From: "Gaft, Sam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Subject: [tips] RE: FW: Stella Awards
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:07:24 -0400
To Parollee Pisacreta,
Maybe the winter has been a bit severe up there in Big Rapids but there is
more to the Stella story:
THE MCDONALDS HOT COFFEE CASE
I. Remember the McDonalds Hot Coffee Case?
A. A woman spilled hot coffee on herself and won a gazillion dollars
B. With so much negative publicity about this verdict, lets look at the
case from
the womans side.
C. Here some facts of the case that you may not have known
II. Facts of the Case
A. The woman was 79-year-old Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
B. She earned $5,000 a year as a sales clerk.
C. One February a.m. in 1992, Stella and her grandson drove through a
McDonalds drive-in to buy food and coffee.
D. She sat in the front passenger bucket seat of her sons Ford Probe car
E. She was wearing sweat pants. (That becomes important later)
F. Chris drove the car away from the drive-in window and stopped so Stella
could add cream and sugar, but she had trouble getting off the lid.
G. So she placed the styrofoam cup between her legs, thus freeing up both
hands to remove that lid.
H. The coffee cup tipped over, spilling hot coffee over Stellas legs,
groin and
buttocks.
I. She suffered the most severe kind of burns3rd degrees burnsover 6% of
her 79-year-old body.
1. A third degree burn means that all the layers of the skin are burned
completely through, called a full thickness burn.
2. She went through skin grafts where skin was shaved from one part of
her body to place it on top of the burned areas.
3. She was in severe pain.
4. Her medical bills totaled more than $10,000.
J. Two weeks later Stella wrote McDonalds to tell them about the coffee
spill,
and her burns.
III. The Lawsuit
A. One year after the accident she filed a lawsuit against McDonalds,
alleging
the hot coffee was not only hot butin facttoo hot.
B. In legal language we call that product liability. The lawsuit said the
coffee
was manufactured defectively due to its excessive heat.
C. Simply put: Stella claimed the high temperature of the coffee presented
an
unreasonable risk of injury.
IV. How Hot is Too Hot?
A. McDonalds brews coffee at 195 to 205 degrees and then keeps it for sale
to
customers at between 180 and 190 degrees.
B. Theyve been doing that since at least 1978.
C. McDonalds said thats the temperature recommended by the national
coffee
associations to get maximum flavor from coffee.
D. It said many people dont actually drink the hot coffee until they get
to work.
E. McDonalds argued: everyone knows coffee is supposed to be served hot, so
that could not have been a surprise to Stella. Warning hot is printed on
coffee
cups.
F. Coffee is unsafe to drink at 180 to 190 degrees, and will cause burns to
the
throat if swallowed within the first few minutes. Can cause severe burns at
130
degrees.
G. More than 700 people have reported burns from drinking McDonalds coffee
over the years, and despite the large of number of burn complaints, the
company
continues to serve it at least 180 degrees.
H. One burn specialist said it took only a fraction of a second at 180
degrees to
produce a serous burn; at 130 degrees it would take 30-40 seconds.
I. Stellas Sweat Pants: the hot coffee soaked through them and it took her
about
30 seconds before she could pull them away from her body.
J. McDonalds argued: in previous coffee burning cases, courts have focused
on
the person who spilled the coffee, and never before had found that the
coffee
itself was defective because of high temperature.
1. In a case in Pennsylvania, a woman also placed a cup of hot coffee
between her legs and was burned when it spilled.
2. The court said: a purveyor of hot coffee cannot be held liable for
burns
sustained by a customer when an external force causes the beverage to
spill.
3. The company argued that it has sold more than 10 BILLION cups of
coffee over the years and yet received very few complaints.
a. It admitted it has strengthened and tightened its styrofoam
coffee cups and stamped a warning on them, a warning that its
competitors have not done.
K. McDonalds admittedand this may be the reason for the huge punitive
damage awardthat it had not reduced the temperature of its coffee, and has
no
intention of doing so, even though it has known since 1983 that people were
getting burned from spilling coffee.
1. McDonalds said more than 700 persons have been burned at its
stores, most from hot coffee.
2. McDonalds called that figure statistically trivial.
3. A witness for the plaintiff called that remark corporate callousness.
L. McDonalds also admitted people over 65 are at an increased risk for
coffee
spills.
1. Coffee-drinking customers are probably not aware that they can get 3rd
degree burns if they spill coffee on themselves, especially if they cannot
escape the hot liquid within a very few seconds of the spill.
2. Stella said she saw a warning on the cup: Caution contents hot, but
said, What you dont expect is a cup of coffee to be so hot that it would
burn you.
3. Coffee-drinkers over age 65 are especially susceptible to coffee burns
4. their vision is not as good, and neither is their grip strength-- their
ability to grasp the coffee cup without spilling it.
5. They tend to drop things easier and their temperature perception isnt
good: they have trouble detecting temperature differences.
M. Survey of restaurants in Albuquerque found coffee was served below 160
degrees; and other fast food chains sold their coffee below 180 degrees.
N. Experts said a safe range for serving coffee is between 150-165
degrees.
1. At 185 degrees when spilled, the temperature would drop to 165
degrees by the time it hits the body and when it soaks through the sweat
pants it will cause severe burns. That takes about 25 secondsnot a very
long time to get out of clothes, especially if you are over 65.
2. But coffee served at 155 degrees would cool to 140 degrees by the
time it hit the body and take a significant longer time (about 60 seconds)
to
cause serous burns, time enough to get out of the clothes.
O. Experts said coffee served at 185 degrees will cause 3rd degree burns in
3-10
seconds. Stella was exposed for 25 seconds. At 170 degrees it takes 20
seconds
and at 155 degrees it takes 60 seconds.
P. McDonalds says it sells one BILLION (one thousand million) cups of
coffee
each year nationwide. Thats nearly 2-and-a-half million cups a day.
V. The Verdict
A. After hearing all the evidence, the jury found that McDonalds was 80% at
fault
and Stella was 20% at fault.
B. It awarded Stella $160,000 to compensate her for her injuries, and also
gave
her $2.7million in punitive damages.
C. The trial judge, however, later reduced the entire judgment to $450,000.
D. McDonalds did not appeal.
VI. You Be The Judge
A. If you had been on the jury how would you have voted?
B. Was it Stellas fault for trying to add sugar and cream while sitting in
a car?
C. Or was in McDonalds fault for selling coffee so much hotter than any
other
place?
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Pisacreta, Ph.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Fri 2/16/2007 3:04 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] FW: Stella Awards
Richard Pisacreta, Ph.D.
parolled Psychology professor
Feris State University
Dept. of Social Sciences
>
>It's time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella
>Awards."? The "Stella Awards" are named after 81 year-old Stella
>Liebeck of New Mexico who spilled hot coffee on herself and
>successfully sued McDonald's.? That case inspired the "Stella Awards"
>for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United
>States.
>
>Here are this year's winners:
>
>7th Place:
>Kathleen Robertson of
>Austin:State Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after
>breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running around
>inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably
>surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler
>was Ms. Robertson's son.
>
>6th Place:
>19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses
>when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman
>apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when
>he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
>
>5th Place:
>Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had
>just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
>garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was
>malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door
>connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The
>family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the
>garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a
>arge bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming
>the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the
>tune of $500,000.
>
>4th Place:
>Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and
>medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door
>neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced
>yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog
>might have been just a little provoked
>at the time by Mr. Williams, who had?climbed over the fence into the
>yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
>
>3rd Place:
>A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
>Lancaster,Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and
>broke her
>coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had
>thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
>
>2nd Place:
>Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a
>night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom
>window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred
>while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies
>room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000
>and dental expenses.
>
>And in : (Drum roll please....)
>This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma
>City,Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago
motor
>home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven
>onto the freeway,
>she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat
>to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV
>left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago
>for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually
>do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The
>company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just
>in case there were any other complete morons around.
>
>
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