TIL In the Hot Coffee lawsuit against McDonalds,punitive damages were given due to McDonalds intentionally overheating coffee to save money on refills
TIL In the Hot Coffee lawsuit against McDonalds,punitive damages were given due to McDonalds intentionally overheating coffee to save money on refills
During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald's hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.
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The woman's scalds were almost enough to kill her. She spent weeks in hospital and needed skin grafts. To make it worse, McDonald's had received multiple complaints about the temperature of their coffee.
Her lawsuit was just to help cover the medical expenses. McDonald's didn't want a precedence of being sued so their PR cooked up a narrative of greedy frivolous lawsuits and America bought this story hook line and sinker.
She even started out planning to accept the $800 oopsie poopsie money McDonald's offered her until her family was like "um. No? You've gone from independent living senior to permanently disabled. You deserve for them to pay the full medical bills"
It fused her labia together. The coffee was so hot and the burns were so bad that her labia fused together.
how the fuck does coffee even get that hot?
Step one: keep it on a hot plate that keeps it at 200° so that you can serve it longer
That is all the steps
There is an additional step:
- Serve it in a disposable container that doesn't soak up any of the heat.
Pouring hot coffee into a thick cold porcelain cup, tends to quickly cool it down to drinkable levels. A flimsy paper cup... not so much.
And now imagine giving that to a person in a moving vehicle without a lid.
There's so much fucked up here it's almost unbelievable. This is legitimately a bigger safety risk, after all is said and done, than many risks in an industrial chemical plant.
Good point
but water only goes to 100 degrees, even with other stuff dissolved i can't imagine a water-based liquid going much higher than like 120 degrees at most..
200 Fahrenheit. That's 93.3C. Just below literal boiling.
Edit for more information, an adult human will suffer 3rd degree burns if exposed to 150F (65.5C) liquid for two seconds. This was 133% hotter than liquid that will cause 3rd degree burns. And it was poured directly in her lap, soaked into cloth that she could not easily remove. This was straight up evil levels of negligent.
Just a quick note but neither Celsius nor Fahrenheit degrees can be used the way you’ve described - 200°F isn’t 133% of the temperature of 150°C and neither is 93.3°C 133% hotter than 65.5°C because the ‘zero’ point on both of those scales are entirely arbitrary.
The two temperatures you’re talking about are ~366.45 K and ~338.65 K, as kelvin is the only true SI measurement for temperature whose zero point describes a natural or true zero, meaning that the higher temperature is roughly ~8% hotter.
Brought to you by the National Department of Pedantry
I was a bit annoyed at the nitpickiness of this comment until I saw that you're from the NDP. I salute your good work and consider myself more educated.
Nice
To add on, even when something isn't boiling, it'll generate an appreciable amount of vapor. The boiling point is just the temperature at which bubbles form within the liquid. The top surface is still going to give off hot steam. I honestly don't know if near boiling vs boiling is a meaningful distinction in terms of how dangerous it is.
I wonder actually if a boiling liquid would be slightly safer because there's more vapor and less liquid.
They're using the stupid units.
We're talking bald eagle units
Humans being fragile creatures is how
So if you get 3rd degree burns on your pelvic area and you go to the hospital, they should just tell you to stop being fragile?
What? No, hot water is bad because people are fragile. I was being serious; this isn't some jab, it's just life
Sorry, I misunderstood your post. It seemed like you were saying she was weak and fragile for getting burned. I read it as she should have “rubbed some dirt on it and walked it off”.
Don't worry dude. I understood what you were saying. Not sure why so many people took it a weirs direction
They had a slush fund set up specifically to pay out settlements for coffee burns.
They knew it was a problem, but decided it would be cheaper to pay off burn victims than to serve their coffee at a safe temperature.