@snowburnt: Well, I'll be damned. Truth be told, it really wasn't an informed statement, I never really followed it very closely other than the loosely thrown media reports of it. I thank you for filling me in! :)

That being said, I'll be real honest, you come of like a jerk in your post. I don't mean to sound attacking, but checking my posting history, I see no reason to assume I would be trolling in any fashion. I also don't appreciate being told "not to post" just because I don't have the full facts; I don't feel like researching everything before every post I ever make. A simple clarification like you provided would have sufficed.

@tmed: i was basing the statement of the fat lawsuit on news reports i'd seen on tv sometime in the last 15-20 years. i did not follow the case further.

it was not so recent as the trans fat issues, as far as i know. i believe the bulk of their case is based on mcdonalds not warning that eating alot of their food may have negative health consequences, and if i remember correctly (this is based entirely on my memory alone) they won [something of which i am not sure], and also mcdonalds had to start making the nutrition facts more easily accessible.

i have vague memories of others, but obviously, i took the news seriously in my statement in this forum, so it could also have been spun like the coffee thing, reported as though it was frivolous when it absolutely wasn't.

Reminds me of a NotAlwaysRight story... [notalwaysright.com]

The "coffee" lady spilled coffee on herself and suffered 3rd degree burns within seconds. Seconds. The burns were so severe that she had to get skin grafts. She asked that McDs cover the cost of her surgery, but they refused. Before this incident, Mc Ds had been sued, albeit unsuccessfully, a handful of times for the EXACT SAME PROBLEM. They made a concession to lower the temp of their coffee, but eventually increased the temp back to super-mega, skin melting hot.

If it is hot enough to burn the flesh away from your thighs, it's too hot to drink. Ya think?

Here is where it gets stupid. The coffee lady's attorney pushed her to sue for an ungodly amount of money since Mc Ds refused to cover the cost of her surgeries. She went along for the ride and is now sitting pretty, with the exception of her scared abdomen and thighs, on a pile of cash. The suer's motivation? To teach Mc D's a lesson. I just think that the "lesson" was a little too lucrative.

Hey lady--choke it down and STFU!

Yeah, the woman who found a finger in her chili - that was a set up.

A woman who ingests chemicals? Even if it was a setup, good luck trying to prove it. No reasonable person who put them-selfs at risk like that.

They pleaded that they served the coffee so hot because they assumed people drank it when they arrived at their destination, and not in their cars. However, every bit of research they had showed that people drank the coffee in their cars right after they got it, and they even geared the design of their coffee service towards car-drinkers.

There's an inherent assumption of risk in eating or drinking anything - it's why restaurants aren't responsible for previously unknown (to the consumer) allergic reactions to food. However, one of the risks you generally don't take is that the food or drink served to you is served in a manner that renders it physically dangerous. And courts tend to take custom as non-controlling in tort cases, precisely because "industry standard" isn't always a reasonable person standard.

@Con Seannery blames Obama for Facebookers: All products have a warrenty. the warrenty is that the product purchased will be as stated by the seller. Mickey D said he was selling Iced Tea, there was a warrenty between Mickey and Mrs. Burning Mouth for Mrs. Burning Mouth to receive Iced Tea, not cleaning solution (or anything else).

That is why she is suing for (in part) breach of warrenty.

@Con Seannery blames Obama for Facebookers: Industry standard for coffee brewing is that hot, not for holding , and not for drinking. The industry standard at the time was lower than today -at the time I worked in a hotel restaurant that - even before the lawsuit had rules around making our coffee too hot to drink, not out of fear of lawsuit, but because people would want to drink the coffee.

This argument is exactly why it is a legitimate case, because there is a legitimate argument, between reasoned individuals. My belief is that the accepted level of risk in receiving hot coffee is not the burn s receivied in that case.

I wouldn't have held her a bit liable for it. 185 degree water is GOING to cause some SERIOUS burns. Think about this: the water/coolant running through the radiator and engine of your car is between 180-190 degrees once your engine is warmed up. You don't go opening the radiator when your engine is warm, do you? Hell no, because you know it will burn you. So why would you give someone a beverage that same temperature?

Actually they use the same sanitizer that my company uses for our drink towers, its odorless and clear, the only difference between that and regular water is that if you agitate it heavily (think shaking a martini) it will foam up a little bit. Other than that you have no idea, its diluted into 1 gallon of water and even using that you are supposed to rinse the nozzles/lines before serving with them again because it is very powerful.

Its some dangerous stuff

I blame the South.

Understanding why coffee brewers keep their coffee at this temperature requires understanding how coffee is made. Coffee must be brewed at a high temperature to properly extract the flavor. If it's too low, it will result in a sour taste. If it's too high, it will result in a bitter taste. This temperature is around 190 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit for around 4 to 6 minutes. This is the reason that coffee brewers use to explain why the temperature must be this high. This part is true. The problem is that maintaining this temperature is unimportant after it's been brewed. What is important is that after about half an hour, the flavor of the coffee starts to degrade. This means that they must attempt to sell the coffee as quickly as possible, not make too much too fast because it's wasteful, but always keep some ready because it takes just long enough to brew that people are impatient. So, what do you do when you make a pot of coffee, but nobody orders any? You turn up the heat. Heat brings out the bitter taste of coffee, making it taste fresher than it is and staves off that yuck taste that comes with a cool cup of coffee that's been sitting out for too long. Hence, a cup of coffee that a customer wouldn't drink at a safer 150 degrees after half an hour will now be consumed with zeal after 2 hours at 190 degrees.

In case you're wondering how I know this, I used to work at an Internet cafe where I minded the computers, but I was also required to know how to operate the machine that they used to make espresso drinks, as well as why temperature is important. The so-called "standard" is all about making the product last longer.

Something like that.

Though she very well could have slipped a little common cleaner in there.

They screwed up badly, giving her the fluid. Cool to bash them on that. But the taking it seriously part? They didn't reject payments, they gave her a sample of the stuff so the doctors would know what they gave her. Please.

Likely the cleaning solution would have been to dissolve tea residue from the stainless steel.

So it probably looked a lot like Iced Tea.

The cleaning solution that we use (at least at our store) is pink, sometimes a bright red. Now, it was late at night, so I could see how they could have made a mistake if they had been cleaning the decanter before close (which we aren't supposed to do, but I've done it).

That said, You would sure hope to hell someone would notice that the tea is bright pink, not brown. What ignorance! Whoever served it had to have been a complete and total idiot!

@snowburnt: Yes I meant ER - brain crossed. The article did not suggest so, but it is not clear on how the $100,000 number is reached. I expect that is where one of the difference of opinion is found - value for negligence and breach of warrenty.

@Butte-Monkey: the coffee was held at too high a temperature. The temperature in question should be the brewed temp, it should be lower by the time it gets through the grounds. the holding temperature was too hot to drink. Go home, break out a thermometer, and carnk some water up to 190 F and try to drink it.

The linked commentary is more biased than the ATLA's fact sheet. Particularly their referenced case - called "identical" - which attempted to sue a coffee-maker manufacturer while attempting to pour a cup of coffee from one cup to another in a moving car (Liebeck was a passenger in a stopped car)

The system worked in the case not only because McDonald's acted dangerously - it indicated in the trial that it was selling coffee expected to be drank later, not immediately. It also worked because the appeals process worked - reducing the amount of damage considerably.

I believe the system worked because this was, I feel, a legitimate argument. There were two sides, both with cases I could see. There was a negotiation before the lawsuit. The trial was brought to the court, and ejudicated fairly. the common sense that coffeee is hot is matched by the common sense that someone taking coffee from a drive-thru is likely going to drink that coffee immediately - and the coffee should not be so hot as to make that impossible.

@CarlR: She only took a sip. To get to the big money, you gotta really chug the stuff, 6 ounces or so. Yeah, it's risky, but the payoff is huge.

Years ago, when I was a busboy at The Last Supper, we always used an inverted cup over the handle to indicate, 'do not use'. To me, the person dispensing it should have caught it.

Sometimes when my allergies are bothering me, I can't smell anything either. Maybe she just couldn't smell it.

@alexcassidy: Ya, the Mc Donalse hot Coffee case was not legitimate. People should know coffee is served hot. O do not really care if there coffee was 20 degress hotter than other places.

Now, if the lid or cup was defective, that would be a legitimate.

@fjordtjie: Is the "it made me fat" lawsuit the transfat lawsuit where McDonald's publically said it would reduce the amount of Trans Fats in it's oil, then delayed that project, but failed to inform the public of that delay?

In that lawsuit McDonald's ended up settling for $8.5 Million. $7 million to the American Heart Association $1.5 million in publicizing it's Trans Fat plans, and $15,000 spilt between 2 claimants.

I have not found a case where anyone has made money off McDonald's for making them fat. It's not enough to sue, find out if they made money.

[www.virtualcancercentre.com]

I'm not going to belabor the point here, but please read Overlawyered.com's commentary on the case to get a feel for why it is equally wrong to accept ATLA's talking points on the subject.

@snowburnt: The details indicate that the McDonald's admitted the mistake - gave her a sample to take with her to the HR, and some milk to immediately counteract some of the pain.

@ceez: Having worked at McDonald's, these cleaning solutions do have a pretty strong smell. But that's not the point. Not everyone's senses are the same. Maybe she can't smell anything? The point is that when you buy a drink at a restaurant, you put your trust in that restaurant to actually give you a drink.

@shorty63136: So have I... it's a bag of orange juice. What are you getting at? It looks like any orange juice you buy in a carton at the grocery store...

@DePaulBlueDemon: I think it could have easily been an accident. I mean, this women obviously couldn't tell cleaning solution from iced tea when it approached her mouth. Don't get me wrong, it's inexcusable and I agree that the victim should file the suit against McDonald's. But I wouldn't automatically assume it was done on purpose. An employee could have mistook is just as easily as this customer did.

@ohenry: Cute alliteration, but I suspect concentrated industrial cleaning solution is more acutely toxic than Mr. Clean.

And hopefully you are now more educated on the hot coffee lawsuit as well. People here are so eloquent about that! My boss actually mentioned it in a meeting yesterday, and I cringed, but didn't say anything. Next time I will!

Well done.

@downwithmonstercable: The industry standard brewing temperature is 195-200 degrees, and the standard hold temp is around 170-180, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America. So although McDonalds' coffee is a far cry from "specialty", they didn't really do anything wrong.

Since when do you use toxic cleaners to clean out a food storage device?

@Saboth: I call the coffee lawsuit more legitimate because McDonald's was choosing to place its customers at risk. this reads like a straight up accident that McDonald's helped with and acknowledged.

The coffee could have killed (perhaps not directly, but through sepsis / shock / car wreck)

This was not a bad reaction on McDonald's part. They gave her milk, which is certainly the right thing to do, did NOT induce vomiting (vomiting is the WRONG thing to do with caustic, nasty, crap), and gave her the information she would need at the hospital for treatment.

It could have been better if they offered to drive her there or summoned an ambulance, but overall, not bad on McD's part.

I am hoping McD's offered to pay the medical bills without a fuss. Nevertheless, a lawsuit is not necessarily out of line for pain and suffering damages. Assuming this was just an innocent mistake, and not a systematic failure of corporate policy, punitive damages would probably be out of line.

SirWired

@ShizaMinelli: Perhaps, but I think a single reference to following blindly (sheep) isn't terrible. It's not like I called him an asshole, after all (or even "like an asshole")

@tmed: Fantastic link. Thanks for sharing and clearing the air!

When I do happen to read cleaning labels, I like to know what to do if I happen to swallow some. Although usually I'm more concerned with what the chemical is and with which other chemicals it can be mixed.

City Circuit...

Maybe they'll go business out-of.
(drumroll)

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.
Try the veal.

Or because you did it on purpose.

@snowburnt: Thanks snowburnt. I think that's what I was getting at, in a non-eloquent sort of way.

@fjordtjie: i retract my statement about the hot coffee, but the 'it made me fat' lawsuit still stands.

@OmniZero: mercury in retrograde.

I'd say the caustic chemicals that may kill you if ingested trumps spilling coffee on yourself.

if i remember correctly... all she asked for in the beginning was for McDonald's to pay for the hospital bills. they refused and then she went and got a lawyer.

Yes. The coffee was hot enough to BURN THROUGH the outer layers of skin; this is called "undrinkable." Compounding this problem is the fact that someone else had ALREADY BEEN BURNED by the hot coffee at the same location.

Now let me ask you this: if you had the same 3d degree burns from the coffee as Stella Liebeck (shown in the photo below), would you not consider suing the establishment that sold you an obviously defective product?

Warning: graphic photo
[i651.photobucket.com]

@DePaulBlueDemon: Milk neutralizes a lot of things-actually, a smart move on the part of whoever thought of it.

Also, catering to people that dislike companies that put profits ahead of customer and employee safety they showed that the reason that they kept the coffee that hot was that the smell produced by the hotter coffee sold more coffee. So helping her case there also was that McD's central was saying: serve it hotter, not just the store.

I'm not sure that it's just that they'd assume it was the same as home brewed more like they'd assume that the coffee wouldn't cause 3rd degree burns when served.

Prior to this lawsuit I don't think there were any warnings on the cup.

That's what I thought at first too, coan_net. But in actuality, the customer demanded to be let in after the incident. (She got the tea at the drive-thru). They let her in so she could get some milk (?) and to get the brochure for the cleaner to give to the ER docs.

@ceez:

There are lots of cleaning fluids that have no smell, especially degreasers. And if it's diluted into the tea, then the smell may not be immediately detectable.

Oh, wait, this is a blame the victim post. My bad. Carry on.

@everyone in this thread: I am genuinely asking this question and not trying patronize because I know very little about the case other than the hype around it.

Was the basic agreement in the case that McD's was serving a dangerous product, and that the warning wasn't sufficient? And with that, that consumers would assume that McD's coffee was the same general temp as other places/homebrewed coffee (135-145 degrees) when in fact the coffee was more like 185? Causing 3rd degree burns, etc.

@ceez: I don't typically smell my drinks before putting a lid and straw on them...

If you read the article, it talks about the person got the store to open part that was previously closed (not sure exactly what that was - maybe they already cleaned it and did not want anyone to dirty it up - or they were trying to close and the person demanded service because they should still be open for another 3 minutes) - no matter why, it probable pissed off an employee who did it on purpose... would be my guess.

@tmed: That's actually quite informative, I didn't know all of that.

Perhaps the OP didn't as well, and responding like an asshole didn't help?

ummm...does this lady have a nose?!?!?

if it's supposed to be mixed with gallons of water then imagine how POTENT the smell has to be of whatever the heck they served her...!!?? I mean you bring that cup near your face and you probably think "hmmm...tea or tilex"?

the world is depressing me....geeesh!

How about this story.
What if the machine was just cleaned and not all of the cleaning agents were flushed out?

But yeah. Always nice to see people side with a company that serves a product that causes third degree burns and calls it food.

The "Hot Coffee" law suit was far from "rediculous".

Mcdonalds had been keeping their coffee 10-20 degrees hotter than outlined in the health code regulations and memos surface that Mcdonalds corporate wanted them to keep it this temperature in contradiction to their own safety regulations. They did this because when the coffee was stored hotter they found they sold more of it.

When she spilled this coffee on herself it wasn't just hot...It melted her skin away and fused her labia. There's some nasty pictures out there on the internet. Normal coffee isn't supposed to do this to you.

Further, she contacted the Mcdonalds in question requesting they help her with the medical bills, they refused. Finally she sued them, for ONLY the amount of the medical bills. Mcdonalds was found partially responsible for her injuries (something like 60-80%) not fully responsible since she did spill the coffee. In addition they jury saw fit to award her something like 2 million dollars in punitive damages. This number was brought down to about $400k on appeal.

Please don't post anything about the "hot coffee" lawsuit or any other lawsuit that you think is "rediculous" without having the facts.

Investigation into the incident revealed that there had been more than 700 other serious injuries due to the heat of the coffee and mcDonalds knew the danger behind it, but did nothing to make it safer.

Wow, thanks for the info tmed. (no sarcasm intended) Now I can give an educated point when someone brings this up.

Everybody's looking for a bailout...

Add me to the list of people who are sick and tired of seeing the (legitimate) McDonald's hot coffee case being cited time and again as an example of a frivolous suit -- especially on a consumer site!

@CarlR: She likely has a good conscience and a good lawyer, who has advised that this is not a good spot to go for punitive damages, as there is no pattern of negligence, this is a screw-up that the franchise seems to have legitimately taken seriously since it happened (getting her the sample - giving her milk)

The coffee case had exactly the opposite situation, McDonald's choosing to put it's customers at risk after repeated warnings and injuries.

Yes I believe some moron served a customer cleaner.

This lawsuit I could actually see. The whole hot coffee thing was definitely rediculous, but I'd be pissed off if I got Mr. Clean instead of Mr. Coffee.

Do I believe it? Yeah. It's McDonald's - the story isn't that far-fetched. I've seen what the orange juice looks like before they put it in the dispenser (in the locations where they don't have the bottled juice).

@Snarkysnake: By millions, of course, you mean $100,000: the amount of the lawsuit?

Second question: Do you really believe this story?

Someone must have screwed up an missed a couple of zeros in that $100,000 sue sum. Eating a lot of Big Macs will do that to you.

@fjordtjie: The hot coffee incidient was far, far more legitimate, you sheep. Read past the headlines, and the opinions of other people who have only read the headlines. Remember the damages were punitive, and try to get a handle on just how big McDonald's is, and how big something has to be to be punitive. Think about fines in pro sports - does $10k really matter?

McDonald's coffee case is an example of a jury doing it's job correctly, thoroughly, and fairly.

[www.lectlaw.com]

@brianala: Yep, that's the most likely. I've had the same experience with the sweet tea containers in food service. The person cleaning it often puts the concentrate straight into the reservoir, then adds the requisite gallon of water. But the concentrate has already settled in the spout and might not mix.

Sounds like sloppy work and she should win, no problem.

Someone from the back starts cleaning up early and puts the cleaner in the sweet tea tank but forgets to tell the cashiers. So the cashier goes to fill a cup and it still looks like tea, since there's some left in the lines.

Generally we would try to mark the tanks when they were out for the night by placing a cup over the spigot but if that falls off or they forget to put it on there I can easily see it happening.

I doubt it was cleaning solution though. I just threw it out and drank water. I'm sure my blood sugar thanked me.

Someone probably didn't empty it from closing the night before. The person in the morning didn't look closely enough to realize that it wasn't tea he/she was putting in the cup.

Either that, or just a pissed off employee looking for a reason to quit.

Someone goes to close out the sweet tea tanks and adds the cleaner but doesn't clear the lines all the way and forgets to tell the cashiers that the tea is out for the night. Someone goes to fill a cup and it looks like tea since there's still some in the lines, but it's tainted with the cleaning solution.

Times are really tough when a McDonald's suit is only worth $100,000. Maybe she'll get apple pie too

The name of the solution was Ipton's Iced Teal cleaning solution.

So it's easy to see how they got confused.

@DePaulBlueDemon:

It was probably kept in the same type of bucket.

It's also one hell of a thing to win the lottery but it does happen.

" finally a lobby I can get behind, how do I sign up?"

I'm pretty sure that you are already a member.

But I digress, If she did get chemical pharyngitis and tonsillitis from her value drink then this is indeed a
legitimate lawsuit like fjordtjie said.

I wonder if they did it on purpose, though. That's one hell of an accidental mistake. I mean, I don't keep bottles of cleaning fluid next to my iced tea. Do you?

back in my time, you didn't get dessert until you finished your all your solvents and de-greasers. kids these days. sheesh.

I can't believe she is letting them off that easy.

That is going to be one hell of a settlement.

mcdonalds sold me hot coffee and i spilled it on myself? i ate at mcdonalds 3 times a day and it made me fat?

mcdonalds served me caustic chemicals instead of a drink and it burnt my pharynx! finally, a legitimate lawsuit!