Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“We’re talking about general damages now, pain and suffering. I’m going to use that McDonald’s personal injury claim for spilling the coffee on the person’s lap, for example here. I know that once the award was appealed it was lowered, but why would a jury award so much money for spilt coffee?”
Spencer Freeman – Personal Injury Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“The easy reaction to that is ‘everybody knows coffee is hot’. I mean, like you spill it on yourself. But the issue, I think, in that McDonald’s case, is exactly how hot that coffee was, and the understanding that it actually caused severe burns that required skin grafts, in order to heal those burns and heal the patient. And it left scarring. So, the jury saw that, and saw that this was going to be a lifelong damage and lifelong process. Yeah, the damage (award) was reduced by an appellate court, but not that much.
A jury made a determination that, while coffee is hot, it should never be that hot, and should never cause that type of damage to a person. So, you’ve got to really focus in on some details about the case before you pass your own judgment on what a jury did with the case.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“You see, those are the details that most people don’t realize. All they hear about is…somebody spilt some coffee, I mean, McDonald’s spilt some coffee on a person’s lap in the drive-thru window, and they got an incredible amount of money. That’s what’s rattling around in their head.”
Spencer Freeman – Personal Injury Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“Yeah, but what the jury saw is pictures of the damaged skin in the groin area of this person. The number of surgeries that it took to get this person back to a pain-free living, if that was even achieved. It was significant. It’s not just as simple to say…’it’s spilled coffee’. I mean, there were some significant injuries.”
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