Or they might get coffee spilled on them [Daily Mail via Free Range Kids]
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Posts tagged as:
hot coffee
In an op-ed in the Examiner last week, I express curiosity why the trial bar continues to insist that the infamous McDonald’s coffee case came out correctly decided, to the point that trial lawyer blogs express excitement that a documentary is going to be made about the subject. Of course, if the movie just parrots the urban legends trial lawyers have spread about the case, that would be something else—the fact that the filmmaker was fundraising at the AAJ convention but hasn’t shown her face around any of the tort reform conventions suggests a certain direction about the film.
Speaking of McDonald’s, I’ll be in the Bay Area next week at a couple of law schools giving a presentation called “The Law of McDonald’s: Hot Coffee, Obesity, and Prank Phone Calls” : Golden Gate University Law School on September 10, and UC-Davis on September 11. I’ll also be at UC-Berkeley Law on September 8, and Santa Clara University Law on September 9 talking more generally about tort reform and patent reform specifically.
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From Cleveland’s Erie Island Coffee Co., which now has a shop in the city’s East Fourth St. restaurant district. Courtesy @fourgreenis who records it at Twitpic.
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An elderly club that had been meeting for four years every Tuesday at the Eye Library in Eye, Cambridgeshire, were told that they could no longer have hot tea or coffee at their meetings, lest it be accidentally spilled on a toddler. They’ve retreated to holding meetings in members’ homes. [Telegraph] Hat tip to F.R.
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One can almost fill an entirely separate blog with variations on the McDonald’s hot coffee case. In Manhattan, 77-year-old Rachel Moltner ordered a hot tea from a Starbucks, but had trouble removing the tightly-secured lid, spilling the beverage all over her. (You will recall other lawsuits complaining that the Starbucks lids are not tight enough.) Moltner not only blames Starbucks for her resulting second- and third-degree burns (and recall that the raison d’être of the Stella Liebeck suit was the false claim that only McDonald’s served beverages that were hot enough to cause third-degree burns), but for the broken bones she suffered when she fell out of bed in Lenox Hill Hospital while being treated for burns. Moltner’s asking for $3 million.
Press coverage in the NY Post (h/t P.G.) is short on legal details (though one is encouraged to see Starbucks publicly defending themselves, an apparent change in policy). But I’ve downloaded and uploaded the complaint, which was filed in state court and removed to federal court. The kitchen-sink allegations include a defective cup, defectively hot tea, and a failure to warn. Right now the parties are haggling over federal removal jurisdiction, as Starbucks waited more than thirty days after receiving the complaint–until a formal demand for money was made–to seek removal. This is an interesting example of sandbagging; if defendants remove cases simply on the possibility that alleged damages will exceed the amount-in-controversy requirement, they may incorrectly remove cases that should remain in state court, but if they wait for the formal confirmation from the plaintiff, they may face the allegation that they’ve missed the 30-day window to remove a case–something to consider when plaintiffs’ attorneys complain that defendants reflexively remove cases to federal court that don’t belong there. Moltner has a good argument that Starbucks waited too long to remove, because alleged damages would have clearly exceeded $75,000 despite the lack of an ad damnum clause in the complaint citing a number, but the consequence of such a ruling will be that defendants will be forced to prematurely remove cases that perhaps should not be removed. (Moltner v. Starbucks Coffee Co., #: 1:08-cv-09257-LAP-AJP (S.D.N.Y.)).
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Not a great thing to do when pulling away from a Starbucks window and negotiating a turn onto the roadway. Jordan Triplett, 23, wants $250,000 in the Knoxville, Tenn. suit. (Starbucks Gossip via Obscure Store).
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Updating our August 2006 post on Alice Griffin v. Starbucks: Griffin alleged that a Starbucks barista spilled hot coffee–195 to 205 degrees–on her, causing second-degree burns on her foot and permanent nerve damage when it scalded her through her pantyhose. A jury agreed and awarded $301,000. The court reduced the award to $201,000, and both sides appealed. On appeal, the New York Appellate Division reduced damages further to $76,000. (Griffin v. Starbucks Corp. (N.Y.A.D. Jun. 5, 2008); Matthew Nestel and Dareh Gregorian, “Gal’s Star’Bucks’ Cut”, NY Post, Jun. 7). New York has tort reform giving judges extra discretion to reduce damages through remittitur.
If you recall, the theory of defenders of the McDonald’s coffee case was that McDonald’s, and only McDonald’s, served coffee so hot as to burn, and thus merited special disapprobation.
As Overlawyered readers know, that just ain’t so. The recommended serving temperature of coffee can cause third-degree burns; coffee-drinkers prefer coffee that is that hot. Thus, lots of vendors sell coffee that causes third-degree burns when spilled.
Add to that list the Pilot Travel Center truck stop in Mount Sterling, which is the defendant in a Kentucky suit brought by Thomas Skaggs, who says he spilled coffee on his leg in December and got a third-degree burn. The skimpy press coverage on WLKY.com gives no further details other than an unimpressive photo.
Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.:
Anna from Estonia mak[es] it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No.
Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up. “Caution: Coffee is hot.” Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don’t need a sign to know this.
More on the deservedly infamous McDonald’s coffee case. Similar discussion: March 2.
You will recall that defenders of the absurd McDonald’s coffee lawsuit insist that the suit was justified because only McDonald’s sold beverages capable of third-degree burns. We’ve repeatedly shown that that claim is fictional, but add one more example: a New Jersey man is suing Starbucks for selling “unsafe” hot tea that caused third degree burns on his hand when he spilled it on himself (though at least, unlike Stella Liebeck, he is claiming that the spill is the store’s fault for failing to attach the lid properly). Because Starbucks does not comment on litigation, they surrender the entire article to the plaintiffs’ attorney for Antonio Couso to use as a platform when the reporter does not bother double-checking any of the lawyer’s claims. (John Petrick, “Starbucks sued over spilled tea”, The Record, Jul. 27).
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- Class action lawyer on the divvying up of $6.9M of attorneys fees among 79 attorneys: “There were two firms that . . . we generously gave a substantial award that really didn’t do anything for the common benefit.” But the award is still under seal; the Fifth Circuit is now considering. WSJ: “Unsealing the records would be a good first step, but Mr. Barrett’s statements suggest that the juiciest story is not how the money was divided among the lawyers, but how 79 lawyers extracted nearly twice as much from the defendant for themselves than they won for their 81,000 clients. Just another day at the office for the tort bar.” We reported Apr. 9. [W$J]
- Street vendor sign of “180-degree coffee” reminds professor that McDonald’s coffee isn’t all that relatively hot. [Childs]
- Briefing from the Pearson pants case (Apr. 26, etc.). [On Point]
- FDA scandal! Or is it? Is it really the case, as some claim, that safety is never too expensive? [Point of Law]
- Trial lawyers and Jay Angoff, at it again, incredibly accusing a non-profit mutual med-mal insurer of gouging. [RiskProf]
- “Treating patients is a lot harder for this physician—and much less fun—in a climate of fingerpointing.” [Medical Economics via Kevin MD]
- Are abuse victims squandering their moral authority? [Commonweal]
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- Google beats Perfect 10 in Ninth Circuit appeal over copyright suit over thumbnail images. (Earlier: Feb. 06, Jul. 05, Nov. 04.) [LA Times; WaPo; Bashman; Perfect 10 v. Amazon (9th Cir. 2007)]
- Judge thinks better over Brent Coon’s attempt to intimidate local press through subpoenas. Earlier: Apr. 24. [WSJ Law Blog]
- US Supreme Court throws out punitive damages ruling in Buell-Wilson case, lets rest of decision stand. Earlier: Jan. 4 and links therein. Beck and Herrmann also discussed the case in March in the context of a larger discussion of the appropriateness of issuing punitive damages against a company that relied on government safety standards in good faith. [LA Times; AP].
- Big LA Times piece on the still-pending Extreme Makeover suit, where a family seeks to hold ABC responsible for an intra-household dispute over the spoils of a reality show. Earlier: Mar. 4, Aug. 12, 2005. [LA Times]
- KFC may have won on trans-fats litigation, as David reported May 3, but they capitulate to Jerry Brown’s pursuit of Lockyer’s equally bogus acrylamide suit over the naturally-occurring chemical in potatoes (Oct. 05, Aug. 05, Aug. 05, May 05, Apr. 04, etc.). KFC will pay a nuisance settlement of $341,000 and will add a meaningless warning in California stores. (Tim Reiterman, “KFC to tell customers of chemical in potatoes”, LA Times Apr. 25).
- McDonald’s sued over hot coffee. Again. One of the allegations is that McDonald’s failed to secure the lid, which is a legitimate negligence suit, but there’s also a bogus “failure to warn me that coffee is hot” count. [Southeast Texas Record; and a Southeast Texas Record op-ed that plainly read Overlawyered on the subject]
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Add the Stony Brook University Hospital cafeteria to the list of servers unsuccessfully sued over burns caused by hot coffee. If you recall, the theory of the McDonald’s coffee case (and repeated by such trial lawyer defenders as congressional candidate Bruce Braley) was that McDonald’s, and only McDonald’s, served coffee so hot as to burn. For some reason, the reporter for the New York Law Journal tries to leave the reader with the impression that the original Stella Liebeck case was justifiable (though that opinion is irrelevant to the article itself) which shows how successful trial lawyer propaganda has been within the legal community and press. (John Caher, “N.Y. Judge Cool to Injury Claims Over Spilled Coffee”, New York Law Journal, Nov. 2). We earlier listed other hot coffee lawsuit defendants.
Speaking of which, you may recall the Russian McDonald’s coffee case litigation that we covered a year ago, with identical allegations from a woman who spilled coffee on herself; the press is reporting that the plaintiff has dropped her case. As in the Stella Liebeck case, the Russian McDonald’s had a warning on the coffee cup that the contents were hot. (”Moscow McDonald’s coffee-spill case closed”, RIA Novosti, 1 Nov.).
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Remember that the reason anti-reformers justify Stella Liebeck’s infamous hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald’s is because McDonald’s was allegedly the only one selling coffee hot enough to burn? The family of a Dallas Cowboys coach has hired an attorney to sue McDonald’s over allegedly tainted food. Here’s how Jeff Carlton of the AP describes him:
Cecil W. Casterline, the Haley’s lawyer, has previously sued Whataburger and Wendy’s on behalf of clients allegedly scalded by coffee.
Earlier: Starbucks; Burger King; Dunkin’ Donuts; Starbucks; Starbucks; an Indiana gas station and coffeemaker manufacturer; and McDonald’s again and again. (Update: also Stony Brook University Hospital cafeteria, and Starbucks again.) All hot coffee burns. That’s why even small children know not to spill it on themselves, and why most courts hold it’s not actionable when one spills hot coffee on oneself.
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If you can stand one more post about the McDonald’s coffee case, this 2002 opinion in the High Court of Justice, Queens Bench Division, is extraordinarily sensible. Most notably, coffee served at 65 C (a mere 150 degrees Fahrenheit), will cause a full-thickness burn in 2 seconds, so the court rejected the claim that McDonald’s could have avoided injury by serving not-so-hot coffee, refuting the claims regularly made by the plaintiffs’ bar that a few degrees’ difference could have avoided injury. (Bogle v. McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd., Neutral Citation [2002] EWHC 490 (QB), Case No: HQ0005713.)
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I suppose Evan Schaeffer pointed to this post by a USD 1L who is being incorrectly taught that the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit isn’t frivolous to get my goat, but I just find it very, very sad that a generation of law students is being taught to twist the tort system improperly. Of course, if someone googles “McDonald’s coffee lawsuit”, nine out of the top ten links will be happy to share with them the ATLA fictions about the lawsuit; it’s only a matter of time that the trial lawyer wikiality replaces the truth.
(Bumping from August 16, 2:30 pm upon update.)
I’ve been invoked. Some observations about the New York case of Alice Griffin v. Starbucks:
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A Feministe commenter writes about street harassment (h/t Slim):
Last summer, I was walking on the street, holding a large coffee I had just bought. Suddenly, a guy coming from behind me grabbed my ass and asked me ‘where I was walking with that nice ass of mine’. I was lost in my thoughts when it happened, and it surprised me so much that it made me screamed and jumped, which resulted in me throwing *very* hot coffee all over his face and shoulders. It was an accident, but I can’t tell you how much satisfaction I got from hearing him scream in pain as he got burned by the coffee.The best part? As I was walking away, laughing my ‘nice’ ass off, he screamed at me that he was going to sue me!
Long-time Overlawyered readers will also note the fortunate fact that the commenter’s coffee didn’t have an identifiable brand name that permitted her assailant to sue the restaurant for serving hot coffee.
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