What you should know after

What you should know after Lecture 2

1. What is the meaning of litigation culture and frivolous litigation?

Litigation culture means that people would go to court for any little problems.

Frivolous litigation is the use of legal process with apparent disregard for the merit of one’s own arguments. In French: plainte abusive

1. What were the facts of Liebeck v. McDonald's (1994)?

Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman bought a coffee at Mac Donald’s from the drive-through window. In her car she wanted to remove the lid and she split the entire cup of coffee on her laps.

1. What injuries did the claimant suffer?

She suffered of third-degree burns on 6% of her skin and lesser burns? She had a skin grafting.

1. What was the claimant’s initial action? What was the defendant’s response?

Liebeck wrote a letter to Mac Donald’s asking them to check the temperature of the coffee and to pay for her medical bills amounted 10 000$. The defendant’s, Mac Donald’s offered her 800$. Then she tried to settle and asking for 20 000$ but Mac Donald’s refused, and the case went to court.

1. What were the arguments used by the claimant?

MC Donald’s served their coffee very extremely hot (88°c, 17 degrees warmer than most regular coffee machine). The temperature is dangerous and can cause 3rd degree burns within in 15 seconds. Mc Donald’s knew their coffee were dangerous = approximately 700 people complained that they had been burnt at Mc Donald’s between 1983 and 1992. They do not care about their customer’s safety.

1. What were the arguments used by the defendant?

Mac Donald’s said that if their coffee was this hot it was because the customers wanted it that way. They also claimed that Mrs. Liebeck was the only one responsible of her accident, she burnt her-self in her car. Also, they said that burns are “statistically insignificant” and they don’t justify lowering the temperature of the coffee.

1. What was the decision of the jury?

The jury award Liebeck to 200.000$ in compensatory damages (but reduced to 160.000$ because she caused the spill) and Mac Donald’s had to pay punitive damages as a punition to turn down the coffee temperature: 2.700.000$ but the judge reduced it to 650.000$

1. What are compensatory damages?

Compensatory damages are sum of money awarded by a court to repair a particular loss of injury suffered because of the unlawful conduct of the defendant.

1. What are punitive damages?

Punitive damages are awarded to punish the defendant for their wrongdoing.

1. What was the actual outcome of the case?

1. What vision do people of the case? Why?

They consider she was an opportunist that got a huge compensation for rather small injuries (in reality, the two parties apparently settled for less than 500.000$)

1. What was tort reform? Who supported that movement?

Tort reform lobbyist use this case to scapegoat claimant like Liebeck. Tort reform was a movement aiming to restrict ability of injured people to file a civil lawsuit and seeking cap punitive damages. Tort reform was supported by large corporations, insurance companies and pro-business conservatives.

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