If your memory stretches back to February 1992, you may recall the case of Stella Liebeck. The 79-year-old resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, spilled her coffee in her lap while holding it between her legs in the car, then turned around and sued the McDonald’s restaurant that served her for $4 million.
The public was outraged, all the more so when the jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $2.86 million in damages. I remember thinking to myself—here we go again; irresponsible individuals blaming others for their own mistakes, frivolous lawsuits, and runaway juries. When will the madness end?
Eventually, the full story began to emerge. McDonald’s served its coffee at over 180 degrees Fahrenheit, some 30 degrees hotter than most restaurants. In the previous decade, McDonald’s had received countless complaints that its coffee was too hot. Some 700 lawsuits targeted the corporation, many of which were settled for a combined half-million dollars.
Ms. Liebeck suffered burns over 16 percent of her body, nearly half of them third degree burns. She underwent skin grafts and required a stay of 8 days in the hospital, and another 3 weeks under her daughter’s care before she was able to function on her own.
Initially, she did not file suit against McDonald’s, but merely asked the company to reimburse her $18,000 for medical expenses and her daughter’s lost wages. The company responded by offering her $800.
The jury assessed Ms. Liebeck’s medical expenses, pain, and suffering at $200,000. Then, finding McDonald’s 80 percent responsible, it awarded damages of $160,000, plus another $2.7 million in punitive damages—roughly equal to the restaurant’s coffee revenue over 2 days.
Grapple with the Gray
List two or three reasons why the jury decision is fair.
List two or three reasons why the jury decision is unfair.
Was there another alternative?
Having weighed the options, how would you have voted as a juror on the case?
Gray Matters
McDonald’s argued that it serves its coffee at a high temperature so it will stay hot longer for commuters on their way to work. This may at first appear to be a reasonable accommodation in the interest of customer service. However, drinking hot coffee while driving is itself an act of questionable wisdom. And while the restaurant is not responsible for the poor choices of its customers, increasing the risk of serious injury for a benefit of minimal value is not a strategy found in the pages of any ethical playbook.
We all do foolish things, betting the small odds of catastrophe against the expectation of immediate convenience. Ms. Liebeck lost that bet when she spilled coffee in her lap. McDonald’s lost that bet by selling superheated coffee. The jury acknowledged the complicity of both parties, but held McDonald’s to a higher level of responsibility for creating conditions in which a minor accident produced a critical injury.
To a larger degree, the jury held McDonald’s culpable for its response. Many corporations recognize that occasional accidents for which they are not completely responsible may result in disproportionate damage to their clients and customers. While refusing to acknowledge responsibility, they often agree to cover medical expenses and recovery, both as a gesture of goodwill and also as a matter of good business.
McDonald’s offer of $800 was not merely unjust; it was insulting, and the company knew it. Perhaps the decision-makers at McDonald’s assumed that a 79-year-old woman was not going to cause them much trouble and could be bought off cheaply. The jurors apparently concluded that civic responsibility translated into actual liability. Their legal verdict was built on a solid ethical foundation.
The initial public reaction to the story prompts a further discussion about the twin matters of judicial excess and judicial reporting.
In 1995, when Ira Gore, Jr., brought his new BMW into a shop for custom detailing, the detailer detected that the car’s paint job was not entirely original. It eventually came out that this car and a thousand others had been damaged by acid rain while being shipped from Germany, and that BMW had repaired the damaged paint without disclosing this information to the customers. In response, an Alabama jury awarded Mr. Gore $4,000 in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages.
Let’s accept that the actual reduction in the value of the car was $4,000. And let’s assume that BMW was less than honest by not disclosing the repair job.
But in what reality can this modest transgression be evaluated at $4 million? Indeed, Mr. Gore would never have known about the repainting if not for the trained eye of the detailer, and he never would have incurred any financial loss unless he later sold it to a third party with similar expertise.
It’s arguable that BMW should be punished on a large scale to discourage similar deception in the future. But why should a single consumer be the sole beneficiary of that punishment?
The case received national attention, drawing the ire of Americans all across the country, as well it should have. The collective sense of outrage led to the passage of legislation capping punitive damage awards, which is not always a good thing. In some cases, the actual monetary damage might be modest while the intangible harm is enormous and the corruption egregious.
This is why ethical values and ethical deliberation are so essential to a healthy civil society. Every case is distinct from every other, which means that every decision must be evaluated on its own merits, under the guidance of judicial wisdom and judicial restraint. Both outlandish and insubstantial verdicts erode public respect for the system, thereby undermining respect for the law in general.
This is where journalistic responsibility comes in. Cases of excess, like the BMW decision, should be broadcast to highlight judicial irresponsibility. But cases like that of Stella Liebeck, so easily satirized, must be carefully reported with complete detail and context.
Justice is elusive and, in this world, unattainable. By calibrating our collective moral compass, we won’t get everything right; but we will get closer to consistently equitable outcomes.