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.

    • Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • chaogomu@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Jay Leno did the most to further that hit job. He spent months spreading lies, all while McDonald’s became a major sponsor of his show.

        • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          it also made it onto Seinfeld, it was also pushed by Republicans and their mouthpieces (Fox) that the country ia going to hell everyone can sue for anything bla bla bla, typical moral panic stuff.

          that shit was so widespread I heard about the anyone can sue rhetoric about the USA as a kid, and I am from Slovakia

          • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            As ALWAYS with conservatives it’s just a reflection of themselves. They sue people more often and for bigger sums.

          • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Well the “anyone can sue” is very much a real thing. But you can also counter-sue to recover “reasonable legal fees” (court costs, attorney fees) etc. if it’s found to be exceptionally egregious and litigious.

            But most of the cases you hear about are similar to the Maccas one where there are giant details left out of the public narrative.

            • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              it’s a real thing technically, but not realistically and it’s no different than in Slovakia, if you have a dispute here you can sue too.

    • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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      1 year ago

      What I don’t understand is how she was appealed down to $480K, but the family in FL got $800K for not warning that the nuggets were fresh out of the fryer. The former was way, way, worse.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What’s nuts is that she originally only asked for like $32k to cover the cost of the fucking skin grafts she needed.

      • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The only thing I can think of is maybe the '91 case wasn’t adjusted for inflation? That would make it a little over 1 mil today

    • Omega@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I just corrected someone about that last month who was using it as complaint about society. They had no idea about the details.