The media has a great influence on how varied audiences perceive various issues in the society. The MacDonald’s spill incident which, led Ms. Liebeck to file a law suit against the coffee shop, was greatly misinterpreted by the media. The plaintiff had bought coffee at the restaurant and while trying to add sugar and cream, the coffee which is normally served between 180 and 190 degrees, spilled on her causing her third degree burns, hospitalization for 8 weeks and medical bills amounting to an approximate 11,000 USD, not to mention she was disfigured for two years . Two years after the accident, she approached the company looking for compensation for the medical expenses she had incurred but the company only offered 800 USD. The media had little knowledge on the facts of the case and the story has since been told differently. The media turned the case into an urban legend and a film by the name Hot Coffee was produced. The media reports how Ms. Liebeck was awarded billions by the jury and they tagged it the million dollar coffee suit. They dismissed the case as a mere case of a frivolous law suit. Other facts overseen by the media include the fact that the 2.9 billion figure awarded by the jury was reduced to 480,000 USD and the plaintiff still settled for a lesser figure of 160,000 USD.
McDonalds lost the case due to a number of reasons which are provided by the tort law. The tort law allows one to be held liable for harm caused to a third party by their actions. The company lost the case on grounds of a defective design, inadequate warning, negligence and misuse of warranty . Coffee is meant to be hot and the company had been serving it at temperatures of between 180 and 190 for many years since research showed that people loved their coffee hot and coffee brewers and manufactures recommended the temperatures to ensure that all the coffee was dissolved in order to give the coffee its best possible taste. The plaintiff had also been taking the same coffee for several years and as such the coffee should not have been ruled out as defective design after an incident. A beverage can only be considered as defective if the consumer did not actually expect the particular characteristic that led to harm. A waning in the incident of a spill was actually caused by the manner in which the plaintiff handled the coffee. Unless the plaintiff was unaware of the product she was handling, McDonald is not liable for the spill. The company also did not in any way breach warranty since their business is to serve coffee which is ideally served hot. McDonald as a business have the obligation to deliver what the consumer wants or else they will lose business to competition.
The jury was misguided by various facts which include the temperature and the effect of the temperature. Medical practitioners admitted that temperatures above 170 degrees are bound to cause third degree burns which often lead to disfiguring within three minutes of exposure to the skin. The jury did not consider the fact that the coffee is not meant to get in contact with the skin. In McDonald’s argument, they argued that billions of consumers take the coffee while a small percentage suffered from similar incidences. In previous years the company had solved several of these cases by compensating the plaintiffs . The jury also overlooked the fact that most businesses are targeted by the public on grounds of tort laws. If businesses keep track of every lawsuit that is filed against them, most businesses will close or become too intimidated to invent products a certain way even though the public demand stipulates so. Facts such as the product in question were overlooked. For instance, if the McDonalds decided to serve its coffee at lower temperatures the impact this decision would have on the business and consumers was overlooked. Other facts include the circumstances under which the spill happened; it was as a result of the actions of the consumer. Had they decided to handle the coffee differently they would have probably avoided the burns. The jury probably realized these facts in order to reduce the figure from 2.9 billion USD to 480, 000 USD which the plaintiff turned down for a lower figure of 160,000 USD.
References
Gain, K. G. (n.d.). The McDonald's Coffee Law Suit. The Journal of Consumer and Consumer Law, 14-19.
Hartigan, R., sava, M., & Ostas, D. T. (n.d.). Critical Thinking and the McDonald's Hott Coffee Case: A Pedagogical Note. Southern Law Journal .
