In 1992, a seventy-nine year old Albuquerque woman (Stella Liebeck)
bought a coffee from a McDonald’s drive through. Her grandson was
driving and he parked the car so she could add cream and sugar to the
drink. She put the cup between her knees and pulled the lid toward her –
inevitably the coffee spilt in her lap. She sued McDonald’s for
negligence because she claimed the coffee was too hot to be safe.
Unbelievably the jury found that McDonald’s was eighty percent
responsible for the incident and they awarded Liebeck $160,000 in
compensatory damages. But it gets worse: they awarded her $2.7 million
punitive damages! The decision was appealed and the two parties
ultimately ended up settling out of court for a sum less than $600,000.
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