When I was age three my mom sat down a cup of coffee and as soon as she did I jumped up and grabbed it burning my stomach pretty bad and had to go to the hospital. No scars but she was questioned by child protective services, luckily my mom knew the lady questioning and they knew she wasn’t abusive or negligent (had pretty great parents all-in-all!) Just crazy for me to think because of this one mishap these people could have taken me from them! Accidents happen, it’s impossible to be perfectly safe but maybe this is why I still hate coffee lol.
As for the McDonalds case, I didn’t realize the burn was so serious but I still can’t see how this could come to legal discourse. Ronald McDonald didn’t put that coffee between her legs sheesh. Though I will say it didn’t look like she was just doing this to make a buck like I have heard many say. I wonder if the number of self-inflicted coffee spills went up after hearing about the settlement.
If this submission be right, McDonald’s should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 °C will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald’s were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55 °C and 60 °C. But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85 °C and 95 °C. Further, people generally like to allow a hot drink to cool to the temperature they prefer. Accordingly, I have no doubt that tea and coffee served at between 55 °C and 60 °C would not have been acceptable to McDonald’s customers. Indeed, on the evidence, I find that the public want to be able to buy tea and coffee served hot, that is to say at a temperature of at least 65 °C, even though they know (as I think they must be taken to do for the purposes of answering issues (1) and (2)) that there is a risk of a scalding injury if the drink is spilled.
The smell (and therefore the taste) of coffee depends heavily on the oils containing aromatic compounds that are dissolved out of the beans during the brewing process. Brewing temperature should be close to 200 °F [93 °C] to dissolve them effectively, but without causing the premature breakdown of these delicate molecules. Coffee smells and tastes best when these aromatic compounds evaporate from the surface of the coffee as it is being drunk. Compounds vital to flavor have boiling points in the range of 150–160 °F [66–71 °C], and the beverage therefore tastes best when it is this hot and the aromatics vaporize as it is being drunk. For coffee to be 150 °F when imbibed, it must be hotter in the pot. Pouring a liquid increases its surface area and cools it; more heat is lost by contact with the cooler container; if the consumer adds cream and sugar (plus a metal spoon to stir them) the liquid’s temperature falls again. If the consumer carries the container out for later consumption, the beverage cools still further.
I guess it really depends how you view aggression and intent within the chain of causality. I personally think claim is legitimate but the fine outrageous. I would think it’s sensical for someone in a drive through to assume their food is immediately ready to consume just as it would be sensical for a restaurant to assume someones car has cup holders.
No one drinks coffee at 180 degrees. The quote you posted says coffee shold be mantained at that temperature if its not going to be served immediately. I have used a thermometer on my beverages in the past, I doubt anyone drinks hot beverages at more than about 125. In fact I would like to see you drink something at 150 hahaha
Since 2006 McDonald’s sells approximately half a billion cups of coffee each year. Even if the sales numbers would be lower in the 90s I would bet they are not significantly lower. So are the remaining consumers for that half a billion cups of coffee from McDonald’s just masochists?
Google ‘best temperature to drink coffee’ and get back to me. The worst you’re going to find is 155-175 degrees with preference towards the higher end of that range. And as I’ve already stated, the temperature served is not the same as the temperature drank anyway due to how quickly the coffee can lose heat just through the act of moving the liquid in the cup.
I did and I found a lot more diversity of opinion than you apparently did. So I guess we just got burned by google’s user-targeted search results. Although I do agree that “the worst” is 155-175 with preference towards the higher end.
The customers probably wait for coffee to cool down.
In fact, because there is a history of people scalding themselves on McDonalds coffee, this makes the lady’s case weaker.
Imagine some knife company was sued because someone chopped off his finger using one the company’s razor-sharp knives. Should the company pay the damages? I think the answer is whether there was a reasonable expectation that the knives would be razor-sharp.
the company should not have to do anything, i think it would have been a nice thing to pay the medical bills, but that would just be being nice, perhaps set up a community fund to help the woman out.
How does any of that change or impact any of what I said? I suppose if we polled McDonald’s customers, we’d find they’re more likely to be coffee experts familiar with the case law and chemistry, or are they more likely to be average people on their way to work who want a drinkable cup of coffee? I’m not saying she has a legal case because her rights have been violated, or that McDonad’s executives/employees should go to prison, or even pay if they don’t want to. However, I can see how a perfectly reasonable human being would think the drink was a bit hotter than necessary seeing as how it removed her flesh upon spilling. The knife analogy is off too. Knives are made to cut, there’s an inherent and understood specific danger there. And while there is a danger of burn with hot coffee, that’s a bit understated compared to what actually happened to her. “Warning: Contents Hot” doesn’t quite encompass the severity of what happened to her when she spilled it.I don’t know a single reasonable human being who upon seeing her burns doesn’t at least think twice as to just how fucking hot McDonald’s really needs to make their coffee.
Look, if a woman is raped, is it her fault? No. No one deserves to be raped. However, if she was walking nude through central park at 3 AM, does she deserve it then? No. No one deserves to be raped and she has every right to walk naked in the park. However, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t take her aside and gently suggest that doing so is not a great idea. We’re not talking about her natural rights or the right of McDonald’s to sell fucking lava if they want to. Something happened to her which seems to most people to be way out of proportion to what should be possible as an acceptable risk in those circumstances. In that case, as a matter of civil, not criminal law, and be it through government or private courts, I don’t see it as unreasonable for people to expect, not compel, McDonald’s to pony up a little something to cover the pound of flesh the spilled coffee seared off her fucking legs.