Remember how McDonalds was the victim of a baseless lawsuit? Well, it wasn't actually the case, but that sure benefitted corporations who can now assert most lawsuits against them are frivolous.
The ACLU would not take the Skokie case today’: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/14/the-aclu-would-not-...
Former ACLU board member Wendy Kaminer:
The ACLU Retreats From Free Expression: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...
to complaints of sexual violence. We will continue to support survivors.”
The ACLU Declines to Defend Civil Rights: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/aclu-devos...
Their coffee is just as hot nowadays and to lower the temperature to the degree to where the effect on Stella would have been meaningfully different would result in lukewarm, under-extracted coffee that fewer people would be interested in. Further, the sheer quantity of Mcdonalds coffee moved every year without incident implies user error, rather than product error.
Yes, I know what the jury said and how they divided up the blame. I disagree with their conclusion.
Citation needed.
Stella's own doctor testified[1]:
>Lowering the serving temperature to about 160 degrees could make a big difference, because it takes less than three seconds to produce a third-degree burn at 190 degrees, about 12 to 15 seconds at 180 degrees and about 20 seconds at 160 degrees.
The NCA (a coffee industry group) recommends[2] holding at a temperature of 180-185, due to "rapid cooling", and consuming at or below 140.
Stella's injuries were exacerbated by:
* The hot coffee permeating through thin sweatpants and being held against the skin.
* Her age - 81 years old at the time of the injury. Older skin is damaged more easily[3], and would also have implications for her mobility (how fast she could remove the soaked sweatpants)
Some experiments [4] show that coffee served at 180 will cool to around 162 in 5 minutes, 148 within 10, and 138 within 15. 70% of Mcdonalds business is through the drive-through [5], so must customers would be getting their coffee to go.
The question I'm unable to find a satisfactory answer for is how long it takes the average customer to receive their order and return home. I could probably figure that out if I knew how far the average customer was from their store, but that information is not readily available.
If holding at 180 results in optimum drinking temperature of around 130 in about 15 minutes (per 4), then this is the optimal temperature to hold at for product quality if the average customer lives within 15 minutes of a Mcdonalds.
If you were to hold at 160, using the info from [4], the coffee would fall below this optimum temperature in about 10 minutes and require reheating, which alters the flavor.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150923195353/http://www.busine... (page 4, bottom)
[2]: https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Brew-Coffee
[3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3377829/ (It is widely accepted that elderly burn patients have significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Irrespective of the type of burn injury, the aged population shows slower recoveries and suffers more complications.)
[4]: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/mathematics/equation-to-mode...
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonalds-meeting-idUSKBN...
Bringing up Stella Liebeck makes me feel irrationally hostile; I've had a negative reaction to people "busting the myth" of that lawsuit on the internet for probably 20 years.
I certainly believe that suing corporations with deep pockets is a reasonable and moral way to deal with medical bills in a country without universal health care. It's not a good system, but if you can get away with it, why not?
And I know well that on average, the scourge of frivolous lawsuits against corporations is a myth, because I've worked in the legal industry and have a perspective based on many other lawsuits.
And if McDonald's served coffee without a properly secure lid, or some other defect then they should be held responsible for every penny of damages.
However, I am irritated by anyone who may insist that it is a "fact" that serving coffee which is hot (but less than 212 deg) is negligent in itself. And if I continue to see this "myth busted" or "fact checked" for the next 20 years, it's not going to change my opinion, because assuming I live that long, I'm going to be boiling water for coffee on my stove almost every day.
It was known by management to be dangerous; that was done deliberately so that people would be forced to sip slowly, to discourage refills. Ain't negligence in light of intent
The point I'm trying to make is not that coffee should be hot, because I know arguing that is futile.
The point is, that framing this as a disagreement about readily available facts is incorrect and if you habitually interpret people's opinions/values this way, it warps your sense of reality to your own detriment.
I think anyone who wants to prevent me from getting hot coffee is not a nice or reasonable person, and I feel threatened by any implication that I would be in the wrong for making hot coffee if someone else spilled it. But these are facts about me, not about the rest of the world. As such, you don't have to accept them, but you can't invalidate them with facts about the world either.
But its also true that responses, like the one you linked to are also often one-sided. And what would you accept from an association of lawyers who make money launching such suits?
The truth is, its not as simple as either side tries to make it out to be. I think the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau..., does a good job of presenting pertinent details from both sides.
> McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
> Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns in three to seven seconds.
They might also be interested to know it was composed primarily of dihydrogen monoxide, a lethal chemical agent known to be the proximate cause of hundreds of deaths each year. They are describing boiling water.
Even if McDonald's did the wrong thing, it is a frivolous lawsuit. I serve boiling hot tea to all my guests, it isn't negligence. The case as described seems to be that McDonald's should be civilly liable for serving a hot beverage in a styrofoam cup to a customer who asked for a hot beverage and could easily detect it was in a styrofoam cup.
You hand styrofoam cups out your window to guests you know won’t be staying? Curious social habit.
> a customer who asked for a hot beverage
Coffee is brewed at very high temperatures but is rarely - if ever - consumed at those same temperatures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18226454/
For most people, getting a cup of coffee that is near boiling would make for a very unpleasant surprise.
https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-107-pop-torts-an...