Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Just after midnight on November 2nd, 1974, 33-year-old Charles Bigby, a custodian for the city of Los Angeles,
punched out on the time clock, and left work for the night. He walked out the front door of City Hall, down the steps, and towards the neighborhood convenience store that sat on the corner of Century Boulevard and Englewood. Charles entered the store, bought a newspaper and a loaf of bread, and left, stopping at one of two phone booths that were stationed at the edge of the parking lot. Charles Bigby entered the only booth that was unoccupied and dialed the number of his girlfriend, Sheila Croxton, whom he called every night after work.
During their conversation, Charles noticed a car headed his direction, weaving through traffic uncontrollably. He immediately dropped the telephone receiver and grabbed for the handle of the phone booth's inward opening door to try and make his escape. The door was jammed. Charles screamed for help as other pedestrians in the area, including the man in the neighboring phone booth, fled the path of the careening automobile.
Bystanders watched in horror as the car jumped the curb and crashed directly into the phone booth in which Bigby was trapped. They could hear Charles repeating the Lord's Prayer to himself from underneath the shattered glass of the booth and the smoking wreckage of the car. Bigby woke up in the hospital to find that his right leg had been amputated about four inches above the knee. His left leg had been severely mangled, but it was salvaged by doctors who performed multiple skin grafts to cover the gaping holes that had been ripped into it by the large shards of glass.
Charles Bigby would be permanently disabled. At the time of the accident, Charles Bigby's salary as a City of Los Angeles janitor was about $7,400 a year, and his insurance did not fully cover his entire hospital bill, leaving him with over $1,500 in unpaid medical expenses. Even more daunting, since Charles was physically unable to work after the accident, his insurance would eventually expire, leaving him with no way to afford the ongoing care that was required.
with bill collectors on his back and in need of an artificial leg and a wheelchair. Charles Bigby hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the woman who was driving the car that hit him and the establishment that served her alcohol that night. Leola Roberts appeared intoxicated at the scene but denied having a single drop of alcohol the night her 1972 Ford plowed into Mr. Bigby. She was taken to the hospital for blood tests to confirm her story and the results showed nothing.
because there were no results. The test was never taken. Maybe the hospital staff just forgot to administer it. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Leola Roberts' son was an LAPD cop. Either way, Charles Bigby settled with Leola Roberts and the concession company out of court for $25,000.
and he used those funds to mount another case against several companies who were responsible for the design, operation, maintenance, and placement of the phone booth that had the malfunctioning door. In the original suit, Bigby's lawyer had discovered that a different phone booth sitting in the exact same spot where Charles was injured had been destroyed two years earlier by an out-of-control vehicle. The phone booth was then replaced without any warning signs or protective guardrails.
It was never Charles Bigby's argument that all phone booths were dangerous, just that one in particular, the one with the jammed door, the one that sat 15 feet away from one of the busiest intersections in Los Angeles, the one that had been smashed into pieces more than once in less than three years. The phone company and related organizations responsible for the booth were at peak profitability at the time. They had no plans of going down without a fight, and they could afford to have one.
Multiple companies banded together and dragged the case out for years, almost a decade, until it finally ended up being heard by the California Supreme Court. Charles Bigby eventually settled with the companies for an undisclosed amount, affording him the security of never having to work again. But he chose to return to work anyway, albeit in a diminished physical role. The Bigby case was never about greed. It wasn't a get-rich-quick scheme.
It was about a man who lost his ability to work because of an irresponsible driver and a negligent corporation. It was about a man wanting to not live the rest of his life in abject poverty because of the mistakes of others. Yet on May 30th, 1986, in front of a backdrop of uniformed Boy Scouts, President Ronald Reagan singled out Charles Bigby as he recounted cases of so-called frivolous lawsuits that threatened the economic fabric of America.
Reagan gave a brief overview of Bigby's case, but withheld key details, painting the plaintiff in a less than flattering lie. One that made Mr. Bigby seem like an opportunist reaching into the biggest pockets he could find, rather than an innocent victim who was wrongfully harmed. Reagan warned that the laws were being twisted and abused. He warned that legal outcomes were becoming outrageous. And he wanted the whole country to know, because he wanted to build public support for tort reform. My friends, I think you'll agree.
There's still such a thing as common sense. And this ain't it. The time has come for action. Torts are civil wrongs. They're the laws that allow people to hold other people and companies liable for their actions, whether they be intentional like battery or unintentional like driving your car into an occupied phone booth. Torts allow those who have been injured to seek financial damages. And according to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans and their cozy relationship with big business,
Torts hurt business and consumers and needed to be changed. Proponents of tort reform argued that lawsuits like Charles Bigby's were costing businesses millions of dollars every year, which were passed on to the consumer in the form of higher product prices and lost jobs and expensive insurance policies. And in order to fix it, the reformers were fighting to limit a citizen's ability to sue if they had been harmed.
and they wanted to put a cap on the amount of monetary damages an individual or business could be forced to pay if they did find themselves in court. Two months after Reagan gave that speech, Charles Bigby was invited to Washington, D.C. to testify at a congressional subcommittee hearing on tort law. He wanted to use the opportunity to defend himself and clarify the situation that Reagan had intentionally muddied, saying, quote, I think it is very unfair that the president would distort the story.
so they could justify limiting the truth of people who have been injured, like myself. On the stand, Bigby retold the events of what happened that night, and he tried to convince the committee that the damages he was awarded were fair. Quote, On October 2nd, 1974, I looked out and saw a car headed in my direction. At the time, I thought I was going to get hit. I pulled at the door, and the door would not open. I was basically trapped in the phone booth until the car ran over me. I don't know about the other people here,
Later on, in a written statement, Charles Bigby detailed the anguish of a life with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. He wrote,
I know I have to accept it or I will be under mental strain for the rest of my life. I was employed by the city of Los Angeles for 10 years at the time of the accident. Now I'm just trying to get some kind of work so I can feel useful again. I am only 45 years old and I feel like I can continue to work even though there are limitations as to what I can do. But the loss of my leg has put a hold on my life and working career. When I was working for the city, I would take tests for promotions or transfers into another department.
End quote. Charles Bigby died in 1994 at the age of 53, 20 years after his accident and 8 years after he received his settlement. His story lives on because many point to the Bigby case as the birthplace of the battle to reform tort laws.
but it will never be the most famous case cited by tort reformers as the perfect example of a broken judicial system. That distinction belongs to a different case, a case which led to one of the most ridiculed and misunderstood court decisions of all time. An elderly woman is severely burned by a spilled cup of coffee and becomes the laughingstock of a nation, while a corporation measures pain and suffering in dollars on this episode of Swindled.
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On the morning of Thursday, February 27th, 1992, Chris Tiano and his grandmother, Stella Lieback, were returning home from dropping off Chris' uncle at the airport on the southeastern outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Chris was using the trip as an opportunity to spend quality time with his grandmother Stella, who had just moved to Albuquerque from Tucson to be closer to the family. Stella Lieback was 79 years old and widowed, but still as active and articulate as ever. Just the week before, she dug a palm tree out of her yard and painted a ceiling in her new home. Stella was strong and full of energy, but sometimes, like many of us, she needed the boost that caffeine could provide, especially early in the morning.
Stella suggested to her grandson that they stop at the nearest McDonald's on the way back to grab some breakfast and maybe a cup of coffee for the road. Chris pulled into the drive-thru of the first McDonald's he found a little after 8 a.m. He paid for the meal and the 49-cent cup of coffee and handed the styrofoam cup to his grandma in the passenger seat. Stella asked her grandson to pull over in the parking lot momentarily so that she could add cream and sugar to her drink. Chris found an empty spot and put the car in park.
Chris's 1989 Ford Probe may have had a lot of features, but cup holders were not among them. So Stella steadied the cup of coffee between her thighs and began to lift the far end of the lid towards her, accidentally dislodging the cup from her legs and dumping the entire contents of the cup into her lap. Stella screamed at the top of her lungs.
The coffee was scalding and her sweatpants were absorbing it, keeping the liquid in constant contact with her skin and leaving her with no escape. "I 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'. 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."
After exiting the vehicle as fast as she could, Stella ripped off her wet pants. Chris found a bed sheet in the trunk of his car, wrapped it around his grandma, and helped her into the back seat. Stella reported that she was cold and her body was shaking. She said she immediately felt nauseous like she was about to faint. Chris raced his grandmother to the nearest hospital. They arrived at the emergency room downtown to find they completely backed up. The wait was hours long due to a multi-vehicle accident that happened earlier that morning.
Chris hopped back into his car and drove across town to try the Northside Presbyterian Hospital instead. By the time doctors were able to see Stella, about 45 minutes after the accident occurred, she was in such excruciating pain that she went into shock. Medical staff said she almost died. There were third-degree burns on her inner thighs, buttocks, and groin. The pictures are so graphic that I'm not even going to post them on social media. They're horrific, so you're on your own.
Over 16% of Stella Lyback's body had been burned, 6% of which were of the third degree. A burn specialist was called in to remove skin from Stella's outer thighs and graft it to the burns on the insides of her legs, which resulted in significant scarring and permanent disfigurement. Stella Lyback did not get out of bed for three days, not even to use the restroom. She spent a total of seven days in the hospital before hospital staff allowed her to leave.
Doctors recommended that she stay even longer, but Stella refused because she simply could not afford to. She couldn't even afford the $10,000 worth of treatment that she had already received. Stella Lieback was a retired department store clerk. She was living off of meager savings and social security. The little money that she had in the bank was supposed to be used for the down payment on a small house somewhere near her daughter. That's the whole reason she moved to Albuquerque in the first place, but because of this accident,
That money was as good as gone, and she was told that she would need to come up with another $10,000 for continued care. This is Stella Liback's daughter, Judy Allen. Medicare was only going to pay 80%, and so she would have to pay 20%. And we started thinking, why is McDonald's insurance not paying for the medical? I have insurance on my home. If someone comes in and breaks an arm or hurts themselves, I expect my insurance to pay for it. That's...
Judy and her husband Chuck wrote a letter to McDonald's on her mother's behalf. They suggested that the company review the coffee machine and the coffee making process at the store in Albuquerque to determine if their service had been improper. If the store was found to be in compliance with company standards, Judy and Chuck suggested that McDonald's re-evaluate the temperature at which their coffee was served.
And finally, Judy and Chuck requested McDonald's to pay $20,000 for quote, "medical and recuperation bills" to help Stella get back on her feet. McDonald's responded with a counter offer of $800, which the company thought was more than generous. They did not feel responsible for people spilling coffee into their own laps, and it's hard to argue with that, except Stella Lieback never alleged that McDonald's was at fault for the spill.
The argument was that McDonald's coffee, either company-wide or at that Albuquerque location alone, was being served at a dangerously hot temperature. I was not in it for the money. I was in it because I wanted to bring the temperature down so that other people would not go through the same thing I did. Judy and Chuck reached out to McDonald's again, but received no answer. They offered to settle out of court, but McDonald's refused.
Judy and Chuck scheduled mediations. McDonald's never showed up. The company continued denying any liability. They suggested that Mrs. Lieback was at fault for not removing her clothes fast enough, and they suggested that her injuries were more severe because of her old skin. Mrs. Lieback's age may have caused her injuries to have been worse than they might have been in a younger individual. The fast food giant wanted the case to go to trial.
McDonald's was convinced that no jury would punish them for serving coffee the way their customers asked for it, especially not in New Mexico, a state who at the time had never ruled in favor of a plaintiff in a product liability case. McDonald's were confident that they would win. Support for Swindled comes from SimpliSafe.
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This wasn't her lucky break or winning lottery ticket. This was her last resort. Friends of Stella's put her in touch with an attorney in Houston named Reed Morgan. He had handled a similar case about six years earlier in which a Houston woman sued McDonald's after suffering third-degree burns from its coffee. She settled for $27,500. There was also the case in California in 1990 in which a McDonald's employee working the drive-thru had accidentally spilled a cup of coffee into a vehicle.
The woman in the car suffered second and third degree burns and settled out of court for $230,000. It wasn't clear if either of those cases set precedent for the Lieback suit, but it was clear that McDonald's coffee was served extremely hot. Stella Lieback, represented by Reed Morgan, elected to sue McDonald's for gross negligence for selling her a product that was, quote, "...defectively manufactured and unreasonably dangerous." The trial began on August 8, 1994.
Experts and scientists from both sides spent hours arguing over the temperature at which coffee causes burns. A burn expert testifying on Mrs. Liebeck's behalf noted that a liquid at 160 degrees only takes 20 seconds of contact with human skin to produce a third degree burn. It only takes 12 to 15 seconds for skin to burn at 180 degrees. At 190 degrees, a third degree burn can occur in less than three seconds.
Documents revealed that it was McDonald's company policy to serve its coffee at all of its stores at a temperature between 180 and 190 degrees, which was 20 to 30 degrees warmer than any of its competitors. The jury were then shown the gruesome photographs of Stella Liebeck's legs after she had come in contact with McDonald's 180 degree coffee.
Juror Jack Elliott reportedly went home that evening and warned his wife and his daughters to never drink coffee while in their cars ever again. Chris Appleton, the quality assurance manager for McDonald's, was called to the stand to testify. He admitted that the company had not consulted with burn experts about the temperature of its coffee.
and he admitted that executives at McDonald's had decided not to warn consumers about the possibility of severe injuries, even though the company had been aware that its coffee, as it was served, could cause serious burns. This is Chris Appleton confirming the dangers of his company's coffee during his deposition. If you were to take a sip of that coffee, enough to where you could feel it go down your throat, you can't do that at 180 to 190 degrees, can you? Because you'll be burned. You better not do that, you will get burned.
Most importantly, Chris Appleton admitted that the company had no intention of changing any of its policies or procedures because quote "there are more serious dangers than restaurants." Appleton said this after it was revealed in court that McDonald's had been sued over 700 times related to burns from hot beverages, including cases involving infants and children. It was revealed that the company had paid out over half a million dollars in settlements related to those cases.
And yet, McDonald's did not see a problem. In fact, a human factors engineer testifying on the company's behalf completely removed all humanity from the situation by labeling the 700 burn cases as statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of things. McDonald's sells over a billion cups of coffee every year. If only 700 people out of a billion get injured, those are pretty good odds, right?
McDonald's never considered lowering the temperature of its coffee because it never considered the 700 men, women, and children behind each one of those burn cases. The only thing the company ever considered was its bottom line. Coffee at 190 degrees has a longer shelf life than coffee at 160 degrees. If McDonald's were to lower its temperatures, that would mean more coffee, therefore more money, down the drain. And when you're a company that sells literally a billion cups of coffee every year,
That's a lot of wasted money. McDonald's calculated exactly how much money it would lose if it lowered the temperature of its coffee and discovered that it would actually be less expensive to settle any burn case that might come its way. Simple math. It appears that McDonald's has made a business decision to sell the coffee hotter to be able to make more profit. And they continue to make more profit even if they're paying settlements.
This is Stella Lieback's daughter, Judy. It just seemed that they were so arrogant and so it was almost sociopathic that they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. The jury reached a verdict on August 17th, 1994 after hearing seven days of testimony. They assigned 20% of the blame to Stella Lieback for spilling the coffee on herself and the remaining 80% of the blame was assigned to McDonald's because of the extensive list of injuries caused by its coffee.
McDonald's history of treating human lives as statistics was all it was needed to sway juror Betty Farnham, who told a reporter, "...there was a person behind every number, and I don't think the corporation was attaching enough importance to that." Mrs. Liebeck was awarded $160,000 in compensatory damages, which was equal to $200,000 minus the 20% for which the jury found her at fault.
and since McDonald's was found to have engaged in willful, reckless, and malicious conduct, Mrs. Liebeck was awarded punitive damages in the amount of $2.7 million. The jury wanted to punish McDonald's for their past inactions and encourage them to change the temperature of their dangerously hot coffee. That amount, $2.7 million, was based on how much revenue McDonald's typically collected from two days of coffee sales.
Judge Robert Scott would later reduce the amount of punitive damages from 2.7 million to 480,000, basing that amount on what's known as treble damages, which equates to three times the amount of compensatory damages. Stella Lieback and McDonald's eventually settled for a confidential amount that was later reported to be even less than that. The fallout from Lieback v. McDonald's was almost immediate.
The story was picked up in newspapers around the world because of the sensational millions of dollars that she was never truly awarded. Media outlets and news programs ran bite-sized versions of the story until the facts became so distorted that the American public was foaming at the mouth. Coffee is supposed to be hot. Why was she driving the car and drinking a hot beverage at the same time anyway? She's a greedy opportunist. She does not deserve $2.7 million. According to many,
Stella Lieback had made a mockery of the justice system, so every late night talk show host and prime time sitcom took it upon themselves to make a mockery of Stella Lieback. Even members of the jury were receiving phone calls from angry people all over the country.
Public opinion, which was based on incomplete and inaccurate information, was clearly on the side of McDonald's, and the Republicans harnessed that anger during the 1994 midterms and pitched a singular message called the Contract with America, led by this man, Newt Gingrich. But it tells you something. It tells you something about how out of touch they are with the American people.
The Republicans' Contract with America for Americans contained a section called the Common Sense Legal Reform Act.
which, if passed, would place a cap on punitive damages and weaken product liability laws. It even contained a provision that was dubbed "loser pays," which required the losing party of a lawsuit to pay the winning side's legal costs. The bill was criticized for unjustly discouraging the poor from suing anybody, much less a corporation with a bottomless bank account. If the GOP could pass that bill,
the next Stella Lieback would never get their day in court. 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. On November 8th, 1994, the citizens of America, with the Stella Lieback case fresh in their minds,
voted overwhelmingly for Republicans in the midterm elections. The Republican Revolution had arrived. The party gained control of both the House and the Senate, which meant that they could at least get their agenda on the president's desk. And so they did. But when the Common Sense Legal Reform Act landed in front of President Bill Clinton on May 2, 1996, the bill was vetoed. Today I am returning to Congress without my signature.
the product liability legislation sent to me this week. I take this step because I believe this bill tilts against American families and would deprive them of the ability to recover fully when they are injured by a defective product. I am eager to sign legislation to make our legal system work better at less cost in a fairer way. But this bill would hurt families without truly improving our legal system.
It would mean more unsafe products in our homes. It would let wrongdoers off the hook. I cannot allow it to become law. One of my duties as president is to protect the health and safety of our people. Parents should know the toys their children play with are safe. Families should know the cars they drive will not explode upon impact. Our grandparents have a right to know the drugs and the medical devices they use will not injure them.
It is a hallmark of our system of justice that when a product produces injury or death, a family has the right to try and recover its losses. And if someone endangers the health of the public, he or she should be held responsible. A momentary setback for tort reform at the federal level, but the battle had just begun. Coincidentally, soon after the Clinton veto,
Tort reform organizations, such as the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, began popping up in almost every state in the union.
Okay, maybe not a coincidence. And definitely not grassroots.
In order to pass tort reform legislation at the state level, lobbyists and corporations, by way of the GOP, began funding quote "citizen groups" to run advertisements about how frivolous lawsuits led to fewer jobs and lower wages. The carefully orchestrated astroturfing campaign, which continues to this day,
is an attempt to convince the public that they are harmed if businesses are saddled with the ridiculous costs of paying off people who are actually harmed.
The efforts to reform tort law is not the only aspect of this case that has continued. You've heard it said that history repeats itself. 20 years after a woman was awarded $2.9 million by a jury for serious burns she suffered to her legs after a hot cup of McDonald's coffee spilled on her lap in Albuquerque. A California woman has sued the fast food giant. McDonald's has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions, to settle hot coffee lawsuits.
The temperature of McDonald's coffee remains at 180 to 190 degrees. The company faces dozens of coffee burn related cases every year. And they're not alone. Starbucks, Burger King, Chick-fil-A,
Dunkin Donuts, Wendy's, and even some hospitals have been taken to court over the temperatures of their coffee. Are all of the lawsuits legitimate? Probably not, but that's for a jury to decide. For as long as that remains an option, anyway. Luckily for coffee drinkers and businesses who are tired of getting sued, technology has evolved. Most coffee cups contain lids with sipping holes and lips to prevent spillage.
There's no longer any need to lift the entire lid to add cream and sugar. Hot beverages are also usually housed in some kind of cardboard sleeve to protect your hands. And best of all, most cars are now equipped with cup holders. And most cups are equipped with giant caution labels warning about the hot temperatures contained inside. None of these things are foolproof, but the effort and cost is worth it if even one person avoids the pain and suffering that Stella Lieback experienced.
Most of Mrs. Liebeck's settlement money went towards paying for a live-in nurse. Her daughters say the burns, the court proceedings, and the media blitz took their toll on their mother. Stella Liebeck never wanted this to happen. She never wanted to be the face of frivolous lawsuits. She tried to move on with her life, but was constantly reminded about her accident by references in pop culture. It was on TV. It was on the radio. It was inescapable. Stella Liebeck died in 2004.
She was 91 years old. After this happened, she never got to a point where she could, if her little dachshund dug a hole in her stones in the backyard, she couldn't take a rake and it was very difficult for her to even cover that up. So she never regained the quality of life she had before. Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with music by Ethan Helfrich, a.k.a. Rest You Sleeping Giant.
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I look at a different cult each episode, examining the group's leadership, beliefs, recruitment methods, member experiences, and any notable incidents during its existence. It's a monthly podcast with a heavily researched, deep-dive storytelling style. That's Let's Talk About Sects, and the website is ltaspod.com for all your podcast provider links. Hope you'll have a listen.
In the episode Dimebag...
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