During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald’s hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.
It was used as the definitive “Frivolous Lawsuit”, but… in reality McDonalds just told Media Companies “Make us look like the victim here, or we’re pulling our precious advertising dollars.”
And media did a bang-up job portraying the victim as a petulant child who is too dumb to drink coffee. Classic corporate Uno reverse card.
The good news is the only way they’re able to get away with it was because the internet hadn’t caught on as much, and because this was before the media was afraid of catching defamation lawsuits.
I just wish the victims lawyers had responded to those claims with the pictures of that poor woman’s third degree burns. she suffered horrifically and for years.
Fortunately we have actually come aways since then, if a company tried that kind of stunt today, Not only would they be called out for it online, but they would also likely catch a second lawsuit for defamation.
hopefully, she deserved so much better.