She sued McDonalds because the coffee gave her severe 3rd degree burns over her groin, thighs and buttocks. The coffee served at McDonalds was found to be a minimum of 20 degrees hotter than any other restaurant's coffee in Albuquerque. It sounded like BS to me until I read the facts of the case and the fact that McDonalds is a giant, morally corrupt corporation that does not give a damn about anything but profit. They just figured, "screw her...she won't win". Watch the movie, "Supersize Me", it's very enlightening.
Public opinion is squarely on the side of McDonald's. Polls have shown a large majority of Americansincluding many who typically support the little guyto be outraged at the verdict. And radio talk-show hosts around the country have lambasted the plaintiff, her attorneys and the jurors on air. Declining to be interviewed for this story, one juror explained that he already had received angry calls from citizens around the country.
It's a reaction that many of the jurors could have understoodbefore they heard the evidence. At the beginning of the trial, jury foreman Jerry Goens says he "wasn't convinced as to why I needed to be there to settle a coffee spill."
At that point, Mr. Goens and the other jurors knew only the basic facts: that two years earlier, Stella Liebeck had bought a 49-cent cup of coffee at the drive-in window of an Albuquerque McDonald's, and while removing the lid to add cream and sugar had spilled it, causing third-degree burns of the groin, inner thighs and buttocks. Her suit, filed in state court in Albuquerque, claimed the coffee was "defective" because it was so hot.
What the jury didn't realize initially was the severity of her burns. Told during the trial of Mrs. Liebeck's seven days in the hospital and her skin grafts, and shown gruesome photographs, jurors began taking the matter more seriously. "It made me come home and tell my wife and daughters don't drink coffee in the car, at least not hot," says juror Jack Elliott.
Even more eye-opening was the revelation that McDonald's had seen such injuries many times before. Company documents showed that in the past decade McDonald's had received at least 700 reports of coffee burns ranging from mild to third degree, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.
Some observers wonder why McDonald's, after years of settling coffee-burn cases, chose to take this one to trial. After all, the plaintiff was a sympathetic figurean articulate, 81-year-old former department store clerk who said under oath that she had never filed suit before. In fact, she said, she never would have filed this one if McDonald's hadn't dismissed her requests for compensation for pain and medical bills with an offer of $800.
http://www.vanfirm.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm