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The McDonald's Coffee Case (last updated April 19, 2003) (back to top)
The "McDonald's coffee" case remains one of the most infamous - - and misunderstood - - cases of our times. Reasonable people can disagree about whether McDonald's should have been forced to pay for the severe burns that Stella Liebeck suffered in 1992, but the legal system has been unfairly damned by people based on anecdotes and assumptions about this case without understanding a bit more about what actually happened and why.
First of all, Stella Liebeck's claim was never that she didn't know that coffee was supposed to be hot, but that McDonald's should have sold its coffee in a safer but still marketable way and thus avoided about 70 severe burn injuries a year, including hers. Second, she never got the $3 million that everyone heard about; the media and the comedians reported that figure widely, but were much quieter when a judge cut the award by more than two-thirds and when the case settled for reportedly even less.
Let's discuss these points in turn.
What the Lawsuit Was and What It Was Not
Does this lawsuit make any sense? It helps if you realize that the lawsuit was not about someone being too stupid to know that coffee was supposed to be hot. Rather, it was about the costs and benefits associated with a company policy. Products-liability lawsuits like this one regularly ask courts and juries to resolve this question based on the evidence presented. Many products-liability (and coffee spill) lawsuits have been thrown out because the plaintiffs didn't present enough evidence to warrant a trial, but this plaintiff and her attorney evidently did a better job.
The plaintiff was Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old grandmother in New Mexico who had never brought a lawsuit ever before. She was not in a restaurant, but a passenger in her grandson's car, which was in fact stopped at the time. She held the cup between her knees while removing the lid, but the cup tipped over and coffee spilled onto her, causing second- and third-degree burns across her buttocks, thigh and labia. She then spent seven days in a hospital and three weeks recuperating at her daughter's home.
Liebeck did not start off looking for a lawsuit, but simply wrote McDonald's a letter asking it to reduce the coffee temperature and for $20,000 to cover her medical costs and the time her daughter missed from work. McDonald's reportedly offered $800. It was only then that Liebeck looked for an attorney.
McDonald's policy at that time was to serve its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to cause severe, third-degree burns in less than a second. The National Coffee Association still says that this is the proper range for serving coffee, but the Shriner's Burn Institute in Cincinnati and the federal Consumers Product Safety Commission have reportedly urged the restaurant industry in the past to use lower temperatures, and the American Burn Association reported in 2000 that restaurants generally do sell their coffee at slightly lower temperatures (160 to 180 degrees) and that people at home generally serve coffee at far lower temperatures (130 to 140 degrees). Moreover, an informal survey conducted by McDonald's lawyers in the coffee case reportedly found that local restaurants served their coffee at 160 degrees or less.
Should McDonald's have lowered the temperature of its coffee to reduce the risk of severe burns, or would doing so effect the taste too much and make the product unmarketable? Should McDonald's have at least lowered the temperature of its coffee for drive-through customers, who cannot simply stand up and wipe coffee spills off themselves as they could if they were sitting in a restaurant? This kind of cost-benefit calculation is at the heart of most products-liability lawsuits : could a manufacturer or retailer have designed or sold their product in a way that was less dangerous? The question is very debatable and there are good reasons on both sides, and Liebeck apparently did put on enough evidence that the jury was entitled to weigh this question for itself (other plaintiffs have simply tried to say that the coffee was too hot, and their cases have gotten thrown out before trial).
Liebeck's witnesses included a professor of mechanical engineering, who testified that McDonald's could have avoided Liebeck's burns and many others by reducing the temperature. McDonald's witnesses, on the other hand, reportedly appeared callous; one admitted that the company had done nothing despite receiving 70 burn complaints a year from 1982 to 1992, and a safety consultant said that 700 complaints (1 in 24 million cups) were effectively equivalent to zero complaints, which struck jurors as trivializing the injuries suffered.
Jurors told the Wall Street Journal after the trial that they - like most people when they first hear of the case -- were initially skeptical of Liebeck's claim, but that they were convinced by the evidence they heard at trial. They were surprised to hear about the prior incidents and the severity of the burns, and they found McDonald's reaction uncaring. Even the judge called McDonald's behavior "callous" in deciding a post-trial motion (discussed below).
How that $3 Million Judgment was Winnowed Down
But didn't she get rich off this lawsuit? Not really. Everyone heard about the $3 million verdict, but far fewer people understood how the jury reached this verdict or what happened afterwards.
- Start with a $3 million judgment. The jury based its $3 million judgment on how much Liebeck had suffered and to send McDonald's a message. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages (reduced by 20 percent to $160,000 because of her own fault in the incident) and also awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages.
- Compensatory damages are intended to return the plaintiff to where she was before she was injured. Compensatory damages can, as they were in this case, be reduced by a percentage based on the plaintiff's own fault (her "contributory negligence") in the accident. Some states bar any recovery if the plaintiff is 50% at fault or greater.
- Punitive damages are intended to reprimand defendants for their harms they inflict, to "send a message" that their behavior was particularly reprehensible and should not be continued. The tension here is that punitive damages have to be big enough to get the defendant's attention but not so big as to violate the Constitution. The jury based its figure on estimates of what McDonald's made by selling coffee around the world every two days. A lot of discussion has centered on punitive damages (read more here).
- Reduce by two-thirds to $640,000. The trial judge reduced the $3 million judgment to $640,000 total, reaching the new $480,000 punitive damage award by tripling the level of compensatory damages. He called the $480,000 figure appropriate for McDonald's "willful, wanton, reckless and what the court finds callous" behavior and denied McDonald's motion for a new trial.
- Settle for less than $600,000. The parties finally settled out-of-court for reportedly less than $600,000.
- Take out at least a third in attorney's fees. Probably a third of Stella Liebeck's settlement (plus expenses) went to her lawyers in attorney's fees, so she probably got at best less than $400,000. Still a decent amount of money, but by no means a jackpot.
And remember, Liebeck herself didn't expect that much. She initially just wanted $20,000, but McDonald's refused. Her lawyer offered to settle for $300,000, but McDonald's refused. A retired judge who had been appointed by the court to mediate the case recommended McDonald's settle the case pre-trial for $225,000, but McDonald's again refused.
Some Further Thoughts
It has been almost 10 years since the McDonald's coffee case, and despite all the complaints about the legal system gone wild, McDonald's is still in business and many restaurants still serve coffee. Some people have tried suing restaurants for coffee spills post-Liebeck, but they haven't put together the evidence very well and their cases are thrown out; our open legal system lets anyone file a lawsuit for almost any reason, but it takes a lot more than that to win. Are there problems with our legal system? Of course there are. But don't rely on vague anecdotes of a badly-reported case to damn it.
And consider this : would you think the punitive damages too much if the money was really just to send a message and did not go to Stella Liebeck? What if Liebeck just got the $160,000 to compensate her for her troubles and the state of New Mexico got the remaining $2.7 million to help cover health-care costs of burn victims? Would you still have a problem with the judgment? Several states recognize that punitive damages are usually imposed to benefit society as a whole, not to reward a particular plaintiff who happens to bring a lawsuit, and allocate part of a punitive-damage award to a state fund; such laws reduce the incentive for bringing lawsuits and help ensure that only valid lawsuits are brought. Read more about punitive damages here.
Sources: Andrea Gerlin, A Matter of Degree? How a jury decided that a coffee spill is worth $2.9 million, Wall Street Journal (September 1, 1994). S. Reed Morgan, McDonald's burned itself, Legal Times (September 19, 1994). Sue Major Holmes, Associated Press (September 15, 1994). Dow Jones & Co., McDonald's settles lawsuit over burn from coffee (December 2, 1994). Charles Allen, Letter to the Editor, Washington Post (April 4, 1995). McMahon v. Bunn-O-Matic Corp., No. 3:96-cv-538 (7th Cir. 1998) (a case in which plaintiffs sued a coffee maker for failing to warn that the coffee they bought in a convenience store could cause severe burns and on product-liability grounds; thrown out before trial because the plaintiffs did not present sufficient evidence for a jury to weigh the costs and benefits of the temperature) (on-line here. The National Coffee Association of U.S.A., Inc. is on-line here and has information on recommended brewing and serving temperatures here. The American Burn Association's publications, including a media kit from 2000 about scalds, are on-line here, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission has information about burns on-line here.
Good Samaritan Laws (last updated 2001) (back to top)
In the Seinfeld series finale, Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer are prosecuted in Massachusetts for violating a Good Samaritan law. Could this really happen?
Kind of. Jerry and his friends could indeed be prosecuted in several states for not helping the robbery victim (but the trial would be very different, as seen here), but they would not be sentenced to jail time, at least not under current Massachusetts law.
Generally, states do not require people under either criminal or civil law to help others. This may sound cold-hearted, but it actually is rooted in two well-established concepts. First of all, American law respects individual autonomy and generally refrains from making anyone do anything. Second, requiring you to be a Good Samaritan is kind of vague and it's hard to know where to draw the line: should you be prosecuted for not donating food to starving children on the other side of the world? Why not?
Thus, most states generally do not do anything about the people who watch the little girl drowning and could have helped. There are some common exceptions for certain kinds of people who are obligated by law to help: close family members (e.g., the girl's mother), people who are contractually obligated to help (e.g., the lifeguards on duty), and people who cause the danger in the first place (e.g., the mean boy who pushed her in).
But since 1968, some states have enacted Good Samaritan laws like the one seen on Seinfeld, or at least considered them in the wake of particularly egregious cases which could have been stopped easily. These states impose a duty on people to use reasonable efforts to prevent some kind of wrongdoing, or at least to report the matter to the proper authorities. Vermont was the first state to enact such a law in regards to emergency medical help. Wisconsin, Washington, Florida, and Rhode Island are among the states that have followed that lead, often in relation to protecting children or preventing sex-related attacks.
(A different kind of Good Samaritan law protects people who are trying to be Good Samaritans from getting sued for it later. Even if you're not required to help someone, once you start helping someone, you have to do it properly or risk getting sued if you make things worse. The second type of Good Samaritan law immunizes would-be rescuers (often doctors and firemen) and lets them do good deeds without worrying about possible bad consequences to themselves.)
And yes, Massachusetts does have a few laws that would be considered the first type of Good Samaritan law. And one does apply quite clearly to Jerry Seinfeld and friends in this situation. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 268, Section 40, does require that anyone who "knows that another person is a victim of aggravated rape, rape, murder, manslaughter or armed robbery and is at the scene of said crime shall, to the extent that said person can do so without danger or peril to himself or others, report said crime to an appropriate law enforcement official as soon as reasonably practicable."
Jerry and his friends saw someone being robbed, they were in no danger to themselves, and they could easily have called the police. Instead, they just laughed. They have pretty clearly violated the state law.
But what's the penalty? Under Massachusetts law, the penalty is simply a $500-2,500 fine. There is no prison sentence involved. In the real world, Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George simply paid the fines and moved on. Whether that's a good thing, that's for others to say.
(Interestingly enough, you can go to jail in Massachusetts for not helping law-enforcement officials when asked. You can get a month in jail for refusing to help stop a criminal or preserve the peace, and you get up to a year if you are at a riot and refuse to help suppress it or refuse to leave when ordered.)
Sources: Massachusetts General Law Chapter 268, Section 40 (268:24-25, 269:2 and 18), Florida Statute 794.027, Rhode Island 11-56-1, Vermont §519, Washington 9.69.100, Wisconsin 940.34.
The Finale's Trial (last updated 2001) (back to top)
In the Seinfeld series finale, the prosecutors bring forth a parade of the people that the Seinfeld gang have encountered over the years to help prove that they're not good people. Could this really happen?
No. One of the hallmarks of the American legal system is that you are only tried for committing a crime, not for being a bad person. And it doesn't matter if you are a bad person.
The prosecutor can only charge you of committing a crime. He cannot bring in other people to testify about bad things you've done in your past, or even about other crimes you may have committed, because that would make the jury more likely to convict you for the wrong reasons.
There are some exceptions to this. For example, the prosecutor can introduce evidence of other crimes if you have a certain pattern of doing crimes and this helps the jury see that you are guilty of this particular crime. But judges should be keeping tight control over this and not allow the case to get out of hand.
The only way that a prosecutor could bring in a parade of character witnesses is if Jerry and his friends were to take the position that they did not commit the crime because they are good people who do help other people. That would open the door and make character an issue, and then the prosecutor could bring witnesses to rebut that defense. Even then, the judge would not allow the case to get out of hand, and he would limit the prosecution's rebuttal witnesses to incidents that are similar to the alleged crime. That Jerry dumped Sidra (played by Teri Hatcher) because he thought her breasts were fake and that he may have sent Elaine into the women's sauna to test them (at least that's what Sidra thought) may show Jerry's a bad person, but not in a way that's relevant to the trial at hand.
In real life, in the unlikely event that there would be a trial at all, then the trial would have been much simpler. The prosecutors would have called the robbery victim and any other witnesses to testify that Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer had stood by and laughed instead of helping or calling the police. The defense would cross-examine those witnesses to see how well they knew what actually happened. The prosecution would then rest. The defense would then either call Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer (or anyone else who'd seen the incident) to the stand or rest. Only if the defense was careless would it introduce character evidence, and only then could the prosecution call a few character witnesses in rebuttal.
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