McDonald’s is being sued over a hot coffee spill, again.
This time, a San Francisco location is being accused of serving a “scalding” cup of coffee with an improperly attached lid, which allegedly resulted in the coffee pouring out on plaintiff Mable Childress’ body and causing “severe burns” after she tried drinking it.
The lawsuit, filed last week, alleged that the elderly woman is suffering from “physical pains, emotional distress and other damages.” The restaurant’s negligence was a “substantial factor” for her injuries, it alleged.
Childress also said in the lawsuit that the restaurant employees “refused” to help her, a point that the McDonald’s denied.
In case anyone still has misconceptions about the famous case that came before. McDonald’s spun public opinion, but she had a legitimate case. https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E
Beat me to it. I remember as a teenager hearing adults laugh about this, “how could you not know coffee is hot?? Hahaha”. Holy shit the McDonalds PR really fucked that lady over. It wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned the reality of the situation and how horrific her burns were.
Fuck McDonalds.
Just want to add that this wasn’t just McDonald’s spinning it for their own purposes, it was part of a larger effort of tort reform - spreading the conception that people are suing for everything, even hot coffee hur dur, so that the public would support things like caps on pain and suffering damages and punitive damages. Corporations wanted more leeway to maximize profits(the reason McDonald’s coffee was so hot was because they could get more coffee out of the beans that way), even if it hurt people, and the public jumped right on board. This was part of the same strategy as denigrating plaintiffs attorneys as “ambulance chasers” and the like. It got to the point that even when people were harmed, they still wouldn’t sue because they didn’t want to be lumped in with “those entitled people suing over everything”. It became a point of pride to get fucked over by corporations and to do nothing about it. Really disgusting how easily the public was manipulated by all that.
I’m not going to watch the video since the case was covered in both my business law and ethics courses, but absolutely do not look up the images of her injury.
It’s brutal.
“Fused labia”
The name of my garrage band.
I just corrected someone about that last month who was using it as complaint about society. They had no idea about the details.
McDonald’s should be considered guilty unless proven innocent given their track record. Nail em to the wall lady!
They were guilty of making coffee to hot years ago. I have no idea how they were sued for 800k off of selling removeden tenders that were still hot.
Edit: Is the term chicken actually sensored? Appears it shows now, strange
The “en” isn’t censored but the first part is, I thought maybe you’d misspelled “fucking” to “fucken” and it censored that. Maybe just chick is somehow censored? Testing testing c h I c k chick chicken …
Edit: no, and now I just sound like a very hungry madman.
Thanks for the support.
Also C h i c k chick chicken sounds like a fats food commercial we’ll see in the coming years.You can’t test it. It’s Lemmy.ml that has the extremely strict filter.
I’m honestly surprised this doesn’t happen more often than it does, considering how much coffee McD’s sells.
They’re supposed to serve it at a safe temperature, and they usually do.
tbh I’m not sure how they managed to overclock their coffee maker. Did they just heat it up on the stove?
Yep, wife used to work for Starbucks. You’re supposed to check/calibrate the thermostat on the machine on a regular basis so you get the coffee hot but not boiling, third degree burns hot. For whatever reason, it has to be done because the thermostats will gradually deviate from their initial settings. If you fail to check your thermostats, eventually someone’s going to burn the fuck out of themselves with a hot drink. Water, which is the main ingredient in any coffee product, has an enormous heat capacity, and will absolutely fuck your shit up before you have a chance to do anything about it.
IIRC, McDonald’s was either deliberately tampering with their thermostats or just failing to check them when that famous case went down, which was how they were found to be negligent.
I don’t think I understand how it can be hotter than 100 celcius.
I’m not defending McDonald’s here, they can rot.
Like, coffee is mostly water, and water boils at atmospheric pressure at 100c. Milk boils slightly more than 100. I guess the lid would pressurise the steam a little? Maybe the coffee grinds hold the heat far more than the water? I wouldn’t have thought it would be diluted too much to make a difference.
I guess this is a stupid question, because it happened. But how can boiling water cause third degree burns in the quantity of 500ml? I thought it’d have to be much more than that and very prolonged?
Half a liter of boiling water will absolutely do damage, especially if you’re restrained to a seat and can’t get away from it. The water that comes out of your tap at home is probably only in the 140s, max, and that’ll do some damage.
I’m also not certain anyone said the water was greater than 100c. I think the seminal case involved water that was 180-190 degrees F or something, and that it’s standard to be closer to 150 or so, which is essentially as hot as your tap gets at home.
OK cool.
It was me that said it can’t go above boiling, 100. I was just under the impression that it would burn of course, but third degree burns was surprising to me. Burning away the epidermis and nerves of the skin entirely seemed to me to require a much higher temperature. I guess I’m wrong, probably because of clothing holding the heat around the skin.
Thanks.
I know your question about the burns is already answered by others but its important to consider that the generally accepted optimal temp for extracting the flavour from coffee beans is approx. 90-95°C, and hotter gives the coffee a more ‘burnt’ or less favourable flavour, so your coffee shouldnt be that hot. Further to this if you drink your coffee with milk, the milk is frothed at about 65°C which would bring the overall temp down a little more.
This is all in an ideal world where Maccas actually gives a fuck if their coffee is ‘good’It’s prolonged because the spill happened on clothing, so the boiling water is held on to the skin instead of just running off.
That makes sense. Thanks.
This person likely doesn’t have a case. The reason McD lost the first coffee case was because at the time they were offering free coffee refills, so they cranked up the temperature so people wouldn’t have time to sit and drink multiple cups.
Dozens of people had already been injured by this practice by the point the famous injury happened, and the courts had already warned McD to stop.
Your ignorance of the nuanced details of the case is showing
background: podcast episode about the McDonalds Hot Coffee Case on You’re Wrong About
Who doesn’t like coffee hotter than the surface of the sun?
Click for a humorous take of coffee at the arches.
Although I think maybe it’s a move by their marketing department - bad news is still publicity.
Pathetic.
Wonder how long before the “Stella awards” start mysteriously showing up all over social media again.
Childress also said in the lawsuit that the restaurant employees “refused” to help her, a point that the McDonald’s denied.
What aid did she expect the minimum wage mc donalds workers to provide? They could have handed her napkins and called an ambulance but I’m pretty sure providing first aid is well outside their job description and training. Even then, first aid for burns would just be removing any clothing covering the burned area (that isn’t stuck to the wound) and then running cold water over the area. Then, depending on the extent and degree of the burns, you get them to a hospital. I’m not sure if this is another 3rd degree burns “fused labia” situation, but if it is then the article really glossed over that fact.
Maybe she expected them to act like human beings, but apparently that’s too much to ask.
And do what? That’s what I’m asking. What was she expecting them to do that they didn’t do? What actual action did she expect them to take that they didn’t take? What is “acting like a human” in this situation?
You’re implying that these people were being selfish assholes but I can’t think of anything they could have done. Yes this lady is now covered in hot coffee. The employees can’t just magic that coffee off of her, even though I’m sure they wished they could have in that moment. They have napkins available. That’s the only means they had available to remove the coffee short of stripping an old woman in a mcdonalds which would have opened them up to all sorts of other problems. As I said in my origional post, they could have given her napkins and called an ambulance. You can’t just undo a coffee spill and there is very little you can do for large burns in the field.
How about take her in the back and give her ice from the ice machine until the ambulance arrives?
See and now you’ve already screwed up. You never put ice on a burn. Burns damage nerves and by putting ice on it you are very likely to just cause frost bite as well. That’s why I said cold water in my origional comment. Aditionally ice machines are always full of nasty bacterial growth that you’ve now just smeared into a fresh wound.
Thats why I said first aid was likely outside of their training. Not to mention they are all likely specifically instructed to never allow people “in the back” and would risk being fired for doing so.
Um… I didn’t suggest they take her pants off and put the ice directly on her burn. I’m not an idiot.
Ignore this guy, his entire comment history is just corporate bootlicking.
I think you might be though. Or a child, or bad AI. Or an idiot. One of those.
And now you’re blocked. Reddit behavior does not interest me.
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For 15 bucks an hour it sure as fuck is too much to ask. Fuck your stupid ass for not expecting coffee to be hot.
I didn’t realize you sacrificed your basic human decency when your pay was low.
Yup
Well why not just kick the woman a few times while she’s writhing in pain? No reason to be moral or humanitarian because you’re not being paid enough to care about other people. That takes being paid more, not having a basic moral code.
Way to take something way out of context and sensationalize it. Good job Fox News.
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Obvious money grab.
How’s that corporate boot taste?
Yep. I doubt her fucking labia were fused together. The first case was a real issue and McD was clearly in the wrong. This one? McDonalds + hot coffee spill != automatic money.
Next the are gonna get rid of coffee
“Next” “they”
Who are they? And next implies they’ve taken something away already. What has been taken from you?
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The ice cream
Fuck off!
No, you frig off Ricky! Frig off!
Starts taking off pants to prepare to fight
This was actually pretty good made my day better after a terrible day at work thank you. 😂
