The McDonald’s scalding coffee lawsuit brought by Stella Liebeck in 1992 is well-known enough that the Legal Eagle himself talked about it on YouTube (I got to it first, thank you very much). We both revealed that there was more to this case than met the eye. The Goliath Effect had a lot to do with the case becoming so famous. But, this was not the only scalding coffee case brought by individuals burned by hot coffee. In another case, the same question was the basis: How hot is too hot for coffee? The McMahon v. Bunn-O-Matic Corp. lawsuit presents an interesting study of this question. Who is responsible when the coffee is too darned hot?
McMahon v. Bunn-O-Matic Corp.
Meet Jack and Angelina McMahon, from Indiana. Like most married couples, they were a team, and they had a routine. One of those little routines, as mundane and automatic as it was, went terribly wrong one day. The McMahons were taking a long-distance drive. They stopped for gas at a Mobil gas station. Like many such gas stops, a small convenience store or mini-mart was attached. Jack went inside and poured himself a medium-sized cup of coffee into a Styrofoam cup. He left 3/4 inch at the top of the cup because, as he said, if he didn’t, the coffee would slosh down the sides as you take the lid off, and it’s scalding hot.
Jack got back to the car and placed the coffee in the cup holder between the seats. His wife, Angelina, then did as she always did: She went to pour the coffee from the Styrofoam cup into a larger cup kept in the car for the purpose. This makes sense if you’ve ever drank hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup while driving. Besides the insulated cup keeping the coffee too hot and making it hard to drink, a little squeeze of the cup can cause hot coffee to pour over your hands while you are trying to drive. Transferring the coffee to a larger cup that would be half-full is safer.
But, when Angelina took the lid off the cup, the Styrofoam cup collapsed and scalding hot coffee poured onto her lap, causing severe, second and third-degree burns on her thighs, much like what happened to Stiebeck when her McDonald’s coffee spilled onto her lap. The McMahons sued.
An Unusual Move – Sue the Coffee Machine Company
The couple did not sue the Mobil station that served them the coffee. They went after larger companies, the ones with the deepest pockets. They sued, for instance, the cup maker and the lid maker, stating, basically, that neither was up to the task of safely containing the hot coffee. Both companies settled.
Then, they made a move that left everyone stymied, including the courts. They sued Bunn-O-Matic, the makers of the coffee machine that was used by the Mobil mini-mart store. It seems a bit odd at first glance. The coffee makers supplied by Bunn-O-Matic are pieces of equipment used by the store to make and serve coffee. Should the manufacturer be held responsible for the coffee made by the user who purchased the product? After all, the coffee machine maker didn’t make and serve the coffee; the Mobil mini-mart did.
The McMahons’ Argument
The McMahons argued that the temperature of the coffee was excessive of normal consumer expectations and so hot that it could cause burns exceeding what anyone would expect. The Bunn-O-Matic machine used at the mini-mart brewed the coffee at 195°F and held it at a temperature of 179°F in the carafe. This, the plaintiff said, is too hot, and the company did not adequately warn customers of the potential for severe burns. Any coffee held at a temperature greater than 140 degrees, said the plaintiffs, was unfit for human consumption due to its potential to cause severe burns and upset the (take-out) cup in which it is served.
The defendants managed to get the case moved to federal court and moved for summary judgment. While the removal request was improperly arranged, the case remained in federal court, and the judge granted summary judgment for Bunn-O-Matic. The court stated that the plaintiffs admitted that “hotness” was one of the things they valued and sought out in coffee and that they had even taken precautions against being burned, as described in their own depositions. They must have known they could be burned, said the judge, after all, they went to the trouble of transferring the coffee to a larger cup to make it safer to drink. Based on this, the court decided that no potential existed for recovery. The McMahons appealed.
Their entire case rested on two main proposals: The coffee was too hot and therefore dangerous. And the Bunn-O-Matic Corporation was essentially a coffee retailer rather than a company that made a tool used to make coffee. Oddly enough, the company did not bother to challenge the second proposal. The McMahons also told the court that the company had failed to adequately warn customers.
Should a Coffee Machine Company Warn Consumers About Scalding Hot Coffee?
Many odd and spurious arguments have been made about these complaints, and some valid ones. For instance, how would a coffee machine manufacturer warn consumers about the potential for injury? Many times, customers never see the machine that brews the coffee they buy. Even in self-serve situations, not many customers are going to read safety information posted on a machine. Should this be the retailer’s responsibility?
Like the McDonald’s case, however, I want to focus on temperature. In this case, the McMahons claimed that 179°F was unreasonably hot. Yet, neither they nor the defendants tried to provide the court with any claims about standard coffee-holding temperatures.
How Hot is Too Hot?
The normal range for coffee-holding by restaurants and retail establishments is between 155º F and 175º F. While retailers selling take-out coffee may be expected to hold their coffee at a higher temperature, expecting it to cool down by the time the customer takes a sip, 179º F is at the maximum end of the normal serving range. It is also more than hot enough to cause full-thickness, third-degree burns. In fact, it would require only 3 seconds of exposure to hot liquids at this temperature to cause such burns. On the other hand, at 140° F, it would require 60 seconds to produce the same burns.
The Court’s Conclusion: We Like Hot Coffee; Coffee is Hot
In this case, the court found in favor of the defendants. The McMahons’ claim that the machine was defective, as it kept the coffee too hot, did not impress the court. Oddly, the court questioned the realism of “providing a medical education” on a coffee machine label, while delivering its own “coffee science” essay, minus actual science, based on its own research into the “art of coffee.” Unfortunately, they felt forced to do this because both parties delivered weak arguments. According to the court:
Coffee smells and tastes best when these aromatic compounds evaporate from the surface of the coffee as it is being drunk. Compounds vital to flavor have boiling points in the range of 150° F to 160° F, and the beverage therefore tastes best when it is this hot and the aromatics vaporize as it is being drunk. For coffee to be 150° F when imbibed, it must be hotter in the pot. Pouring a liquid increases its surface area and cools it; more heat is lost by contact with the cooler container; if the consumer adds cream and sugar (plus a metal spoon to stir them) the liquid’s temperature falls again. If the consumer carries the container out for later consumption, the beverage cools still further. Our point in discussing these issues is not to endorse Sivetz & Foote; their position may be scientifically contestable. It is only to demonstrate that without evidence that a holding temperature of 180° F is of little worth to consumers, plaintiffs cannot show that the choice of a high temperature makes coffee defective.
The reason I take umbrage at the court’s little essay is that it mixes science with subjective considerations without distinguishing the two. The court read coffee-related information and then assumed they had therefore proven that the temperature of the coffee purchased that day was typical and justified. They did not, however, perform and experiment to test whether or not their “theory” was sound in regards to the specific circumstances of the scalding accident.
Pouring a liquid does cool it. However, the court, in this purely mechanistic argument, failed to question whether they had any way of knowing how much coffee would be cooled after being poured into an insulated Styrofoam cup and covered with a lid. Such a cup could not be expected to leech heat form the coffee the same way that a ceramic cup would. Also, convenience stores do not supply spoons for customers to stir their coffee. They supply wooden stir sticks, which will not leech any heat at all. If any spoon was provided, it would have been a plastic spoon, which again, should not be expected to cool the coffee as much as a cold metal spoon. And, the temperature of the room and the air outside matters, as well.
In other words, the court made assumptions based on its own research that it was unqualified to interpret. The court further argued that the enjoyment of ‘hot’ coffee by the consumer, and the financial considerations therein, were perhaps as important as considerations of safety. In the end, the court’s position was: We like hot coffee. We know it’s hot. We don’t care whether it’s too hot.
How Dangerous Do You Expect Coffee To Be?
The coffee served by the mini-mart was almost as hot as the McDonald’s coffee that injured Stella Liebeck. Here is the question that we must ask. When we buy a cup of hot coffee, we know that we could spill it on ourselves. Do we expect to receive second-degree and even third-degree full-thickness burns within seconds of exposure? Do we expect to require surgery and skin grafts from a cup of coffee? Indeed, too hot is too hot. I do not think that a reasonable coffee drinker expects to be so horribly injured from a purchased cup of coffee, be permanently scarred, and be in pain for months.
It is unclear from the case if the holding temperature of the machine could be adjusted, but from the information available, it is reasonable to assume it was not. Therefore, keeping the coffee at a temperature so hot that it will permanently disfigure a customer should they spill it may be seen as unreasonable. Yet, carry-out coffee does need to be hot enough so that by the time you drink it, it is not lukewarm in the cup. Let’s look at the court’s primary conclusions:
- The court found that the burn risk of coffee was “open and obvious.” Is it open and obvious that a cup of coffee will give you a third-degree burn?
- The court found that the Bunn-O-Matic machine was not “defective” since the holding temperature of 179° F was “standard” and not abnormally high.
- The court cited Indiana law, which doesn’t require manufacturers to guard against all foreseeable risks when consumers are well aware of the products standard and common features. In other words, coffee makers make very hot coffee.
In the end, the question remains. Are manufacturers liable for injury from a product’s obvious and inherent characteristics? Coffee is supposed to be hot. We as consumers must be careful not to scald ourselves. Therefore, it can be argued that when a company makes a product that meets the expectations of consumers and produces the results they desire, it is up to the consumer to take on the inherent risks of that product.
Drink It at Your Own Risk
Yet, how much risk do we expect to take on? In fact, coffee you brew at home in a drip coffee maker, for example, will likely be at around the same temperature when brewed and held at around 170° F, according to most manufacturers. This is quite hot enough to produce serious burns. However, we don’t use flimsy Styrofoam cups at home. The McMahons knew that the cup and the coffee were dangerous. They took pains to ameliorate the danger. Unfortunately, their own precautions resulted in this terrible accident.
Take Precautions When You Buy Take-Out Coffee
If this case teaches us anything, however, it is that take-out coffee is very dangerous and we must be careful not to spill it on ourselves. When you buy coffee in a take-out container, let it cool for several minutes before removing the lid, which is the most dangerous part. If you pour the coffee yourself at a convenience store, do not overfill the cup. And if the establishment where you buy your coffee still uses Styrofoam cups, ask them to use higher quality paper cups that are not likely to partially melt and collapse when the coffee is too hot. If not, buy your coffee elsewhere. Paper cups are not perfect, but they are generally safer than Styrofoam cups, especially since they allow the coffee to cool at a reasonable rate.
