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Some Cold Facts About Hot Coffee and Our Jury System

(This article may not be copied or reposted without express consent of Andrew S. Prince.)

A week does not pass by that someone doesn’t say to me when they find out that We are a lawyer, "what do We think about our jury system". When We inquire as to what they mean, they always respond about some woman who received millions of dollars from McDonald’s because she spilled some hot coffee. At that point, We try to explain that what they think they know and what truly happened are two completely different scenarios.

Fact: A 79-year-old grandmother, Stella Liebeck, was a passenger in her grandson’s car when she purchased a cup of coffee at McDonald’s in New Mexico. After the car pulled over to a curb, Mrs. Liebeck held the cup of coffee between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid to put cream in her coffee. The coffee spilled on Mrs. Liebeck, causing significant third-degree burns, requiring an eight-day hospital stay, along with skin grafts and permanent scarring.

Now, you might be saying, is a little hot coffee worth $2.7 million in punitive damages? That was the original jury award, along with $160,000 for compensation for pain, suffering, disability and impairment.

The jury award still sounds a little crazy, right? Well, know this, that the jury saw explicit photographs of Mrs. Liebeck’s injuries. Further, and most importantly, the jury also heard evidence that McDonald’s corporate policy was to keep its coffee heated before serving, at temperatures of 180 -190 degrees, which was more than 30 degrees higher than coffee tested at other restaurants by Mrs. Liebeck’s experts.

There was also evidence that was produced that McDonald’s knew of at least 700 other customers burned by its coffee. Lastly, the jury heard evidence that McDonald’s generated revenues in excess of $1.3 million daily from the sale of coffee, selling over 1 billion cups of coffee each year.

The jury’s decision to award Mrs. Liebeck punitive damages of $2.7 million would have taken away two days worth of coffee revenues from McDonald’s Corp.

Is that excessive? Yes, according to the judge who heard the case, which is why he reduced the punitive damage award from 2.7 million to $480,000. Most people in the public do not realize that the 2.7 million dollar punitive damage award was reduced by the trial judge.

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It is important to note that the judge had this to say when reducing the award: "The record itself We don’t think clearly will reflect, but the court in remarks wants to make it clear, that We think the demeanor of the witnesses testifying as well as the subject of the testimony clearly indicates that the defendant McDonald’s knew that the coffee at the time it was served was too hot for human consumption."

This was simply not a case of a jury being misled by witnesses and fast talking attorneys. The judge himself thought McDonald’s deserved to be punished. The judge went on to say: "At the time of the trial McDonald’s presented what, in my language, We would call a numbers defense," the judge stated. "It was a defense by which McDonald’s took the position that it sells billions of cups a coffee each and every year and that out of these sales they only have a reported 700 burns, and out of those 700 burns they have a smaller number that requires treatment for third-degree burns. We would seemingly conclude from their position that they felt this small - these small numbers of third-degree burns and persons that were so injured - were insignificant. And while they had knowledge of the situation, We heard no evidence of any kind presented of their intention to correct matters by simply turning down the manual thermostats on the coffee brewers. ...And let me say that with knowing the risk of harm, the evidence and testimony would indicate that McDonald’s consciously made no serious effort to warn its consumers...". So said the judge.

In order, to punish McDonald’s "willful, wanton, reckless and what the court found to be callous conduct," the judge decided to award $480,000 in punitive damages. A significant reduction of the 2.7 million awarded by the jury. Remember, 2.7 million is only the equivalent of 2 days worth of coffee sales for McDonald’s.

The interesting thing to me is how everybody that We meet always cites the McDonald’s award as a prime example of how our jury system has gone crazy.

Well, We ask you, after reading this article and knowing that McDonald’s sells billions of cups of coffee and knowing that some people were bound to get burned, do you now think that the jury system worked pretty well in this particular case or are you of the same opinion.

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