Hot Coffee
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s the case, a movie must be worth considerably more words than a thousand. With that in mind, we are very much looking forward to the release of a film that is being shown at Sundance Film Festival.
The name of this film is Hot Coffee.Its intention is to challenge your preconceptions about lawsuits. The title of the film is based on a case that unfortunately became the clarion call for insurance companies and tort reform groups all over the country, and has since been used as an “example” of a “frivolous lawsuit.” In fact, neither this case nor that verdict was either “frivolous” or “excessive,” but tort reformers have never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Even if you have never come within a hundred miles of a courtroom, you have almost certainly heard of the McDonald’s Coffee case. Here are the facts of the case: An 81 year old woman named Stella Liebeck bought a cup of coffee through the drive through window at a McDonalds. She was a passenger in the car. Her grandson pulled the car over so Ms. Liebeck could add coffee and creamer. When she pulled the lid off, she accidentally spilled the coffee in her lap.
That doesn’t sound like the end of the world, does it? Most of us have spilled coffee on ourselves at one time or another. In fact, I spilled coffee on myself just this morning. And while it was moderately painful, and while I will most certainly have to use Clorox Color Safe Bleach on my pants, the experience didn’t exactly cause too much of a crimp in my day.
But there are two major differences between my experience with the coffee and Ms. Liebeck’s. In the first place, Ms. Liebeck accidentally spilled the entire cup into her lap. Secondly, Ms. Liebeck’s coffee was about 40 to 50 degrees hotter than the coffee that comes out of my coffee maker at home. It’s the difference between “hot” and “third degree burns.” Ms. Liebeck spent about eight days in the hospital, and her burns required skin grafts and painful recuperation.
When you ask the tort reform people about this case, this is where they usually say “…and this woman sued McDonald’s for $1 million, and she won!” But actually, that isn’t what happened at all.
Mrs. Liebeck asked for $20,000, mainly because she underwent painful skin grafts. McDonald’s refused her claim. If McDonalds had simply paid $20,000, they could have avoided the whole thing. Instead, they offered her around $600, which doesn’t seem like a lot for that much time in the hospital. So the case was essentially forced to move on to trial.
During the discovery portion of this trial, Ms. Liebeck’s attorneys discovered that between 1982 and 1992, more than 700 people had filed claims against McDonald’s because they had been burned by the coffee there. Ms. Liebeck’s claim was hardly an isolated incident. Upon further investigation, Ms. Liebeck’s attorneys determined that the coffee at McDonalds was kept heated between 180 and 190 degrees. Denny’s didn’t do that. Waffle House didn’t do that. Nor did Burger King, Krispy Kreme, Wendy’s, or any other major restaurant chain. In fact, McDonalds had specially built heaters that kept the coffee at that temperature.
180 degree liquid can cause a full thickness skin burn in around 2 seconds. So essentially, Mrs. Liebeck was only one out of 700 people who had been injured by coffee that was kept dangerous due to a companywide policy. McDonald’s couldn’t claim that Mrs. Liebeck’s claim was unheard of or ridiculous, not with over 700 similar claims in their history.
The jury awarded Mrs. Liebeck $180,000 for her ordeal and stay in the hospital. The so called “million dollar verdict” was initially $2.7 million in punitive damages, which was later knocked down to $480,000. The punitive damages did not exist to make Mrs. Liebeck rich, but rather, as the term indicates, to punish McDonald’s for knowingly having a dangerous corporate policy in place. As a result of this verdict, McDonald’s has since lowered the temperature of its coffee, and nobody has been severely burned since.
We don’t find anything “frivolous” about third degree burns or eight days in the hospital. Nor do we find anything “frivolous” about a company that knowingly serves products in a dangerous manner. But for some reason, tort reformers everywhere latched on to this case and turned what Mrs. Liebeck went through into a joke, or portrayed it as a money grabbing con game.
From what we understand of it, Hot Coffee not only tells Mrs. Liebeck’s side of the story, but also delves into a few other notable cases where Americans have actually lost their right to a court hearing, thanks mainly to fake outrage and tort reform legislation that was ginned up after Mrs. Liebeck’s verdict came in. We would urge everyone to see this film once it is released nationwide.
Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to no fault of their own. We help people who have been injured in car accidents, pedestrian accidents, and people who have been injured due to medical malpractice. If you or a loved one has been injured due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.
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