McDonald’s and Hot Coffee
Posted by: roscivs, in UncategorizedOver fifteen years ago, Stella Liebeck sued McDonald’s in a case that was to become world-famous. It has since been popularized as the stereotypical frivolous lawsuit, with references in popular culture from Seinfeld to Weird Al.
Recently this stereotype has undergone some backlash, with many defending the lawsuit as being completely reasonable, pointing out that Liebeck received third-degree burns from the coffee, maintaining that McDonald’s was serving coffee at ridiculously high and dangerous temperatures unfit for consumption, without any warning.
I don’t typically drink coffee. I don’t particularly like coffee. But I tend to agree with overlawyered.com that the popular perception of this case—that it was a frivolous lawsuit—is in fact the correct one. Here are some of the cogent points from the article:
1) The industry standard for serving coffee is indeed around 180 degrees. The National Coffee Association recommends 180-190 degrees. Many other restaurants, such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Wendy’s, and Burger King serve coffee at a similar temperature.
2) Stella’s cup did in fact have a warning about the high temperature of the coffee (although I would think this should be obvious).
3) Complaints about the temperature of McDonald’s coffee were not common, which I would expect them to be if its coffee were indeed served at temperatures unfit for human consumption.
In any case, I don’t think McDonald’s will have this sort of problem with their new iced coffee.
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April 18th, 2007 at 3:49 am
While I don’t disagree with you, I do disagree with the tone of the blog to which you linked; I also have a nagging question that no-one seems to want to answer. First, common sense isn’t the property of any “wing” of our extremely narrow electorate; one can be pretty far to the left and still see that this is frivolous (she did, after all, defy common sense by sitting in a puddle of scalding coffee for over 90 seconds). However, neither you nor the source you cited nor the sources they cared to cite explained why the “industry standard” is 170-200 degrees Fahrenheit. Is it to make “better coffee”? Is it to “maximize the flavor”? Probably not; as you point out, iced coffee is a big thing now.
Also, note this: Ms. Liebeck was the only one of 13 cases of scalding to succeed, yet she gets blasted for having succeeded. Clearly there was a problem to some degree (pun slightly intended) with the cups, or the coffee itself, or the fact that people are silly enough to order 200-degree beverages and then get on the 50mph-minimum expressway and drive like maniacs.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I agree that the tone was a little over the top, and focused more on more debatable points of the case than I would have liked.
In any case, I think the problem lies entirely with the people silly enough to order 200-degree beverages and then drive like maniacs.
Oh, and the reason I’ve seen cited for that temperature is simply because it makes the coffee taste better. Something about releasing more of the flavor from the grounds. (I’m obviously not a coffee connoisseur.)