[nemo]

Something like that. Perhaps you might like to read all about it? I am sure you are aware that cases like this are primarily significant in their individual details, and not in vague generalizations.

"What coffee is not a burn hazard?"

All coffee is a burn hazard, though the higher the temp. the greater the hazard.

Please, if you'd like to reply, and want to refer to burns, do me the huge favor of referring to "third degree burns." It's one of those things that indicates the difference between discomfort and hospitalization, very germane here, especially in the distinction between specific facts and vague generalizations.

[marcosdumay]

I've suffered 3rd degree burns more than once, I'm luck they were small. I've burned myself with boiling water, hot pans, soldering irons, weird kinds of fire... I've been inside an ethanol explosion. I can begin to understand how large burns feel, and the little that I can imagine is already plain horrible.

But none of that changes the fact that coffee is a hot drink. When you go into some store, and order some potentially harmful item, you should expect to get a potentially harmful item, and handle it accordingly. It's not the store's fault if you fail at doing so.

(As an unrelated note, insulating cups are dangerous in that they enable careless handling. It's again not the store's fault, consumers demand those cups, but it's something worth warning people about.)

[TheCoelacanth]

Coffee is a hot drink, and it can reasonably be expected to cause burns. However, McDonalds served its coffee at a higher temperature than anyone else in the industry and had been previously warned that their coffee caused more severe burns that would be reasonably expected.

Had McDonalds served their coffee at a temperature that a reasonable person would expect it to be served at, they would not have been liable for any burns caused by the coffee. This is why you don't see Starbucks getting sued for coffee burns.

McDonalds wasn't sued for serving coffee that is hot enough to cause burns. They were sued for knowingly serving coffee hot enough to cause burns far more severe than a reasonable person would expect and far more severe than the burns caused the coffee served by the rest of the industry.