Liebeck v. mcdonald's restaurants pdf
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Stella
Whether you know her by name or not, I promise that you have heard of Stella Liebeck. Born in Norwich England in 1912, she has the distinction of having lived through both World Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dawn of the internet age.
The reason you know of Stella, however, is due to the events that transpired on February 27, 1992 in a McDonalds drive through. Stella is the woman who famously sued McDonalds because their coffee was too hot.
As soon as the lawsuit became public, Stella was lambasted by national and global media as the grossest example of a frivolous lawsuit the court system had ever seen. She won her lawsuit and was awarded 2.7 million dollars. But her reputation was permanently destroyed because of the media attacks. Still today, 30 years later, her story is still used as the punchline of late-night TV jokes.
I am not going to comment on whether Stella deserved her 2.7 million or not. I am not here to offer my judgement. I am here to say simply, that there is a little more to this story than
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I’ve long been pissed off over the case of Stella Liebeck. You remember her, right? The woman who spilled some McDonald’s coffee on herself while carelessly careening down the highway and then scored a million-dollar jackpot when her high-priced lawyer convinced a credulous jury to stick it to a deep-pocketed corporation.
Except, not quite. In fact, Liebeck’s burns were extremely serious, she wasn’t the first person this happened to, and when people learn the facts of the case and view the actual injuries they almost always change their minds about it. Scott Lemieux summarizes in a review of a new HBO film, Hot Coffee:
Saladoff’s film lays out the real story in lucid detail, and no matter how many times the suit was used in Jay Leno monologues there was nothing funny about it. Liebeck was not careless, but spilled the coffee when she, as a passenger in a parked car, took the lid off the cup. The spill did not cause a trivial injury, but severe burns that required multiple operations and skin grafts to treat. McDonald’s, which served its cof
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May it Please the Court:
I know quite well that not all of lawsuits are frivolous abuse of the American Justice System. Many cases indeed involve real issues, real injuries, and deserve real compensation. And some don’t. That’s why I stress that you should read the cases before you judge.
How about, for instance, Stella herself? Much of the coverage about Stella Liebeck has been grossly unfair. When you have a more complete summary of the facts, you might change your mind about her. Or they may reinforce your thoughts on the case.
Her lawsuit was filed after an incident on February 27, 1992. Did you know the following aspects of the 1994 Stella vs. McDonald’s case?
The Usual Facts Recited
- Stella was not driving when she pulled the lid off her scalding McDonald’s coffee. Her grandson was driving the car, and he had pulled over to stop so she could add cream and sugar to the cup.
- Stella was burned badly (some sources say six percent of her skin was burned, other sources say 16 percent was). She needed two years of treatment and rehabilitation, inc
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