Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.
At that point, she had medical bills of over $11,000. She was anticipating more. She didn’t have much money.She just wanted McDonald’s to pay for the damage their coffee had done so that she could get medical treatment. Seems reasonable, right?
McDonald’s countered with an offer of $800, then turned down repeated requests to settle.
And there weren’t several people who were burned before Liebeck. It was a LOT worse than that.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck[’]s. This history documented McDonalds’ knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.
So McDonald’s knew that their coffee was burning people–in some cases, causing third-degree burns. They knew it for TEN YEARS. And they did nothing about it.
The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds’ coffee sales.
The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 – or three times compensatory damages – even though the judge called McDonalds’ conduct reckless, callous and willful.
So all of the jokes about how rich Liebeck got off the settlement? Nope. McDonald’s ended up not even haping to pay most of it.
Nancy Tiano says her mother was “never happy about the incident” and that “the burns and court proceedings took their toll.” During her final years, Tiano says, her mother had no quality of life. The good news is that the settlement helped to ease the end of her life by paying for a live-in nurse.
That’s where the money went. For medical care.
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