# Coffee Suit: How'd it get into court?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 10, 2000, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990 "2000-02-10T21:39:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2000, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990/1 "2000-02-10T21:39:00Z")

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The McD’s coffee story is unbelievable, and I fail to understand why any judge would even allow such a case to be heard in court. Why wasn’t this case thrown out? Didn’t the judge even think about how this would open the flood gates for “trivial pursuits”? 😉

Any WAGs?

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**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2000, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990/2 "2000-02-10T21:48:00Z")

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You mean the case where McDonald’s, even though many injuries had been reported previously, still served their coffee way above a temperature that could be considered “normal”, and gave it to them in their cars? And then an old lady bought a cup, placed it between her legs, where it spilled out and caused third-degree burns, requiring hospitalization and skin grafts?

Is this the case you’re asking about?

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**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2000, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990/3 "2000-02-10T21:48:00Z")

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Because it wasn’t trivial. The woman required skin grafts on her legs.

There’s a difference between “ooh, this coffee is so hot it burns my tongue” and “AAAIIIEEE! THIS COFFEE IS BURNING HOLES THROUGH MY SKIN!”

IIRC, this particular McDonald’s had also received several previous complaints about how insanely hot they served their coffee, and never bothered to do anything about it, or to warn people, “Yeah, sure, normal coffee’s hot, but this is a lot closer to molten lava than to regular coffee. Be careful.”

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JMCJ

This is not a sig.

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**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2000, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-suit-howd-it-get-into-court/6990/4 "2000-02-10T21:52:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by Jinx:  
> **Any WAGs?**

I’ll WAG that this thread is headed to Great Debates.

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Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine