Think You Know the Real Story Behind the McDonald’s Coffee Lawsuit? Think Again.
The following is adapted from I Hope We Never Meet by Andrew Finkelstein and Sarah Lunham.
Ever wonder why you hear a lot more about frivolous lawsuits than you do about frivolous defenses? It’s because defense lawyers pump a great deal of money into the conversation.
They take out ads and influence politicians. They claim they’re trying to protect ordinary citizens from the high insurance premiums that companies are forced to pay and pass on to consumers. They’re really working for the large companies they represent.
They’re also ignoring that insurance companies would be able (in fact forced) to lower premiums if companies behaved ethically and didn’t force claims to be filed by refusing to accept responsibility when their insured kill or seriously injure people.
The defense attorneys’ biggest triumph in the war for public opinion was the famous McDonald’s coffee case. In a moment, I’ll explain the dishonesty of their argument, but first, consider the larger context. Defense attorney organizations are fighting to convince the public that frivolous lawsuits are a big problem.
They’re spending a lot on this battle, even though they have no real opponent. They’re fighting to close the doors of the courtroom for these individual claims. The threat of the power ordinary people have to sue companies that kill or seriously injure them may be the only thing making our world relatively safe from reckless drivers or cars that explode.
The McDonald’s Coffee Myth
The story, as the defense spun it, and as it reached the popular imagination, goes something like this: Some greedy idiot buys a cup of coffee at McDonald’s and is drinking it in her car.
She’s using her thighs as a cupholder but forgets and squeezes her legs together, forcing the coffee out of its cup and onto her legs, causing a mild burn. She sues for millions and wins.
She must have been crazy. Her lawyer must have been crazy. The jury must have been crazy too, and the jury system can’t be trusted.
It’s a story that benefits corporations. It puts all the focus on the injured party, suggesting they did it to themselves and that the company is blameless. And the media, which get their advertising revenue from those corporations, have no incentive to challenge that narrative.
The Facts of the Case
In court, however, you have to prove what you say with evidence supported by facts. Here are the facts: The 79-year-old woman, Stella Liebeck, took complete responsibility for the spill.
She just thought that if McDonald’s hadn’t served its coffee at temperatures very close to boiling, she wouldn’t have suffered third-degree burns which required multiple skin grafts, eight days in the hospital, and two subsequent years of medical interventions.
She asked McDonald’s for the cost of her treatment — $20,000. She asked them only to cover treatment she wouldn’t have needed had she spilled properly heated coffee that would not have caused the severe burns she suffered.
McDonald’s offered her $800. Stella sued them for what she’d had to pay out of her own pocket, nothing extra.
Sending a Message
After listening to the story in much more depth than I’ve related here, the jury also heard McDonald’s acknowledge that they intentionally served coffee that was too hot for consumption and hazardous if spilled. They’d already had hundreds of burns reported, but McDonald’s wanted to increase their coffee sales and performed studies on how to best get people to buy coffee on the way to work.
McDonald’s learned if they served their coffee near boiling, the coffee would still be hot by the time the customer got to work. Even though McDonald’s knew heating the coffee to such extreme temperatures was dangerous and would cause significant burns if it was spilled, they chose to do it anyway because sales were more important than safety.
Once they had received all the facts, the jury decided the multinational company should pay Stella close to three million dollars over the cost of her medical bills. That’s just one day of coffee sales for McDonald’s, but it sent the message that what they’d done was not acceptable. Following the jury’s verdict, McDonald’s changed the way it heats and serves coffee.
Juries Can Make Frivolous Defenses Stop
That’s what happened. But McDonald’s had a multimillion-dollar PR budget, and Stella Liebeck didn’t, so we, the public, heard only the version they spun. We heard it was a frivolous lawsuit. It wasn’t.
Stella Liebeck had the courage, with her lawyer, to take on one of the largest companies in the world and held them accountable for prioritizing profits over the safety of their customers. Far from being a frivolous suit, it was in reality a frivolous defense. And ultimately, such frivolous defenses only stop when jurors, like the McDonald’s jury, vote for a substantial verdict.
For more advice on what to do if you are the victim of a company that has prioritized profit over safety, you can find I Hope We Never Meet on Amazon.
Andrew Finkelstein, a managing partner of five law firms (Finkelstein & Partners, LLP; Jacoby & Meyers, LLP; Fine, Olin & Anderman, LLP; Finkelstein, Blankinship, Frei-Pearson & Garber, LLP; and Diller Law, LLP), a noted consumer activist, and accomplished litigator, represents victims in wrongful death and catastrophic personal injury cases. He teaches advanced trial practices at the Trial School and is a frequent lecturer, serving pro bono for a variety of organizations, including the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
Sarah Lunham is an interviewer, writer, and editor who advocates for the equal opportunities and rights of the injured at Total Trial Solutions. A biographer, Sarah tells the unique story of each client, helping them share their experiences and seek reparations for the injuries they’ve endured. She was awarded the 2009 Outstanding Graduate at Western Carolina University, where she earned her BS in Communication and minor in English.
