McDonalds Incident
Lieback was 20 percent responsible for her body injury. It is expected that a reasonable person would know that hot coffee cause burn injuries to her body and hence ought to handle it carefully. Even though McDonalds had a responsibility to responsibly care and thus avoid injuries to their customers, Lieback should have held the coffee carefully knowing that it is always served hot. In addition, a reasonable person could expect that the coffee’s temperature would be dangerous. The McDonalds failure due warn customers that the coffee at 180 to 190 °F can cause serious burn injuries and the 700 complaints attested to this. Since Lieback did not expect that the coffee can cause 3rd degree burns, McDonalds bore the highest level of responsibility since they controlled coffee temperature. Duty of care requires that a person is obliged to take care to avert injury if such can be foreseen (Kershaw, 2012).
The criticism of the Judge on McDonalds was right. To begin with, the firm was callous since it failed in its duty of care since. It did not take responsible care to avert any injury to customers arising from their hot coffee. McDonalds had received many complaints about customers’ injuries from their hot coffee product but failed to clearly warn customers that it was likely to cause serious injuries. It should have placed a clear notice indicating the temperature level of the product so that any customer can take care of their safety. The conduct was willful since it could also have reduced the temperature of the product. It was reckless for the firm to offer coffee at way beyond 40 degrees, unlike in other coffee outlets.
Stella Lieback‘s reward should have been the determined $160,000 and punitive damages of $2.7 considering the kind of physical injuries she ensured and psychological damages. The injuries in her thighs, genital areas and buttocks were likely to affect life in terms of daily chores and low self-esteem and thus her sex life.
Reference
Kershaw, D. (2012). Company law in context: Text and materials. Oxford, U. K: Oxford University Press.418-419
