Background[edit]
Burn incident[edit]
On February 27, 1992, A 79 year old lady by the name of Stella Liebeck, who was from Albuquerque, New Mexico, went thru the McDonald’s drive thru with her grandson Stella ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee at this time she had her grandson Chris park the car so that she could add cream and sugar to her coffee. Chris’s car was not equipped with cup holders therefore Stella put her coffee between her knees in order to add the ingredients.
. In the process, of removing the lid from the coffee, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap, at the time Stella was wearing cotton sweatpants; therefore they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin, the coffee ended up scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin
Stella went to the hospital and was diagnosed with 3rd degree burns over 6 percent of her skin which was the largest amount of burn, the other 16 percent had lesser burns, she was admitted to the hospital where she stayed for 8 days, during this time she underwent skin grafting surgery’s, she also lost 20 pounds as well as going through 2 more years of medical treatment due to the burns, while she underwent skin grafting
Liebeck attempted to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 which would have covered her expenses as well as medical bills as she had figured out altogether the totals would have come up to approximately 18,000 altogether. This also included the income loss she had, McDonald’s corporation only offered Stella 800.00 and would not compromise on the offer, she then hired an attorney who took the case to a New Mexico court, he attempted to settle before it went this far and the McDonald’s corporation would not.
The case is considered by some to be an example of frivolous litigation, this could have been solved differently in most situations, even though this was thought of as a frivolous lawsuit McDonald’s was not willing to take the offer before an attorney was involved within...