HER fault. Not McDonald's and she deserves to pay for her own medical bills.

Secondly: Of course she sued for more than the medical bills. She now has legal bills too, because McDonalds wouldn't initially pay her medical bills.

Normally lawyers in civil suits are in for a portion of the profits. If they win, they take a cut. If they lose, well, they lose.

This is another fact to answer those who dismiss this as a frivolous, greed-motivated lawsuit. I agree that it doesn't address the facts of the case, as it was not meant to.

To the contrary, it does. In the example I concocted, I go to a store, I buy a product, I leave the premises, and I suffer an accident (sorry if I didn't make that part clear) that is altogether unpleasant with not-so-minimal monetary ramifications. In the real case, the woman went to a store, bought a product, left the premises, and suffered an accident that was altogether unpleasant with not-so-minimal monetary ramifications.

Again, probably included to answer the "she looted McDonalds with a frivolous lawsuit" crowd. And again, she had more than just her medical bills tied up in this by now.

But still not relevant, as we do not know how much the final settlement was.

McDonalds seems to feel that capturing the coffee-drinkers-who-will-not-buy-coffee-if-served-at-less-than-185-degrees market is more important than sparing some people the agony of third-degree burns.

What you would prefer, or even what would be gracious or magnanimous of them is not relevant. The question is, are they at fault, and the answer is no. Their coffee temperature was reasonable and the woman spilled it on herself. Even if you wish to postulate that they are being ungracious by not changing their methodology, it doesn't matter. There is no law saying one must be gracious.

In answer to another one of your posts:
I'm sure this woman doesn't use the product any more. But that's really beside the point, isn't it? The issue is what happened one time when she did use it. Stopping that use now isn't going to make the scars go away.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Do you really believe that a woman in her seventies or eighties had been to a McDonald's to buy coffee only once with such a result? And what makes you say with such complete certainty that she has never bought it again? You do not know either one (though a safe assumption on the first would be that she had been to McDonald's at least a few other times and had probably had their coffee before).