FOOD NEWS
By C.A. Pinkham
You Probably Have The Infamous McDonald's Coffee Story Incorrect
If you grew up in the '90s, you probably remember the infamous McDonald's coffee story, where a woman spilled hot coffee on herself and sued the Golden Arches.
If you've thought the McDonald's coffee lawsuit was a tale of one woman's hubris and the legal system that unfairly gave her money for it, you've had the entire thing wrong.
In 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a black coffee from McDonald's after being driven there by her grandson, then spilled it on herself.
Liebeck acknowledged that the spill itself was her fault, and the lawsuit was about McDonald's serving their coffee at an absurdly hot temperature, roughly 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
Liebeck suffered severe third-degree burns to her legs and genitals, requiring a lot of surgery. She just wanted them to pay the $20,000 for her medical bills.
McDonald's knew serving coffee this hot was dangerous because they'd gotten 700 reports of people burning themselves. They insisted this was how customers wanted their coffee.
Although the jury awarded her $2.9 million, she settled with the company for $600,000. McDonald's had to change how they heat their coffee and stop setting the machines so hot.
The full story is not often remembered as McDonald's essentially used the story as a disinformation campaign to dissuade future similar lawsuits by crafting a false narrative.