I'v not heard of Stella awards before, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who in 1992 spilt hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You may remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving.
She was awarded $2.8 million in damages Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head.
So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella’s for 2020:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.
Keep scratching, there are more.
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next-door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.
Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot.
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilt soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
Only two more so ease up on the scratching
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down? $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home
Kubotai
New Reader
10/29/20 1:49 p.m.
Funny stories. Snopes says they're fiction, but still funny.
Theres so much more to the crotch coffee story than stand up comedians would have you believe. McDonald's was repeatedly told that the coffee was too hot, a few degrees below BOILING. They chose not to comply. Lady gets 3rd degree burns on her lady bits. Hires a lawyer. They ask McDonalds to pay for reconstructive surgery. They play Big Corp games, until a judge finally awards a huge settlement to the plaintiff because of it.
In reply to Appleseed :
That's the way I understand it too.
Mr_Asa
SuperDork
10/29/20 2:04 p.m.
Yeah, the hot coffee thing was 100% on McDonald's. All the jokes and stories about it being her fault are corporate propaganda designed to protect McDonald's reputation.
Do you know how bad 3rd degree burns are? The skin is removed. It doesn't actually hurt because your nerves are so severely damaged.
And she spilled it in her lap.
berkeley McDonald's.
And apparently the award to the woman was only a few HOURS of coffee profits for McDonald's.
Not to mention, the award was a punishment for McDonalds that was intended to make others take note, including McDonalds. Other important parts not yet called out: Stella was in the passenger seat. Her grandson was driving, a Ford Probe. He parked the car so she could put cream and sugar in. When she pulled the top off, it accidenally spilled.
Ever spilled hot coffee on yourself? I have. Ever burned yourself doing that? I haven't. I've had coffee that was way too hot. Still gave me at most a 1st degree burn on my mouth.
Huh, I actually learned something in my insurance class in college.
Come on guys! Don't let the facts get in the way of a perfectly good story!
Looks like this one goes back to 2001: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stella-awards/
Even tho these appear to be false, none of them start with a man in Florida..
dps214
HalfDork
10/29/20 4:28 p.m.
My favorite part of the mcdonalds coffee case was that they had clearly done the math that it was cheaper to get sued every now and then than to fix the problem. This was something like the eighth lawsuit over similar situations over the course of a few years. And she only sued for medical costs (something like $20k IIRC), but between the history of cases and mcdonalds' attempt to lawyer their way out of paying out what was, to them, almost no money, the judge went for the punitive punishment of $3M. Which still really wasn't very much but enough that it was actually noticed.
Probably my second favorite part is that every time the real story is written about it's always specifically mentioned that the car was a ford probe, which isn't actually important to the story in any way.
JACK (V.O.)
Take the number of vehicles in the
field, (A), and multiply it by the
probable rate of failure, (B), then
multiply the result by the average
out-of-court settlement, (C). A
times B times C equals X...
CUT TO:
INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - MOVING DOWN RUNWAY
Jack is speaking to the BUSINESSWOMAN next to him.
JACK
If X is less than the cost of a
recall, we don't do one.
BUSISNESS WOMAN
Are there a lot of these kinds of
accidents?
JACK
Oh, you wouldn't believe.
BUSINESS WOMAN
... Which... car company do you work
for?
JACK
A major one.
dxman92 said:
Even tho these appear to be false, none of them start with a man in Florida..
That's how we know they're false
Mr_Asa said:
Yeah, the hot coffee thing was 100% on McDonald's. All the jokes and stories about it being her fault are corporate propaganda designed to protect McDonald's reputation.
Do you know how bad 3rd degree burns are? The skin is removed. It doesn't actually hurt because your nerves are so severely damaged.
And she spilled it in her lap.
berkeley McDonald's.
She was also the first to actually be successful, because several McDonalds workers had also been badly burnt in the same way before her. Problem tho, is they didn't have money and her skin between her legs literally melted together.
McDonalds was enormously effective in slandering her, and made Americans believe we're tossing out frivolous lawsuits left right and center.
After losing the case McDonalds actually replied to the case that they "couldn't figure out how to lower the temperature" of the coffee. I heard one of the lawyers speak once and he said maybe they could do whatever they do with their fries cause they are never hot.
GIRTHQUAKE said:
Mr_Asa said:
Yeah, the hot coffee thing was 100% on McDonald's. All the jokes and stories about it being her fault are corporate propaganda designed to protect McDonald's reputation.
Do you know how bad 3rd degree burns are? The skin is removed. It doesn't actually hurt because your nerves are so severely damaged.
And she spilled it in her lap.
berkeley McDonald's.
She was also the first to actually be successful, because several McDonalds workers had also been badly burnt in the same way before her. Problem tho, is they didn't have money and her skin between her legs literally melted together.
McDonalds was enormously effective in slandering her, and made Americans believe we're tossing out frivolous lawsuits left right and center.
The last thing we need at this time is more contention so I'll tread lightly and be quick to distance myself from this thread.
I'm no expert on this specific case but I can imagine McDonald's knowing exactly what temperature makes the greatest number of customers the happiest...coffee too cold = it's not enjoyable unless consumed quicker than most customers want to consume it...coffee too hot = those few people that have a spill may be injured.
We could easily create a mathematical model characterizing the increased profits resulting from the coffee being hot enough to satisfy customers and the increased settlements resulting from the coffee being too hot and find the intercept between the two.
Obviously, McDonalds is profit driven but one could absolutely show that the temperature they serve their coffee at strikes the optimal balance between satisfaction and risk. To not acknowledge this is to accuse McDonalds of having some nefarious desire to harm people.
Others in this thread have pretty much made the same point...I'm just hoping to add the clarity that profits and giving people what they want are ultamately the same thing.
Mr_Asa
SuperDork
10/29/20 8:49 p.m.
In reply to RX Reven' :
The coffee was a couple degrees shy of boiling. No one drinks it that hot.
I believe the reason they (and ultimately the majority of customers) liked it that hot was because most will not go straight to drinking it. The process of pouring it, organizing the order and handing it to the car, then whatever delay to drinking with the rather poor thermal qualities of the cups, will cause some drop, and people like hot coffee.
There is no reason why McDonalds would be doing it unless most customers wanted it that way.
Mr_Asa
SuperDork
10/30/20 2:24 a.m.
No one drinks coffee that hot. Home coffee makers are in the 135-145°F range. The coffee was in excess of 190°F. This will cause a third degree burn in under 5 seconds.
McDonald's had admitted internally that this temp was a hazard. They literally stated in court that the coffee "was not fit for human consumption at the time of serving." You might be able to argue that those in cars won't drink it immediately, but around 1/3 of their business is inside. Its criminally negligent to serve coffee that hot to someone that might drink it within 5 seconds of getting it.
McDonald's admitted that there was no warning that the coffee was that hot, and that the public should not expect it to be that hot.
Previous to Mrs. Liebeck's lawsuit there were over 700 reported cases of injury due to the coffee temp. Men, women, children, and infants were burned by this coffee and McD didn't give a E36 M3. With the amount of coffee sold they were willing to risk injury to their customers and settle with them legally.
All of the above is a matter of public record and can easily be verified.
McDonald's is a corporation. Corporations don't give a E36 M3 about people. They should not be defended when they cause people harm.
What newspaperman said "when the legend outgrows the truth, print the legend"
Urban legend told us that McD loves us, so she had to be wrong, and everybody on the actual court must not have seen the pictures with the circles and the arrows...
You really should stop trying to shatter opinions about this with actual facts. You know the popular (or smartest worded) opinion HAS to be right.
Yeah, this woman has been demonized for decades for her frivolous lawsuit against poor little innocent Macdonalds megacorp. I dont know how much money you would have to pay me to pour 190 deg coffee on my junk, but I know it would be berkeleyin lot.
Mr_Asa said:
In reply to RX Reven' :
The coffee was a couple degrees shy of boiling. No one drinks it that hot.
Factually incorrect. My office has a Bunn coffee maker. The temp is adjustable on those and ours is set to max. Figure 190+ degrees. My business partner pours a cup of coffee, then sticks it in the microwave for 30+ seconds because the machine isn't hot enough. He makes several trips back to the microwave throughout the morning to keep it hot a hell. Personally I don't know how he still has flesh in his mouth but he hates coffee that isn't boiling hot.
I make coffee using 190 degree water every morning. Cooler than that and it doesn't brew properly using the pour over method. Granted I don't drink it that hot but it's certainly made that hot and when it goes in the cup it's probably better than 185.
McDonalds was wrong, but not because of the temperature. They were wrong because of the history of injuries, and their failure to respond.
I owned a coffee shop. Coffee is routinely served between 160* and 185*. Espresso is typically served between 195* and 205*. Google it.
Coffee shops are always dealing with finding the balance between customer experience and causing harm by scalding.
It's still stupid to hold it between your legs.
BTW... ALL companies make decisions that are financially driven and put people in harm's way. That's why OSHA exists.
Apparently nothing gets people more pissed off than Stella Liebeck and McDonalds.
In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :
With the system McD's and all commercial systems use, it's very easy to separate the brewing temp with the holding temp- they are separate heaters. And if your co-worker want's coffee that burns his mouth- he can increase the temp. To make people suffer because the occasional person wants to drink boiling water isn't exactly the optimum path.
Oddly enough, it saves electrical energy to keep the storage at drinking temp vs. the brewing temp- since one is on 100% of the time, and the other is on only when you are brewing.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
McDonalds sells 500 million cups of coffee a year in the US alone. Stated earlier there were 700 instances of injuries due to hot coffee in the 10 years prior to the ladies suit. So that's 50 billion cups of coffee served over a 10 year span. Figure out the percentage of injuries. By my math, McDonalds does a outstanding job of safely serving coffee and a very few people shouldn't handle hot liquids.
