July 7, 2025 • 18 mins
Klare and Clay discuss hot coffee, Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurant and Garcia v. Starbucks Corp., torts, and product liability.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to Case by Case, a legal podcast.
Keep in mind, the contents of thispodcast should not be taken as legal
advice, nor does this podcast establisha client attorney relationship.
Case by case is meant foreducational purposes only.
Enjoy.
(00:22):
Hi there, I'm Claire and this isCase by Case, a legal podcast.
And with me today is my husband, clay.
Say Hi, clay.
Hello.
Um, the Supreme Court issued a tonof cases or opinions on cases at
the end of June, and we are goingthrough them and hopefully we'll have
those cases ready in a few weeks,but until we get into constitutional
(00:45):
law land, I thought maybe we'd.
Hit a tort case.
So yeah, little civil rightsbreak and going with injuries.
Uh, today we're talkingabout hot coffee and clay.
You actually know one of thesecases, 'cause 10 years ago when
(01:06):
we were in business school,we talked about this case.
Oh yeah.
Old Belmont.
Do you remember McDonald's?
Yeah.
It was an ethics, a business ethicsclass, and we talked about this hot
coffee case and then of course I hitit again when I was in law school.
But there's an ethical issuewith this case and yeah, so
(01:29):
we're gonna go over two cases.
One was from the nineties withMcDonald's, and one was decided
this year and it was, was Starbucks.
You ready?
Let's get into it.
Okay, here's our first case, Liebeckverse, McDonald's restaurants.
I hope I'm saying that name right.
This is a federal case.
It's in the district court of New Mexico.
(01:51):
So we talked about in that firstepisode where laws come from.
We have federal courts and state courts.
This is a federal court and it'sat the district level, so the
lowest level of federal courts,and it was decided in 1998.
Um.
This case was known initially asa frivolous case and the media
was kind of blowing up, like,what kind of idiot doesn't know?
(02:13):
Coffee's hot and itcalled for tort reform.
Many people mocked this case, but wehave since learned about the severity
of the injury surrounding this case.
Who was leading that PR campaign?
I'm not really sure.
Uh.
This is a tort case.
Uh, specifically it's aproduct liability case.
So what's a tort?
(02:35):
It's not just a dessert, clay.
Uh, it's a wrongful act orinfringement of a right.
So it's basically what we think of whenwe think of lawsuits and a lawsuit that
doesn't really involve, uh, a contract.
So.
You know, it's, it's like personalinjuries and stuff like that.
(02:56):
Are most things considered a tort?
Uh, I think a lot of lawsuitsare considered a tort.
When you see a attorney advertisementon tv, they probably do tort
law and like car accidents.
Those kind of fall under tortsand asbestos mesothelioma cases.
(03:16):
That's a tort.
There's three main bucketsof torts, maybe four.
But I'm gonna talk about three today.
One is an intentional tort, soI intentionally wanna hurt you.
I push you down thestairs, you break your leg.
That's an intentional tort negligence.
That's the second bucket.
Negligence is when you have a duty tosomeone and then you breach that duty.
(03:39):
There's an injury because of thatbreach, and there's causation.
So your actions caused this injury,and then there's strict liability.
Strict liability covers, um, likewild animals that you keep as pets.
And, uh, it covers some product liability.
(03:59):
And we'll get into that in a second.
Uh, actually we'll get into it right now.
Where does product liability fit in?
So product liability products must meet.
A consumer's ordinary expectations.
So when there's an unexpected defect ordanger when it's unsafe, this is when
you fit into a product liability case.
(04:22):
And you can approach when you'resuing, you can approach a product
liability case in a few different ways.
First, you can go for that negligenceclaim, so there's a duty by the
manufacturer to create a safe product,and then there's a breach of that duty.
You could go for the strict liabilitycase, there's a defect in the
(04:42):
product, or it can do a breach ofwarranty claim, and that's sometimes.
Breach of warranties.
We get warranties with our cars.
Um, those are called express warranties.
When they're written out, when they'reimplied, it's, you know, I, I expect my
bicycle wheels to stay on my bike andwhen they fall off, I'm, uh, I'm injured.
(05:04):
And so that would fall under akind of a breach of warranty.
Implied, anytime we hear, implied orexpressed from a legal perspective,
express just means written down.
So, yeah, that's the legal framework.
Negligence, strict liability.
Breach of warranty.
That's how you get twoproduct liability claims.
(05:28):
Do you wanna get into our story?
I. Oh yeah.
McDonald's first.
Uh, yeah, we're doing McDonald's first.
Okay.
79-year-old.
Stella Lebeck is in the McDonald'sdrive through in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, and she gets a cup of coffee.
I think she gets a senior discount.
It's like only a few cents.
Her grandson is driving and she's inthe passenger seat, and her grandson
(05:51):
pulls into a parking lot, so Stella canput some cream and sugar in her coffee.
She holds a coffee cup betweenher legs kind of on her lap, and
she opens up the lid and that'swhen the coffee spills filled.
The brim.
Yeah.
Do you remember this?
And it spills No, it happens every time.
Well, well, it spills all over, likeher groin, her thighs, her butt.
(06:14):
And she goes pretty much straight tothe hospital and she has third degree
burns on 16% of her body, which is crazy.
Considering like the media campaignkind of against this case, which
was what kind of idiot doesn'tknow coffee's hot, but Stella stays
in the hospital for eight days.
(06:35):
She gets skin grafts and she has a hugemedical bill, so she goes to McDonald and
she for $20,000 to cover her expenses,which nowadays I imagine you would need
a a lot more money to deal with that.
Uh, and they offer her $800.
(06:55):
So she lawyers up andnow she's gonna sue 'em.
That's crazy.
$20,000 seems like foreight days in the hospital.
Seems like nothing.
Yeah.
Nowadays that would be a steal.
Uh, so she goes to Sue.
Um.
Her legal team decides to usethat negligence framework.
(07:17):
So again, negligence is you have aduty to do something, you breach that
duty because of that breach, you causean injury and, but for your actions,
that injury would never happen.
What are they saying?
This is the negligence part of.
So there was a franchise widepolicy to serve the coffee at
(07:42):
185 degrees for drive-through.
So for reference, a coffee we brewhere at home is about 135 degrees.
It's too hot for people to safely drink.
McDonald's knows that because they'vehad in the 10 years leading up to
(08:02):
Stella's injury, 700 complaints.
So the duty is we have to givepeople safe things to consume.
The breach was they serve people hotcoffee and they knew it was dangerous
because they already had 700 complaints.
There was an injury, Stella,third degree burns, and, but for.
(08:26):
McDonald's hot coffee, shewouldn't have gotten that burn.
Where's the line between like theconsumer making a conscious decision,
but on like I'm accepting a hotcoffee, similar to if they're gonna
eat a spicy sandwich or something.
Yeah.
(08:46):
That they know is spicy.
So I think here.
The temperature of the coffeewas far greater than what
you would reasonably expect.
This company-wide policy, thecoffee was extra hot because they
thought people were gonna go homeand enjoy their coffee at home.
Mm-hmm.
So they made it extra hot and itwas hotter in the drive-through
(09:07):
than it was in the restaurant.
So if you were going in to get a.Cup of coffee and sit down, that's a
different temperature than what you'regetting through the drive through.
But they've since known because ofthose 700 complaints that people weren't
driving straight home to drink the coffee.
They were drinking it in their car.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And they, and they also knew aboutthe severity of the injuries.
'cause a lot of those complaints,they burned in the same spots.
They burned on theirlap, which makes sense.
But McDonald's was making overa million dollars a day from
coffee sales at that time.
So they figured if enough peoplewere liking that hot temperature and
(09:50):
only 700 had complained about it,then maybe we should just keep going.
So let's talk about the results.
This is a jury case.
So the jury heard about all Estella'sinjuries and they applied what
we call comparative negligence.
They applied comparative negligence.
And comparative negligence is whenyou think both parties are at fault
(10:15):
and then you give them a percentage.
So here they said, well, McDonald's wasprobably 80% at fault 'cause the coffee
was too hot and Stella was probably20% at fault because you probably
shouldn't put coffee between your legswhen you're playing in cream and sugar.
And so we see that alot in negligence cases.
You kind of.
Split off.
Okay.
(10:35):
Who was more negligent in this case?
They thought McDonald'swas more negligent.
Negligence always tripped me up in college'cause it doesn't, when I think of being
negligible, it's more of like not payingattention to something, whereas like they
(10:56):
knew exactly what they were doing, sothey're just making a really bad decision.
That's a really good point.
So there's that intentional tortbucket that we talked about earlier.
When you act with intent, I don'tthink their intent was to hurt
people, so maybe that's why herlegal team didn't go after intent.
Um, and also when it comes to productstuff, it's hard to kind of place the
(11:19):
blame on intent because that's more, Idon't know, person to person than product.
But yeah, I agree.
I mean, it's, it's tough to know.
How much they should be liable for.
The jury does their bestthough, to give her an award.
They give her $200,000 in compensatorydamages, so that's compensation they're
(11:44):
making up for that hospital bill.
The ongoing care that she needed athome, these are her medical expenses.
They also award her punitive damagesand punitive damages is basically
punishment for the defendant.
So they're.
Putting on more punishment for McDonald'sbecause they caused all this problem
and they award her $2.7 million.
(12:08):
Yeah, the trial judge or the trial courtjudge, he reduced that punitive damage to
$480,000, but then there was an appeal andultimately the party settled out of court
and we don't know what that number is.
Punitive damages.
Typically are no more than ninetimes compensatory damages.
(12:30):
So let's say it costs me ahundred thousand dollars in
hospital bills and aftercare.
The highest punitive damages I can getis $900,000 for a total of a million.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Math.
(12:51):
Yeah, but you're good at mathand I'm not good at math, so I
wasn't sure if I did that one.
Right.
It is wild that they wentfrom 20,000 to over a million.
Yeah, they should havejust given her the 20,000,
which is what I mean, you'remaking a million dollars in coffee.
The way they got to that $2.7 million in,in punitive damages was, that's two days
(13:14):
worth of coffee sales for McDonald's.
Mm-hmm.
So some takeaways, uh,concerning product liability.
When consumers use products theway they're meant to be used and
they get hurt, the company shouldbe held accountable for injuries.
Manufacturers have a duty towarn consumers about their
(13:36):
products potential risks.
But then there was an,another case from this year.
Did, did McDonald's change their policy?
Yeah, I think they had tostop serving fire in a cup.
What's, what's their new temperature?
Oh, I don't know.
We should ask.
Uh, Kristen's dad, my friend's dadhas McDonald's, so we should ask.
(14:00):
I bet the listeners wanna know.
Well, we should go to McDonald'sand just put a thermometer in.
It seems pretty hot.
Yeah.
Oh, this is also kind of terrible timingbecause I just got, uh, some case by case
Merchant and, uh, they're coffee mugs.
So
(14:21):
I'm just gonna warn you, coffee is hot.
Don't use the mugs.
Get 'em while they're hot.
Get 'em while they're hot.
Oh, that's in poor taste.
Oh, sorry.
So the reason why I like this coffeecase is 'cause we get to talk about
torts, we get to talk about productliability, we get to talk about
punitive damages and the cap on that.
And we also get to talk about kindof this PR smear campaign against the
(14:46):
plaintiff that basically we try to makethis lawsuit seem frivolous, but you
know, it's not, she had a lot of injuries.
Uh, so let's talk aboutthe one from this year.
Michael Garcia v Starbucks Corporation.
It was decided in 2025, but I thinkthe injury happened in 2020 maybe.
(15:07):
Uh, this one, and I'll try topost the video because this
injury happened on camera.
Michael Garcia was going through adrive-through a Starbucks drive-through,
and the barista handed him his coffee.
It was a very tall coffee, andthe lid wasn't on correctly.
I had a loose lid and they handed him thecoffee through the window and it spilled.
(15:30):
And he had severe second andthird degree burns covering a
large part of his lower body.
Prolonged physical pain, permanentphysical stars, nerve damage, significant
emotional distress, depression, anxiety,uh, and a reduced quality of life.
And the reason why Starbuckswas ultimately found liable
(15:52):
is because there was.
It was known internally that this wasan ongoing issue, that they needed to
train people better to cover the cup,and the jury awarded him $50 million.
Whoa.
Yeah, a lot of that was that punitivedamage piece, that extra punishment,
because they had known internallythat this was going on and they
didn't really do any changes in theirtraining, but Starbucks, uh, tried
(16:17):
arguing about the causation piece.
So he talked about thatcomparative negligence part.
They're saying, well, he didn'thandle the coffee cup correctly when
he received it from the barista.
But I'll try to post that video.
I'm not very tech savvy, but you guyscan email us and tell us what you think.
So yeah, that's McDonald's hot coffee,Starbucks Hot Coffee and Torts.
(16:44):
Our introduction to Torts on this podcast.
All right, well.
If you have any questions, comments,concerns, or corrections, email
us hello@illegalpodcast.com.
That was Clay.
I'm Claire.
Everybody.
Bye.
So that was Lebeck v McDonald'sand Garcia v Starbucks.
(17:07):
And in this episode we covered torts.
And torts is a wrongful actor infringement of a right
that leads to a civil lawsuit.
We talked about the different typesof torts, intentional torts, when you
mean to take action against someone.
We talked about negligence, andthat's when you have a duty to
someone and you breach that duty.
We also talked about strict liabilitycases, and this case we also talked
(17:32):
about product liability and wherethat fits into that tort framework.
If there was a product liability.
Our main takeaway is when a cons.
Consumer uses a product the way theproduct is meant to be used and the
consumer gets hurt, the company has tobe held accountable for those injuries.
We also covered on this episodepunitive damages, and we talked about
(17:53):
the difference between compensatorydamages and punitive damages.
Compensatory damages is when youintend to make the plaintiff whole.
Further injuries punitive is when you'retrying to punish the defendant a little
bit extra, and we talked about howpunitive damages cannot be more than
nine times the compensatory damage.
If you have any questions, comments,concerns, or corrections, email
(18:14):
us hello@alegalpodcast.com.
Thank you so much for listening.
Welcome to Case by Case, a legal podcast.
Keep in mind, the contents of thispodcast should not be taken as legal
advice, nor does this podcast establisha client attorney relationship.
Case by case is meant foreducational purposes only.
Enjoy.
(00:22):
Hi there, I'm Claire and this isCase by Case, a legal podcast.
And with me today is my husband, clay.
Say Hi, clay.
Hello.
Um, the Supreme Court issued a tonof cases or opinions on cases at
the end of June, and we are goingthrough them and hopefully we'll have
those cases ready in a few weeks,but until we get into constitutional
(00:45):
law land, I thought maybe we'd.
Hit a tort case.
So yeah, little civil rightsbreak and going with injuries.
Uh, today we're talkingabout hot coffee and clay.
You actually know one of thesecases, 'cause 10 years ago when
(01:06):
we were in business school,we talked about this case.
Oh yeah.
Old Belmont.
Do you remember McDonald's?
Yeah.
It was an ethics, a business ethicsclass, and we talked about this hot
coffee case and then of course I hitit again when I was in law school.
But there's an ethical issuewith this case and yeah, so
(01:29):
we're gonna go over two cases.
One was from the nineties withMcDonald's, and one was decided
this year and it was, was Starbucks.
You ready?
Let's get into it.
Okay, here's our first case, Liebeckverse, McDonald's restaurants.
I hope I'm saying that name right.
This is a federal case.
It's in the district court of New Mexico.
(01:51):
So we talked about in that firstepisode where laws come from.
We have federal courts and state courts.
This is a federal court and it'sat the district level, so the
lowest level of federal courts,and it was decided in 1998.
Um.
This case was known initially asa frivolous case and the media
was kind of blowing up, like,what kind of idiot doesn't know?
(02:13):
Coffee's hot and itcalled for tort reform.
Many people mocked this case, but wehave since learned about the severity
of the injury surrounding this case.
Who was leading that PR campaign?
I'm not really sure.
Uh.
This is a tort case.
Uh, specifically it's aproduct liability case.
So what's a tort?
(02:35):
It's not just a dessert, clay.
Uh, it's a wrongful act orinfringement of a right.
So it's basically what we think of whenwe think of lawsuits and a lawsuit that
doesn't really involve, uh, a contract.
So.
You know, it's, it's like personalinjuries and stuff like that.
(02:56):
Are most things considered a tort?
Uh, I think a lot of lawsuitsare considered a tort.
When you see a attorney advertisementon tv, they probably do tort
law and like car accidents.
Those kind of fall under tortsand asbestos mesothelioma cases.
(03:16):
That's a tort.
There's three main bucketsof torts, maybe four.
But I'm gonna talk about three today.
One is an intentional tort, soI intentionally wanna hurt you.
I push you down thestairs, you break your leg.
That's an intentional tort negligence.
That's the second bucket.
Negligence is when you have a duty tosomeone and then you breach that duty.
(03:39):
There's an injury because of thatbreach, and there's causation.
So your actions caused this injury,and then there's strict liability.
Strict liability covers, um, likewild animals that you keep as pets.
And, uh, it covers some product liability.
(03:59):
And we'll get into that in a second.
Uh, actually we'll get into it right now.
Where does product liability fit in?
So product liability products must meet.
A consumer's ordinary expectations.
So when there's an unexpected defect ordanger when it's unsafe, this is when
you fit into a product liability case.
(04:22):
And you can approach when you'resuing, you can approach a product
liability case in a few different ways.
First, you can go for that negligenceclaim, so there's a duty by the
manufacturer to create a safe product,and then there's a breach of that duty.
You could go for the strict liabilitycase, there's a defect in the
(04:42):
product, or it can do a breach ofwarranty claim, and that's sometimes.
Breach of warranties.
We get warranties with our cars.
Um, those are called express warranties.
When they're written out, when they'reimplied, it's, you know, I, I expect my
bicycle wheels to stay on my bike andwhen they fall off, I'm, uh, I'm injured.
(05:04):
And so that would fall under akind of a breach of warranty.
Implied, anytime we hear, implied orexpressed from a legal perspective,
express just means written down.
So, yeah, that's the legal framework.
Negligence, strict liability.
Breach of warranty.
That's how you get twoproduct liability claims.
(05:28):
Do you wanna get into our story?
I. Oh yeah.
McDonald's first.
Uh, yeah, we're doing McDonald's first.
Okay.
79-year-old.
Stella Lebeck is in the McDonald'sdrive through in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, and she gets a cup of coffee.
I think she gets a senior discount.
It's like only a few cents.
Her grandson is driving and she's inthe passenger seat, and her grandson
(05:51):
pulls into a parking lot, so Stella canput some cream and sugar in her coffee.
She holds a coffee cup betweenher legs kind of on her lap, and
she opens up the lid and that'swhen the coffee spills filled.
The brim.
Yeah.
Do you remember this?
And it spills No, it happens every time.
Well, well, it spills all over, likeher groin, her thighs, her butt.
(06:14):
And she goes pretty much straight tothe hospital and she has third degree
burns on 16% of her body, which is crazy.
Considering like the media campaignkind of against this case, which
was what kind of idiot doesn'tknow coffee's hot, but Stella stays
in the hospital for eight days.
(06:35):
She gets skin grafts and she has a hugemedical bill, so she goes to McDonald and
she for $20,000 to cover her expenses,which nowadays I imagine you would need
a a lot more money to deal with that.
Uh, and they offer her $800.
(06:55):
So she lawyers up andnow she's gonna sue 'em.
That's crazy.
$20,000 seems like foreight days in the hospital.
Seems like nothing.
Yeah.
Nowadays that would be a steal.
Uh, so she goes to Sue.
Um.
Her legal team decides to usethat negligence framework.
(07:17):
So again, negligence is you have aduty to do something, you breach that
duty because of that breach, you causean injury and, but for your actions,
that injury would never happen.
What are they saying?
This is the negligence part of.
So there was a franchise widepolicy to serve the coffee at
(07:42):
185 degrees for drive-through.
So for reference, a coffee we brewhere at home is about 135 degrees.
It's too hot for people to safely drink.
McDonald's knows that because they'vehad in the 10 years leading up to
(08:02):
Stella's injury, 700 complaints.
So the duty is we have to givepeople safe things to consume.
The breach was they serve people hotcoffee and they knew it was dangerous
because they already had 700 complaints.
There was an injury, Stella,third degree burns, and, but for.
(08:26):
McDonald's hot coffee, shewouldn't have gotten that burn.
Where's the line between like theconsumer making a conscious decision,
but on like I'm accepting a hotcoffee, similar to if they're gonna
eat a spicy sandwich or something.
Yeah.
(08:46):
That they know is spicy.
So I think here.
The temperature of the coffeewas far greater than what
you would reasonably expect.
This company-wide policy, thecoffee was extra hot because they
thought people were gonna go homeand enjoy their coffee at home.
Mm-hmm.
So they made it extra hot and itwas hotter in the drive-through
(09:07):
than it was in the restaurant.
So if you were going in to get a.Cup of coffee and sit down, that's a
different temperature than what you'regetting through the drive through.
But they've since known because ofthose 700 complaints that people weren't
driving straight home to drink the coffee.
They were drinking it in their car.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And they, and they also knew aboutthe severity of the injuries.
'cause a lot of those complaints,they burned in the same spots.
They burned on theirlap, which makes sense.
But McDonald's was making overa million dollars a day from
coffee sales at that time.
So they figured if enough peoplewere liking that hot temperature and
(09:50):
only 700 had complained about it,then maybe we should just keep going.
So let's talk about the results.
This is a jury case.
So the jury heard about all Estella'sinjuries and they applied what
we call comparative negligence.
They applied comparative negligence.
And comparative negligence is whenyou think both parties are at fault
(10:15):
and then you give them a percentage.
So here they said, well, McDonald's wasprobably 80% at fault 'cause the coffee
was too hot and Stella was probably20% at fault because you probably
shouldn't put coffee between your legswhen you're playing in cream and sugar.
And so we see that alot in negligence cases.
You kind of.
Split off.
Okay.
(10:35):
Who was more negligent in this case?
They thought McDonald'swas more negligent.
Negligence always tripped me up in college'cause it doesn't, when I think of being
negligible, it's more of like not payingattention to something, whereas like they
(10:56):
knew exactly what they were doing, sothey're just making a really bad decision.
That's a really good point.
So there's that intentional tortbucket that we talked about earlier.
When you act with intent, I don'tthink their intent was to hurt
people, so maybe that's why herlegal team didn't go after intent.
Um, and also when it comes to productstuff, it's hard to kind of place the
(11:19):
blame on intent because that's more, Idon't know, person to person than product.
But yeah, I agree.
I mean, it's, it's tough to know.
How much they should be liable for.
The jury does their bestthough, to give her an award.
They give her $200,000 in compensatorydamages, so that's compensation they're
(11:44):
making up for that hospital bill.
The ongoing care that she needed athome, these are her medical expenses.
They also award her punitive damagesand punitive damages is basically
punishment for the defendant.
So they're.
Putting on more punishment for McDonald'sbecause they caused all this problem
and they award her $2.7 million.
(12:08):
Yeah, the trial judge or the trial courtjudge, he reduced that punitive damage to
$480,000, but then there was an appeal andultimately the party settled out of court
and we don't know what that number is.
Punitive damages.
Typically are no more than ninetimes compensatory damages.
(12:30):
So let's say it costs me ahundred thousand dollars in
hospital bills and aftercare.
The highest punitive damages I can getis $900,000 for a total of a million.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Math.
(12:51):
Yeah, but you're good at mathand I'm not good at math, so I
wasn't sure if I did that one.
Right.
It is wild that they wentfrom 20,000 to over a million.
Yeah, they should havejust given her the 20,000,
which is what I mean, you'remaking a million dollars in coffee.
The way they got to that $2.7 million in,in punitive damages was, that's two days
(13:14):
worth of coffee sales for McDonald's.
Mm-hmm.
So some takeaways, uh,concerning product liability.
When consumers use products theway they're meant to be used and
they get hurt, the company shouldbe held accountable for injuries.
Manufacturers have a duty towarn consumers about their
(13:36):
products potential risks.
But then there was an,another case from this year.
Did, did McDonald's change their policy?
Yeah, I think they had tostop serving fire in a cup.
What's, what's their new temperature?
Oh, I don't know.
We should ask.
Uh, Kristen's dad, my friend's dadhas McDonald's, so we should ask.
(14:00):
I bet the listeners wanna know.
Well, we should go to McDonald'sand just put a thermometer in.
It seems pretty hot.
Yeah.
Oh, this is also kind of terrible timingbecause I just got, uh, some case by case
Merchant and, uh, they're coffee mugs.
So
(14:21):
I'm just gonna warn you, coffee is hot.
Don't use the mugs.
Get 'em while they're hot.
Get 'em while they're hot.
Oh, that's in poor taste.
Oh, sorry.
So the reason why I like this coffeecase is 'cause we get to talk about
torts, we get to talk about productliability, we get to talk about
punitive damages and the cap on that.
And we also get to talk about kindof this PR smear campaign against the
(14:46):
plaintiff that basically we try to makethis lawsuit seem frivolous, but you
know, it's not, she had a lot of injuries.
Uh, so let's talk aboutthe one from this year.
Michael Garcia v Starbucks Corporation.
It was decided in 2025, but I thinkthe injury happened in 2020 maybe.
(15:07):
Uh, this one, and I'll try topost the video because this
injury happened on camera.
Michael Garcia was going through adrive-through a Starbucks drive-through,
and the barista handed him his coffee.
It was a very tall coffee, andthe lid wasn't on correctly.
I had a loose lid and they handed him thecoffee through the window and it spilled.
(15:30):
And he had severe second andthird degree burns covering a
large part of his lower body.
Prolonged physical pain, permanentphysical stars, nerve damage, significant
emotional distress, depression, anxiety,uh, and a reduced quality of life.
And the reason why Starbuckswas ultimately found liable
(15:52):
is because there was.
It was known internally that this wasan ongoing issue, that they needed to
train people better to cover the cup,and the jury awarded him $50 million.
Whoa.
Yeah, a lot of that was that punitivedamage piece, that extra punishment,
because they had known internallythat this was going on and they
didn't really do any changes in theirtraining, but Starbucks, uh, tried
(16:17):
arguing about the causation piece.
So he talked about thatcomparative negligence part.
They're saying, well, he didn'thandle the coffee cup correctly when
he received it from the barista.
But I'll try to post that video.
I'm not very tech savvy, but you guyscan email us and tell us what you think.
So yeah, that's McDonald's hot coffee,Starbucks Hot Coffee and Torts.
(16:44):
Our introduction to Torts on this podcast.
All right, well.
If you have any questions, comments,concerns, or corrections, email
us hello@illegalpodcast.com.
That was Clay.
I'm Claire.
Everybody.
Bye.
So that was Lebeck v McDonald'sand Garcia v Starbucks.
(17:07):
And in this episode we covered torts.
And torts is a wrongful actor infringement of a right
that leads to a civil lawsuit.
We talked about the different typesof torts, intentional torts, when you
mean to take action against someone.
We talked about negligence, andthat's when you have a duty to
someone and you breach that duty.
We also talked about strict liabilitycases, and this case we also talked
(17:32):
about product liability and wherethat fits into that tort framework.
If there was a product liability.
Our main takeaway is when a cons.
Consumer uses a product the way theproduct is meant to be used and the
consumer gets hurt, the company has tobe held accountable for those injuries.
We also covered on this episodepunitive damages, and we talked about
(17:53):
the difference between compensatorydamages and punitive damages.
Compensatory damages is when youintend to make the plaintiff whole.
Further injuries punitive is when you'retrying to punish the defendant a little
bit extra, and we talked about howpunitive damages cannot be more than
nine times the compensatory damage.
If you have any questions, comments,concerns, or corrections, email
(18:14):
us hello@alegalpodcast.com.
Thank you so much for listening.
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