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Comment by harry8 | Hacker News Reader

Still seems totally ridiculous that it would go to court. 180F is 82C. If you're stupid enough to burn yourself with it (and I am) blaming someone else for your stupidity and suing is not moronic, it's amoral. The problem of medical bills is one to take up with your elected representatives rather than blaming coffee for being coffee ffs.

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IIRC one of the issues in the case was that the coffee was being served as if it was immediately consumable despite the fact that it was in a state that made it impossible to consume without injury.

It's as if I served you a plate of lutefisk after the "soaking in lye" stage but before the "soak in water to get rid of the lye" stage.

Edit: oh, and that serving it that way was corporate policy and that there had been hundreds of prior problems, some also involving injuries. I suspect the "corporate policy" part was a big factor in the punitive damages portion of the case which was based on 2 days of coffee sales.

I'm upvoting you since this is a common mistake. We think people should use common sense when dealing with hot coffee. I've spilled coffee I made on myself plenty of times. It burned and made my skin a bit red. That's all. Since that's what hot coffee usually does.

Then, to cut costs, McDonalds raised the temperature of their coffee without telling people what it could do. I personally lost the ability to taste anything after taking one sip. Came back after a day or two but no coffee has ever done that. Then, this woman gets third degree burns from something she expects to hurt and make her skin red at worst.

That's nothing even a smart person or coffee junkie should expect to happen. It's unusual. That's because it was a dangerous thing McDonalds did to squeeze more money out of their operation. The danger damaged people who couldn't see it coming. They should pay for it.

> Then, to cut costs, McDonalds raised the temperature of their coffee without telling people what it could do.

How does raising the temperature of coffee cut costs?

It is better able to extract flavors from the coffee grounds, of which you therefore need less.

It was a combination of things in the legal text I read a while back. For one, they were having to brew coffee more often to keep it at the desired, sane temperature. Two, the coffee quickly turned to a mild temperature on the road for some customers that drove a lot. They dramatically increased the temperature to reduce number of pots brewed & attract that one demographic more. They also didn't tell anyone the new temperature could cause 3rd degree burns.

Profit went up with most people taking damage thinking they couldn't win against legal team of a giant. They just put in complaints instead of lawsuits. The suit that won got watered down a lot on appeal. The marketing team combined with the media, which makes a fortune on McDonalds ads, turned her into a laughing stock. McDonalds added a warning or something afterward but the cost-benefit analysis was good enough to justify all of it.

If someone asks for a coffee you'd just casually hand them a cup capable of causing third degree burns (which the lady did suffer)? Seems too hot. I mean, if you spill this on yourself your skin will end up looking like a hot dog roasted over a campfire; third degree burns mean the skin is charred.

Hot Coffee lawsuits constantly come up in the US court system at temperatures that were as hot or hotter than the coffee in the Liebeck case, and they almost always gets thrown out as frivolous (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... ). The liebeck case was more of an exception than the rule.

Also, 180 degrees is considered standard serving temperature for coffee according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and a host of companies serve at this temperature as well. While some might complain this is still too hot, I would not say that mcdonald's serves it's coffee UNUSUALLY hot.

As I understand it coffee lasts longer at higher temperatures, so the incentive to keep really hot coffee is economic beyond just customer preference.

source?

Some TV piece at least ten years ago.

McDonalds made this claim during the court case. they said holding coffee at 180f to 190f maintained optimum taste.

McDonald's were serving coffee hotter than most other places. (And hotter than coffee made at home.) McDonalds had already settled on previous cases (700 or so) where customers had been burned by hot coffee. McDonalds decided that this number of injuries is insufficient to cause them to change their practice. (Remember that some of these people also had full thickness burns, which is a significant injury with life long scaring.)

The coffee was hot enough to cause full thickness ("3rd degree") burns. It remained hot enough to cause these burns after they left the restaurant, and after a short drive.

Warning labels do not work - if warning labels worked no-one would ever get a speeding ticket. A warning label on the side of coffee is ignored by the people making it and the people drinking it.

A jury looked at the facts of this case and decided McDonalds was negligent and that the woman deserved punitive damages.

Although, if you hate this lawsuit, most of them (and they continue to happen, McDonalds didn't change the temperature of their coffee after the case) get thrown out of courts.

They didn't settle on 700 cases. They had received that many complaints.

Their coffee was way too hot. It was ridiculous.

What does "180F is 82C" prove? Does water boil at a high temperature for smart people?

> What does "180F is 82C" prove? Does water boil at a high temperature for smart people?

Why so hostile?

Not everyone who reads HN is from an imperial or customary units country. The inline conversion provides context for those readers, in addition to being a natural form of speech, the same way you might say "60 meters? That's like 200 feet! How can they hold their breath that deep?".

I really don't think GP was lording primary school math skills over the HN populace.

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