In 1992, Stella Liebeck, 79, was burned when a cup of McDonald’s coffee that spilled into her lap. Her injuries resulted in a hospital stay and more than $10,000 in medical bills.
Liebeck, a retired department store clerk, asked McDonald’s for help with her medical bills. When the company offered her only $800, she hired a lawyer, filed a lawsuit and won. A jury awarded her $2.8 million in damages.
News of that award placed the retiree from Albuquerque, NM in an unflattering spotlight. She was ridiculed as the little old lady who spilled coffee on herself and walked away with millions. The story was recounted in news reports, became comedy material on late night talk shows and television sitcoms, and was reshaped again by corporate-backed political operatives, who used the it as an argument against frivolous lawsuits against corporations.
This attention distracted public attention from what had actually happened. Liebeck had been sitting in a parked car, not driving, as some accounts had it. She sustained third-degree burns and required skin grafts.
The Albuquerque jury had awarded her $2.6 million in punitive damages, after hearing testimony that McDonald’s had ignored hundreds of customers’ complaints that its coffee was too hot; jurors sought to send the company a message. Liebeck eventually received only a fraction of that amount, and was made a pariah.