Jury Blames McDonald’s AGAIN – The Law Graduate from GWU Explains the Reasons Fast Food Giant Must Pay
Florida Jury Holds McDonald’s Liable for Burning A Child
WASHINGTON D.C., MAY 15, 2023 – A Florida Jury has found McDonald’s legally responsible for the burning of a child, because they sold “dangerously” hot chicken McNuggets as part a Happy Meal.
John Banzhaf, a public interest law professor who has been teaching product liability and the case for years, says that this case is similar to a case from 1990 in which McDonald’s was found legally responsible for burning a woman and leaving her with “disfigurement and scarring” by serving “dangerously-hot coffee”.
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Many thought that the coffee case of earlier was an absurd example of a law system that had lost control. However, a recent graduate from the George Washington University School of Law proved the contrary, dramatizing her findings and analyses of this case in a movie called “Hot Coffee,” which won a number of awards.
Susan Saladoff’s film explains that:
McDonald’s serves its coffee hotter, at 180°C.
Doctors were concerned that the burns suffered by this woman might cause her death.
Other McDonald’s coffee customers who were also getting their coffee through the drive-through lanes had reported burning.
McDonald’s has not issued a warning about the risk, despite all of this.
This warning was very inexpensive and did not discourage customers.
Warn Customers of Hidden Danger
A company that sells an item that is more hazardous than similar items sold elsewhere is aware that many people have been hurt by the product, so it is reasonable to expect that a serious accident could occur. The foreseeable danger can be so severe that it may kill the customer.
It is the company’s legal responsibility to either reduce this danger (e.g. By serving the coffee at industry standards, or at least issuing a warning.
If not, people are likely to continue being seriously injured and the costs of medical treatment will be borne by everyone except the company that was clearly negligent. This could mean higher taxes for patients who qualify under Medicare, Medicaid and other government-sponsored programs, or higher fees charged to medical insurance companies.
These awards should also remind businesses that it is not a good idea to create unneeded and unusual dangers. This will discourage companies from creating them, or, at least, not refuse to alert customers to the danger.
Banzhaf says that it appears that McDonald’s did not learn this simple lesson. He forced McDonald’s in the most recent lawsuit to pay over $12,000,000 for misleadingly representing its french fries.
The McNuggets suit, he says, is more severe than the coffee case because it involved a child who was innocent and disfigured.
Banzhaf argues that the new lawsuit by the young girl is valid, even if her parents were negligent and did not prevent the disfigurement of the child. McDonald’s was supposed to have anticipated that such a thing could happen.
Prof Banzhaf is known as “the driving force behind the lawsuits that have cost Tobacco companies Billions of dollars,” “the Law Professor who masterminded litigation against the Tobacco Industry” and “the King of Class Action Suits.”
He was dubbed “the Ralph Nader for Junk Food,” the “Man Who is Taking Fat To Court,” a “Major Crusader against Big Tobacco, and Now among Those Targeting The Food Industry,” he also created a legal industry that tries to protect the food industry against the very successful and new sue-fat movement.