[DanBC]

McDonalds had ignored requests from CDC about correct brew temperature of coffee. They were serving extra hot coffee despite being asked not to, and despite having had several previous accidents where people were injured.

She initially asked for her medical costs to be covered. McDonalds declined, so she went to court.

Full thickness burns are not a trivial injury. She was at risk of death. Treatment is painful and takes a long time. She would have been left with scarring and perhaps loss of function - because a fast food chain didn't care about customer safety.

Do you have access to a thermometer? Try measuring the temperature of a cup of coffee that you make at home tree minutes after you've made it.

[ams6110]

Most McDonalds use standard commercial Bunn coffee makers. Their coffee is about the same temperature as any other restaurant that uses those.

[joezydeco]

Having worked in an actual McDonald's store back in those days, the holding temperatures on the coffee pots were set higher than normal drinking temperature.

The reasoning for this was because people would buy their coffee in the drive-thru or lobby and take it home to drink. The whole concept of actually drinking it in the car was not considered when the holding temps were specified by corporate, not to mention spill-type accidents.

[phyzome]

That may be why the temperature was set the way it was initially, but a big part of the court case was that they had had many instances of people burning themselves on the coffee and had decided it was cheaper to settle repeatedly.

[joezydeco]

Sorry, I was only rebutting the parent comment about how the coffee urns were not set to a temperature different than any other restaurant.