Don't Cry Over Spilt Coffee

A hot topic!

by Sean Carter
06/16/04

Ten years ago, Stella Liebeck made national headlines when she was awarded $2.9 million for accidentally spilling McDonald’s coffee in her lap. This verdict made the elderly grandmother the butt of as many jokes as Rosie O’Donnell, which is a quite an accomplishment considering the relative sizes of their butts. Furthermore, this lawsuit became a rallying cry for the proponents of tort reform.

Well, surprisingly, ten years later, her attorney is at it again. In July, S. Reed Morgan will battle McDonald’s over a similar incident. Once again, the issue is whether McDonald’s coffee is too hot.

Hasn’t McDonald’s been sued enough already? Apparently, some people won’t be happy until a Happy Meal is as costly as a home in southern California; only the Happy Meal will be likely much larger.

Already, McDonald’s has found itself in such dire legal straits that it has resorted to offering a Go Active! Happy Meal complete with a pedometer. Yes, McDonald’s is handing out pedometers to us fat slobs in the drive-through who are too lazy to get out of our cars and walk into the restaurant in the first place.

Besides, if you’re going to sue someone about their coffee, then perhaps, you should sue a coffee shop like Starbucks. In fact, I’d support a lawsuit against Starbucks just for making its menu so complicated. After all, even a nuclear physicist would be as clueless as the CIA at Starbucks. After all, who would ever imagine that the name for the smallest coffee size is a “tall?” And if anyone should be sued for having hot coffee, it should be Starbucks. At least, McDonald’s serves its coffee in a cup that absorbs some of the heat. Starbucks serves its coffee in a cup that has the thickness of toilet paper; one-ply toilet paper at that.

Nevertheless, I still wouldn’t even support a lawsuit against Starbucks for serving coffee that is “too hot.” After all, isn’t coffee supposed to be hot? Is there really a market out there for room temperature coffee? Of course, some argue that coffee can be served hot but just not “too hot.” And at the very least, the consumer should be warned that the coffee is hot.

On the other hand, perhaps the fact that steam is rising from the cup should provide just a little bit of hint that the liquid is hot. Should it really be necessary to put warning labels on the side of the cup?

“Coffee is hot! Don’t pour in your lap!”

And who would such warnings help anyway? If you aren’t bright enough to know that coffee is usually served hot, then I strongly suspect that reading isn’t your forte. In fact, the person who needs this warning label is likely to pour coffee right into their eye as they attempt to read the lettering on the cup.

The bottom line is that [stuff] happens. People who use knives sometimes cut themselves. People who drive cars sometimes have accidents. And people who bet on any horse to win the Triple Crown lose their shirts. Therefore, we shouldn’t use our courts to try to change the facts of life any more than we should use our laps as cup holders. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the drive-through.”

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Sean is a practicing attorney who writes a weekly humor column on current legal events called "Lawpsided." Lawpsided pieces appear in a growing number of general circulation papers across the country, including The Los Angeles Times. Moreover, his musings on the law appear on nationally recognized websites, such as jewishworldreview.com, findlaw.com, newsmax.com and etherzone.com, and legal publications, such as The National Law Journal and The Los Angeles Daily Journal. Lastly, he is a regular contributor to national magazines like Razor and Tirade. If you would be interested in publishing this piece or seeing other samples of his work, please feel free to contact him by e-mail, by phone at (626) 786-2095, or through his website at:

www.lawpsided.com