That case was actually worse than commonly believed. Look into it and see her burns. It wasn’t just hot. It was negligently hot, which is why she won.
She was on the high side of 80, when skin becomes significantly more susceptible to scalding. And she spilled it in a very delicate place.
No way Mickey D’s could have foreseen that.
“It wasn’t just hot. It was negligently hot, which is why she won.”
Wrong. It was 180-190, which is the NORMAL range for coffee from a coffee maker according to national standards.
And her problem was that she sat in it for 90 seconds, and her own lawyers admitted sitting in 145 deg water for 90 seconds would have also caused severe burns.
Bunk. The coffee she was served was between 180-190° Fahrenheit, standard for McDonald's at the time. Starbucks, today, serves coffee at about 185°.
To me though, it's irrelevant. She spilled it on herself. How in the world is that McDonald's liability? I could understand if a McDonald's employee dropped it on her while handing it to her in the drive-through window, or a defective cup collapsed and spilled all the coffee on her, but no: she parked her car and spilled it on herself on her own fault.
The reason she won that lawsuit is because it was McDonald's. Jurors have a tendency to award when it's a large corporation that is the defendant. "Oh, it's McDonald's, they won't miss a six-figure amount, it's nothing to them." If she sued a small Mom and Pop coffee store, she probably would not have won, and certainly not such an absurd amount.
That case was actually worse than commonly believed. Look into it and see her burns. It wasn’t just hot. It was negligently hot, which is why she won.”””
The temp of the human body is about 98.6.
Just exactly what should the temp of coffee be which would be considered TOO HOT?
I contend that there is no such point of heat.