The Truth about the McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit
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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you.

That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. So this morning I was reading through comments on my channel on my last video. And one comment in particular was very upset that I had my dog on my furniture.

Understandably, you know, I get it dogs just shouldn't be on furniture So today I thought it would be better if I switched it up a bit and instead I brought my rabbit to come sit on my furniture Plus today we're gonna be talking about lawsuits and she loves a good lawsuit, especially a tort today. We are doing another lawsuit you guys really liked the Wendy's chili finger lawsuit. That was an interesting one. And after I did that video I got a lot of requests for the McDonald's coffee

Lawsuit or to tell the true story of it. Sorry. I live in an actual zoo. No, no anyway, this lawsuit is really interesting actually because most people who think they know about it have a Completely different version of events in their heads. A lot of people think the woman who sued McDonald's is kind of a scam artist and

and that could not be further from the truth. So I thought it would be interesting to take another look at it. And if there are any other lawsuits that you would like to see on this channel or any just non true crime content that can be requested along with true crime content in my general request form.

So today we're going to be talking about a woman named Stella Liebeck, and she was born on December 14th, 1912. Her parents were from England and they had three daughters in their family, Ethel, Stella, and Madeline, and they all were raised in New York City. Stella ended up marrying a man named Henry G. Liebeck, and they had three kids of their own, Nancy, Judy, and Jim.

Stella was known as a very strong and independent woman, and long after reaching her retirement age, she continued to drive herself to keep working full time, which was very impressive. My mother at 79 was very active. She drove, she drove well. She very seldom dropped anything. She very seldom spilled anything. And so that...

For her age at 79 years old, I thought she was remarkable. She lost her husband in 1991, and at that point, she decided to go ahead and retire from her job as a department store clerk. After that, she decided to move to Santa Fe to be closer to her daughter. And Stella was still a very active, independent person at her age, so her kids didn't feel like they had to constantly check on her. They didn't have to hire any help for her. She could pretty much still take care of herself.

So that brings us to February 27th, 1992. It was about a week after Stella had retired and her son Jim flew out to celebrate and spend some time with her. But his trip came to an end and he had to go back. So Stella was going to be taking him to the airport. He had an early morning flight. So Stella actually wanted to drop him off at the airport and she went with her grandson, Chris. They dropped him off. And then after leaving the airport, they decided they wanted to get

some breakfast. So they decided to stop at the nearby Golden Arches McDonald's and this location was at 5001 Gibson Boulevard. They

They went through the drive-thru and Chris ordered a value meal and Stella ordered a little 49 cent cup of coffee. After they picked up their food at the window, they drove over to a spot in the parking lot and parked so they could get organized and situate, get, you know, some coffee, creamer and sugar into Stella's cup. He was driving a 1989 Ford Probe and it didn't have cup holders actually. So Stella kind of held it between her legs.

She balanced it and then she tried removing the lid. And as she was taking the lid off, the cup flipped upside down and poured all over her legs. Wanted to get the top off to put cream and sugar in, so I put it between my knees to steady it with this hand, trying to get the top off.

And it just went, "Ooh." - And as soon as the coffee hit her, she started screaming because it was scalding hot and she was wearing a sweatsuit. So it was soaked and stuck to her skin and she literally could not get away from it. She tried to get out of the car as fast as she could. And then of course pulled the sweatpants off, but the damage was done. - All I remember is trying to get out of the car.

I screamed, not realizing I was burned that bad. I knew I was in terrible pain. Chris happened to have a sheet in the back of the car, so he wrapped her in that, had

had her lay down in the back seat and then drove her to the nearest hospital and the whole way she was just in agony during the drive she was nauseous and lightheaded she was also cold and shaking uncontrollably and when they got to the hospital they were told there was a multi-car accident and they were treating multiple victims from that so the wait was gonna be way too long

And at this point, Stella was in so much pain that she was starting to go into shock. So Chris drove as fast as he could to the next closest hospital, which is Northside Presbyterian. And Stella was admitted 45 minutes after initially being burned. And as soon as the ER doctor saw how bad her burns were, they were horrific.

he immediately called in the burn specialist. And he was shocked too. I mean, her injuries were far worse than anyone really could have imagined. And the doctors weren't even sure if Stella would survive. - I was burned so severely that they didn't think I would live. - I'm a nurse and I was horrified at the type of injuries that she had sustained.

the skin grafts and the pieces that were still ongoing. So it was kind of a shocker because it's one thing to hear, but it's another thing to see. The coffee had burned over 16% of her body. All of her inner thighs, her genital area, her groin area, her butt.

And 6% of those burns were full thickness burns, otherwise known as third degree burns. - A third degree burn or a full thickness burn means that the entire layer of skin is burnt through, is gone. - These types of burns require extensive surgeries and a series of skin grafts normally. And of course, a bunch of treatment after that just to help her wounds heal. And with bad burns like this, they also have to do something called debridement.

which is the removal of damaged tissue from the actual wound. And it is extremely painful. Then there's something called Whirlpool treatment, which is used on patients with severe burns that need extensive debridement. And this treatment is so, so painful. And also it's very, very expensive. So Stella at 79 years old, freshly retired, has these horrific burns. She had to be in the hospital for eight days straight. And during that time, she lost 20 pounds.

And Stella was a very small woman. This was 20% of her body weight, so now she was 83 pounds. And even though doctors were very unsure if Stella would survive, she did, and she was released from the hospital. But it was not going to be an easy road to recovery at all, and she was going to need full-time care for the next three weeks, even while she was at home.

And of course she was left with really horrific scars and she was disabled for the next two years. And her medical bills really racked up quickly. Even after Medicare kicked in, she still owed $10,500. And she was also going to need thousands of dollars for future care as well.

And what made it even worse was her daughter had to take time off of work in order to take care of her mom. And she lost over a month of income, which was $5,000. So their family actually really suffered from this. And just the images alone of Stella's burns is enough to horrify you, honestly, or it should be. They are horrific looking.

But I think it's important for people to actually see these images because people will say all kinds of shit about Stella and then they'll see these pictures. We'll talk more about this, but people really tried to paint Stella as this person who was out to scam McDonald's, spilled hot coffee on herself. But look at these images. I mean,

Could anyone in their right mind do that to themselves on purpose? So anyway, most people who see those pictures especially think that Stella should have been entitled to some type of compensation for everything that she went through. But Stella didn't even want to sue McDonald's actually. At first, all she wanted was compensation for her medical bills and for her daughter's lost wages while she was taking care of her. And she just wanted McDonald's to know that their coffee was being served way too hot and prevent this from possibly happening to someone else.

I was not in it for the money. I was in it because I wanted to bring the temperature down.

so that other people will not go through the same thing. - So her daughter added up all the medical bills, all the lost wages and everything totaled up to about $18,000. So she wrote a letter to McDonald's, asked them if they could pay this amount, explained how horrific this was for their mother. And she at this point thought this was a one-time mistake. So she asked McDonald's to just check all of their coffee machines and make sure that none of them were serving coffee.

coffee that was scalding hot. Now at this time, and keep in mind it was the 90s, McDonald's was making $1.3 million per day just on coffee.

So you'd think that this would be a no-brainer for them and super easy. All they have to do is send the money that this woman is requesting, and she's not even going to sue them. It's a good deal. But they decide to get back to her and offer her $800 out of that $18,000. So obviously Stella's family was very upset. They felt like at this point they needed to get a lawyer and that maybe they should sue. But Stella was still very hesitant about the whole thing.

She had never filed a lawsuit before and she'd already been through so much stress. But she really just didn't have any other choice because $800 was not even going to come close to covering her medical bills. She needed this money. So Stella worked with two lawyers named Ken Wagner and Reed Morgan. They filed a lawsuit against McDonald's for gross negligence for selling coffee that was unreasonably dangerous and defectively manufactured. We bought a product. It was used as intended.

It was unreasonably hot and therefore unreasonably dangerous. And those were the essential facts. And there were several attempts to settle the lawsuit before the trial even started. At first, her lawyers offered to settle for $90,000, but McDonald said no. So they went back to the drawing board and actually asked for $300,000 the second time. And of course, McDonald said no.

So they had a mediator, which is a middleman, come in and try to settle the lawsuit. And they suggested that about $225,000 would be fair to settle at. But McDonald's refused and that went absolutely nowhere. So they had to move forward with a trial. So the trial of Liebeck versus McDonald's restaurants began on August 8th, 1994. Stella's attorneys argued that McDonald's was serving their coffee way too hot and doing it on purpose.

They argued that they were requiring their franchise owners to serve coffee at dangerously hot temperatures. According to their official franchise rules at the time, their coffee had to be served between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 30 degrees hotter than most at-home coffee machines. And other restaurants usually serve their coffee between 140 and 160 degrees.

And liquid that's 190 degrees Fahrenheit can definitely cause third degree burns in just two to seven seconds. And of course, the hotter a liquid is, the faster the skin burns. So they started arguing in court that if McDonald's just served their coffee like 20 degrees lower, then it would take up to 20 seconds for someone to get a third degree burn, which gives you a lot more time.

This would give someone a chance to remove any clothing they have, especially if they're wearing something like sweatpants. And they also brought up that McDonald's had a long history of ignored complaints about customers specifically that had been burned. It turns out that in just 10 years, 1982 to 1992, their coffee had burned more than 700 people.

In most cases, it was people that did the exact same thing that Stella did, accidentally spilled the coffee on their laps in the car. And there were even some cases where employees had spilled hot coffee on customers. And these complaints came from people of all ages, from adults to infants. And during those 10 years of complaints, McDonald's, who was making like

a million dollars a day in coffee had paid out $500,000 to people who had been burned by the coffee. So this was a serious issue that a lot of other people had experienced, but the media never told anyone that, of course. Now, there was a warning printed on their coffee cup, but McDonald's admitted in court that consumers were probably not aware that such serious injuries could be possible from coffee.

And long before Stella was even hurt, the Shriner's Burn Institute had published warnings to the franchise food industry that people could get really serious burns if they were serving beverages above 130 degrees, which is 50 degrees cooler than what McDonald's was serving at the time. During the trial, McDonald's explained that the reason they like to make their coffee so hot is because oftentimes people got it on the way to work. And by the time they got to work, it had cooled off and it was a perfect temperature.

McDonald's had a really, really strong reason for why they brewed their coffee at the temperature they did.

It was an industrial standard based on the maximum extraction of the flavor and the maximum holding temperature. But it turns out that they didn't actually do any research on this. They didn't test it with commute times and stuff. They had no idea how long it was taking for their scalding hot coffee to cool down enough for someone to drink it safely. And of course, a lot of people don't want it to just sit there while they're driving to work. They want to drink it. But McDonald's said that hot coffee makes a taste better.

During the trial, they confirmed that McDonald's was requiring that their coffee pot was as hot as 185 degrees Fahrenheit or more. And McDonald's also admitted that they recognized that if their coffee was consumed right away, that it would be dangerous for the consumer. But a consultant for McDonald's, of course, tried to downplay that 700 person number for their burn injuries.

And basically they argued for every one person that got burned by McDonald's coffee, about 24 million people enjoyed their coffee just fine. And they tried to use that to prove that their coffee was not unreasonably dangerous. - People interact with hot beverages all the time in a fast food restaurant, and that doesn't necessarily mean

that the restaurant is doing something wrong. - So the jury ended up talking about what percentage of fault should really be given to Stella here. And they agreed that some percentage of the fault should be given to her because she did spill the coffee.

It's not like someone bumped into her or a car hit her or anything. She spilled the coffee on herself. But they decided that McDonald's was definitely at fault here too, and a lot more so than Stella was. And before the jury came to their decision, they actually found out that McDonald's wasn't

planning to do anything about this. They weren't going to redesign their coffee cup or get better lids, lower the temperature, nothing. Stella's doctor also testified during the trial and it was very powerful. They said that Stella's burns were some of the worst that they had ever seen in their career. The photos depicted where they had to graft the skin from the side of her legs to close the third degree burn. And I think if people would have seen the severity of the burns

they would have realized it was not a laughing matter. The trial finally came to an end on August 17th, 1994 after seven days of testimony and the jury ended up finding that both parties were at fault here. They decided that Stella was at 20% fault because she did, you know, spill the coffee on herself, but that McDonald's was at 80% of fault because they knew that this was happening and they did nothing to fix the problem for a long time. We talked about different percentages of

how much was her fault versus, you know, how much was McDonald's. And we finally came to assign 20% fault to Mrs. Liebeck because she had initially spilled the coffee. And we assigned 80% of the blame to McDonald's because they had a very long history of people being injured. And they were so adamant that it was...

such a trivial thing that they weren't going to bother to do anything other than just continue to rake in the money on their coffee sales. And the fact that it was their own records really damned McDonald's as far as I was concerned because it was very obvious that they knew there was a problem and they were ignoring it completely.

just totally disregarding the consumer safety. - The jury felt like the warning on the cup was not gonna be enough and it was not gonna do anything to protect future consumers. At the end of everything, Stella was awarded $200,000 for her medical costs and other expenses, including just her pain and suffering. But then her compensation was reduced by 20% because she was 20% at fault. So she ended up getting $160,000.

However, she was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, which is the equivalent of two days worth of coffee revenue for McDonald's.

We looked at the coffee sales on a daily basis and we figured about two days worth of coffee sales. We thought that that was, you know, a fair amount and punitive damages we assessed at 2.7 million. The only way you can get the attention of a big company would be to make punitive damages against them and this was a very small

Punitive damage, we thought. Now, punitive damages are to hold the company accountable. It's basically a punishment for McDonald's as an incentive to get them to change their harmful policies. However, a judge did reduce their punitive damages from $2.7 million to $480,000. I'm going to reduce the punitive damages award to $480,000. We'd rather not talk about it at this time. Give us time to think.

And I will talk to you later. And Stella and McDonald's both appealed that decision actually in December of 1994. And after their negotiations, they settled outside of court for an undisclosed amount. So we will never know how much they ended up paying her.

her. But as part of the settlement, Stella was not allowed to talk to the media at all about her case. And of course this trial made headlines all over the world. It was talked about by reporters, journalists, news outlets, of course, like late night shows, daytime talk shows. Man, it's hot. How hot is it? It's so hot. I poured McDonald's coffee in my lap to cool off.

pardon me excuse us i kind of got pushed and it spilled on was there a top on it yeah did you put the top on or did they put the top on for you they put the top on and they made the top you didn't make the top did you you got a chance do we have a chance you get me one coffee drinker on that jury you gonna walk out of there a rich man now she claims she broke her nose on the sneeze got the sizzler bending over looking at the chickpeas oh my coffee was too hot coffee

And over time they kept reporting less and less of the details accurately. And that's why a lot of people don't know the truth about this case and think that Stella is some type of scammer. The media did a great job of making Stella's case look like a complete

And they spread so much false information about her and the case as a whole. And people really didn't have much sympathy for Stella at all.

In fact, it seemed like people felt bad for McDonald's. - I mean, it's not like the McDonald's person leaned over the car and poured it. It was an accident. - It wasn't long before there were so many rumors about her, so many just blatant lies about her. People started writing her these horrible, horrible letters, death threats. And at some point along the way,

The narrative became that Stella was driving while trying to drink coffee and then spilled it all over herself. Basically that she was irresponsible in this situation and she deserved what was coming to her. Stella has received letters saying stuff like, "I was driving down the road. I had no business driving down the road with coffee between my legs and all that stuff. They're just plain ignorant."

My mother was made the villain in this story. It's like bullying. It feels like bullying. And of course, no one was reporting about how bad Estella's injuries actually were. Most people didn't realize that Stella had almost died from spilling this coffee on her legs. People seem to believe either one of two versions of events. Either they thought that Stella purposely spilled the coffee on herself, or they believed that she was reckless while driving and holding the coffee.

And pretty much everyone was under the impression that she had superficial burns at most. I mean, it seems frivolous. It seems like it should have been common sense that if you spilt hot coffee on yourself, like, that was your own fault. I think she won her case and won the...

a lot of money the summary of that story to me is tying up the court system for a bunch of nonsense damn that's pretty bad mcdonald's should have some of the liability because it was their product yeah it was their product that hurt somebody oh that's a hell of a hot cup of coffee oh my god that's so bad that's so bad i guess now that when you know

how hot it was, it seems. Less frivolous. People assumed that she was just trying to get a ton of money from McDonald's, not just get coverage for her medical bills, which at first, that's all she wanted. And now this sweet old woman who had these horrific injuries was being depicted as this greedy bitch, basically. To a lot of people, she was a con artist, just trying to take advantage of the system.

And for some reason, a lot of stories on Stella's case actually repeated that she made $2.9 million at the end of the lawsuit, which is completely false. And it was reported several different times. - A woman was awarded $2.9 million in a lawsuit against McDonald's. She spilled hot coffee on her lap while sitting in her car and claimed it was too hot. - Every day we hear about another outrageous lawsuit. Who pays? You do. Tell the legislature we can't afford another million dollar cup of coffee.

And the whole conversation around Stella's case ended up being kind of used as propaganda and a catalyst to completely change the American judicial system. And it all started with the term frivolous lawsuits, basically meaning lawsuits where people were making money from corporations, sometimes doing things to themselves on purpose in order to fight a case and get a bunch of money.

In fact, Stell's case may actually be where this term really came from. And of course, corporations really latched onto it, as well as insurance companies, medical companies, companies that get sued a lot. They were hoping to take this whole conversation around frivolous lawsuits, which even George W. Bush was talking about it a lot at the time, and they were hoping they could kind of

use it to their advantage. Maybe get something in place to stop some of these lawsuits. Of course, these corporations want to avoid as much liability as they possibly can when it comes to the consumer. Tons of people were talking about Sell's case and just raking her over the coals. And surprisingly, McDonald's came out as the victim in the whole situation. People literally sympathized with a corporation that makes $1.3 million on coffee sales alone.

ABC News even called Stella the poster child of excessive lawsuits. And of course the media never talked about the 700 other people who had been burned by McDonald's coffee in the last 10 years. So this led to a lot of discussion about tort reform in the US. Again, a tort is a wrongful act

that causes injury or harm or infringes on a person's rights and leads to civil legal liability. So tort reform activists are normally people with a lot of money who want to limit the individual people's rights to file lawsuits against corporations, businesses, and medical practitioners. And all these advocates for tort reform were making a big

push for federal legislation in the mid 90s. And Stella's case was of course used as an example of how dangerous frivolous lawsuits could be for big corporations. If a lady goes through a fast food restaurant, puts coffee in her lap, burns her legs and sues and gets a big settlement, that in and of itself is enough to tell you why we need to have tort reform. So they tried passing the Common Sense Legal Standards Reform Act,

And this bill actually did pass the Senate, but it was vetoed by President Clinton. - This legislation is arcane, complex. It has a lot of legalisms and loopholes in it. But the real fact is it could have a devastating impact on innocent Americans. - But of course that did not stop these advocates from continuing to fight for tort reform as the years went on.

Even President Reagan talked about the need for tort reform, and he cited a case where a man was hit by a car inside a telephone booth. And according to President Reagan, the man sued the company that owned the telephone booth instead of the driver. In California, a man was using a public telephone booth to place a call. An alleged drunk driver careened down the street, lost control of her car, and crashed into the phone booth. Now, it's no surprise that the injured man sued, but you might be startled to hear whom he sued. The telephone company.

That's right. According to Chief Justice Rose Bird of the California Supreme Court, a jury could find that the company's responsible for the design, location, installation, and maintenance of the telephone booth.

We're liable. But in reality, the company knew that the placement of the telephone booth was very dangerous. Cars had hit it before and other people had gotten hurt. But of course, those details are left out. And a lot of people who pay politicians want tort reform. So of course they were going to push the idea anyway. And this tort reform battle is still continuing today. The narrative is still spread that frivolous lawsuits are a huge danger to all types of businesses from big to small.

No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit. I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform. Our economy is held back by irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims. And I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year.

Because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice, leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OBGYN, I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year. Too many good docs are getting out of business.

Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country. We're a litigious society. Everybody's suing, it seems like. There are too many lawsuits in America. And Stella's case is still used to this day as an example of why tort reform is needed. And it turns out that corporations, including McDonald's, have spent so, so much money over the years continuing to push the narrative that Stella just wanted to get a

big fat check out of all of this that she was a scammer. There was so much misinformation spread about her and her case. It is truly unreal that this elderly woman who got really, really badly burned ended up being the villain in all of this. And McDonald's was the victim. Eventually in 2011, all of the rumors about Stella and her case were debunked by HBO. Actually, they did a documentary on her called Hot Coffee. It is available on YouTube right now.

You have to pay for it, but there is a free one too. You didn't hear it from me. I don't know how long that will be up though. There was also an investigation by the New York Times that was published in 2013. So according to McDonald's franchise handbook, their coffee must now be served between 170 degrees and 180 degrees Fahrenheit, which is only 10 degrees cooler than when Stella was burned. So definitely be careful with it. They also have added a more prominent warning to their coasters.

So that shows that Stella's case was important because it did make a difference. But since her case, there have been tons of other people who have tried suing businesses and corporations for spilling hot beverages on themselves. Some of them were legitimate, but some of them were actually given fraudulent charges for trying to sue in the first place. But the ability for individuals to sue these mega corporations who don't really care about the individual consumer that much

is one of our most important rights. And of course, there are cases that are truly frivolous and normally those are tossed out, but there are so many important lawsuits that absolutely deserve to go through and can make change. Stella's family has continued to explain to people that Stella never wanted to make money off this. She didn't spill coffee on herself on purpose. She just wanted her bills paid and for McDonald's to make changes to the way that they do business.

It was really painful for Stella and her family to go through seeing all these people talk so badly about her, blame her after everything that she had been through, seeing so many false narratives be formed about her, and she couldn't say anything. After her injuries and all the stress from the lawsuit, Stella was really never the same again. According to her daughter, she had almost no quality of life.

The settlement money did allow for her to pay for an in-home nurse to take care of her until she did eventually pass away. Stella died on August 5th, 2004 at the age of 91, which is pretty impressive to live to 91 after everything she had been through. You to me, grandma, you were a hero. You were a hero for the people. And even though the people may not see you as such,

I want to let you know I do, and I fully believe it, and I love you so much. Stella's case is still used as an example in court all the time. It's still taught in law classes. It ended up being a really important lawsuit, and she potentially could have saved a lot of people from being burned as badly as she was.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.