Shaky Grounds: The outrageous case of the McDonald's coffee lady

How do you know what you know?

--Elizabeth Lewis, and countless other Criminal Justice professors

Oftentimes, when someone is arguing that Americans are weak, whiny losers who seek to blame someone else for their own shortcomings, they use the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit to support the argument.

This case is more than 20 years old now, but we still hear about it nearly every day. Twice this week, I heard someone use it as an example of: 1) How Americans are unwilling to take responsibility for their own well-being AND 2) How this often translates into frivolous lawsuits with outrageous payouts, which harms honest, hardworking Americans and the corporations who love them.

Whether we agree with the above conclusions or not, this case fascinates me because, well, pretty much everything we “know” about the lawsuit is wrong, and yet that doesn’t stop us from trotting it out as a perfect example of why we need tort reform, why class warfare is harming America, etc.

When you examine the facts of this case, it’ll make you wonder: What else am I wrong about? Am I basing other beliefs on bad timber? How do I know what I know?

On February 27, 1992, a 79-year-old Albuquerque grandmother, Stella Liebeck, ordered coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through. After they got their food, her grandson, who was driving, parked the car so that Mrs. Liebeck could safely remove the lid to add cream and sugar. When she removed the lid, Mrs. Liebeck spilled the coffee on her lap, and she was burned.

Now, so far, this sounds like an unfortunate mishap. After all, most of us have spilled drive-through food on ourselves, but we don’t go and file a lawsuit over it, do we? More to the point, is it really McDonald’s fault? Everyone knows that coffee is hot. Isn’t it ridiculous to hold the restaurant owners responsible for our clumsiness when they’re simply giving us what we asked for—a hot beverage to go? I don’t care if you are somebody’s grandma: You don’t deserve millions of dollars because you spilled your coffee on your lap, right?

But wait, there’s more:

During the previous 10 years, more than 700 customers showed McDonald’s that they had been burned—sometimes severely—by McDonald’s coffee. Nevertheless, McDonald’s continued to require franchisees to serve the coffee at temperatures of at least 180 degrees, which causes 3^rd degree burns like those Mrs. Liebeck suffered.

In fact, Mrs. Liebeck suffered 3^rd degree burns on her thighs, buttocks, and private parts. She required painful skin grafts, hospitalization, and follow-up treatment for more than two years. Still, she didn’t sue at first. She simply asked McDonald’s—not for millions of dollars—but for $20,000. She offered proof that this was the actual amount of her medical bills and lost wages, and she asked for no more than this. McDonald’s refused to pay, and offered $800 instead.

At this point, she sued. A McDonald’s quality control executive took the stand and conceded that, while McDonald’s was aware of the 700+ prior scaldings, the company decided not change their practices and had more pressing dangers about which to worry. The jury awarded Mrs. Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages (medical bills, lost wages, decreased function), which was later reduced to $160,000. They also awarded her $2.5 million in punitive damages (“punitive” is “to punish”—in other words, to make McDonald’s hurt enough so that they would change their practices). The jury arrived at this figure by calculating two days’ of McDonald’s coffee sales. This award was later reduced to less than $480,000. After more legal wrangling, the parties settled out of court for a lesser amount, bringing the total paid to Mrs. Liebeck to less than $600,000.

Is less-than-$600,000 a fair price for scalded genitals, hospitalization, disability, medical and legal bills, and the stress of months or years of court appearances, depositions, etc.? Maybe or maybe not, but I think this at least shows that Mrs. Liebeck is not an irresponsible, clumsy chiseler who conned an innocent corporation into giving her a lotto-style payout.

How do you know what you know?