Liebeck V. Mcdonald's Case

The plaintiff, Stella Liebeck, is represented as the “Individual Responsibility Narrative,” alluding to the fact that the spilling of the McDonald’s coffee was her doing, and therefore should be liable for the damages caused by the spill. Meanwhile McDonald’s, the defendant, narrative is named “Defective Products Liability.” In short, it takes a counteractive stance; though the initial cause was Ms.Liebeck’s fault, their faulty product and lack of warning makes them responsible for her injuries.

In the Case McDonald v. City of Chicago resident Mr. Otis McDonald is a 76 year old retired engineer who has lived in his neighborhood for about 40 years. Over time his peaceful community has been overtaken by gangs and drug dealers. His home and property have been littered on a regular basis and his garage has been broken to about 5 times. Mr. McDonald legally owns a shotgun but believed it would be “unwieldy in event of a robbery.” So he wanted to purchase a simple handgun. But living in Chicago in at this time he was unable to purchase one, due to Chicago’s requirement that all firearms to be registered to the city, McDonald was unable to register the purchased handgun when Chicago started to refuse all handgun registration requests since the citywide handgun ban was passed in 1982. McDonald and three other Chicago residents joined up and made a lawsuit which became McDonald v. City of Chicago, a court case to allow him and Chicago residents to own a handgun. The constitutional issue at hand is the violation of the second amendment rights to bear arms (firearms). Using the Fourteenth Amendment, McDonald will be able to make his case protecting his right from infringement by local governments.

The Stella Liebeck v. McDonald's is only one of many lawsuits that end up in the person getting a big paycheck for something that the company had no control over. Many instances are of people purposefully falling

(Cheeseman2013) In the Massey v Starbucks case Kenya Massey and her boyfriend visited a Starbucks the two orders drinks after paying for the drinks the two took a seat in the waiting area of the store waiting for their drinks to be prepared. That when the manager the shift manager Karen Morales came out a stated they could not sit down because the store was closing. Massey, who had still not received her drinks, informed Morales that she had paid for her dinks, and that she and her boyfriend intended to sit and enjoy them in Starbucks. Morales instructed Starbucks the employee Melissa Polanco to cancel Massey's beverage order and refund Massey's money.

In the case of Hines v. Overstock the plaintiff Cynthia Hines portrayed a class action lawsuit against the defendant Overstock.com, Inc.’s for charging a restocking fee in the federal district court in New York. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant breached the contract when the defendant charged a restocking fee without her knowledge. The Plaintiff bought an Oxygen 3 Ultra Canister vacuum from Overstocks website around January 8, 2009. The Plaintiff returned the vacuum to the Defendant and was refunded the full amount of what she paid, minus a restocking fee of $30.00. The consumer Cynthia Hines contended that she was not informed the vacuum could be returned without being subject to any restocking fees or additional costs. The defendant claims the users of the site agree to the terms of conditions including restocking fee, arbitration clause, and forum selection clause when they enter the site. The Plaintiff argued that the link of the terms are found on the bottom of the pages of the website not making it necessary to view them before she completed the transaction.

In this case the plaintiff asserts that on April 28, 2014, she purchased a cup of coffee at the McDonald’s Restaurant in Ishpeming, Michigan. After she left the restaurant, while drinking the coffee she detected a sharp object in her mouth which became lodged in her throat and caused her to choke. The plaintiff claims that she pulled her car over to the side of the road and removed the object from her throat and mouth.

The jury decided that the plaintiff was entitled to both compensatory damages of $200,000, reduced by $40,000 for her own negligence, and punitive damages totaling $2.7 million (Gerlin, 1994, p.1). Gerlin (1994) goes on to state that “the jury found that McDonald’s had engaged in willful, reckless or malicious conduct” and subsequently used that for the basis of their punitive damages (p. 2). The number settled on was equivalent roughly to two days worth of coffee sales companywide (Gerlin, 1994, p.2). The jury concluded that McDonald’s behaved callously and punished them accordingly (Coffin, 2004, p.4). The jury decided the warning on the cup was insufficient for the hazard (Press, 1995, p.33).

This case was brought upon by an older lady by the name Stella Liebeck, who purchased a 49 cent cup of coffee at the New Mexico franchise. She purchased it through the drive-thru and while her grand son drove, she opened the lid while the cup was between legs to add sugar and cream. The opening of the lid was that action that caused as serious problem for McDonald's, by doing so she spilled coffee on her lap. Even though coffee is know to be hot this one was a little more than hot, Mrs. Liebeck endured third degree burns form it. Since the coffee was directly on her lap the burns where in highly sensitive areas of her body. Her burns were so sever that the covered six percent of her body, and hospitalized her for eight days. She contacted

She initially requested money as much as $20,000 to McDonald's to pay for her. It included past medical expenses, the future expectation of expenses, and loss of her daughter income during care. Whereas, McDonald's offered only $800. She decided to go to trial and hired attorney Reed Morgan. This case was filed in court. It was accusing McDonald's of gross negligence of “selling coffee that was unreasonably dangerous and defectively manufactured. It was a tort for a strict liability case. McDonald's refused attorney's second offer of $90,000. Morgan thirdly offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle” (wikipedia.org; quizlet.com).

The decision of the jury was based on the principles of comparative negligence. McDonald's was found guilty and responsible 80% for the coffee burn. Liebeck was found responsible 20% for the occurrence of the incident. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was not large enough nor sufficient. They awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages, which was reduced to $160,000, and an additional $2.7 million in punitive damages, which was reduced to $480,000. The decision was appealed by both McDonald’s and Liebeck, and both parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000.

This will be a discussion on the relationship with consumers and the products they buy from corporations. What, if any are the corporations responsibility to the consumer in regards of warranties and safety. The case discussed will be Hot Coffee (Brusseau, 2012). This case began between a seventy-nine year old women and the McDonalds corporation. The women burned herself with hot coffee sold by McDonalds and she sued.

After reviewing the videos and reading the articles, Leibeck v. McDonald’s case involves the tort of negligence. In the textbook, The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business, negligence is stated, “All persons, as established by state tort law, have the duty to act reasonably and to exercise a reasonable amount of care in their dealings and interactions with others. Breach of that duty, which causes injury, is negligence” (Lau, 2012, p. 223). Due to McDonald’s negligence and callous behavior regarding the temperature of the coffee served, Stella Liebeck suffered third-degree burns when she spilled the coffee in her lap. “Negligence is about breaching the duty we owe others, as determined by sate tort law” (Lau, 2012, p. 223). In fact, McDonald’s

In world news Louis Woodward was charged and convicted of man slaughter. The British Royal Nanny was only 20 years old when she killed an eight month old baby. Upon her return to Britain she claimed that she had an unfair trial because of the “Widespread hostile press coverage”(Daniel 1437). North Korea also admits to selling missiles around the world. “We will continue to keep testing and deploying missiles” said a reporter in Seoul. North Korea aims to obtain foreign money from the selling of missiles (Times wire reports). Mcdonald’s launches first global kids’ meal offer. In over 110 countries children will receive one of eight toys free with the purchase of a happy meal. This was followed by a McDonalds 94 cent slip in the stock market after they fired over 700 employees (New York Times).

On Friday, October 13, at around 11:00 pm, RA Gabriella McDonald and RA Tyler Shaw were writing an incident report for a violation of quiet hours in room 216. While entering the names of the Otterbein students, they noticed that neither Resident Isabel Sentle nor Resident Sydney Young were present at the time of the incident. RA McDonald and RA Shaw contacted SHD Steve Palombo, who informed them that the two residents would need to be documented as well, despite not being present. RA McDonald went upstairs to see if they were in the room yet and to explain the situation, but the room was empty when she arrived. She slipped the red cards underneath the door. While writing the incident report, Resident Sentle stopped by the RA office to ask RAs

McDonalds was not totally at fault in this case. Liebeck would have avoided the accident if she was more careful while handling the coffee. She had difficulties in opening the lid of the cup during her initial attempt. She completely disregarded her own safety by placing the cup in between her legs and tried to open the lid then. After the failed attempt, she should have waited until she had gone home for her to drink the coffee or she should have asked her grandson to do it for her. Being in shock is natural in her circumstances but she stayed in her seat for a good 3 minutes before jumping off. By then the coffee had already absorbed which led to her third degree burns.