Customer Sues Southwest Airlines Over Hot Tea Spill

[Family Ties Forever!]

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Passenger Sues Southwest Over Hot Tea Spill
Tennessee woman says tea severely burned her
Author: By Aaron Cooper CNN
Posted: Sep 26 2012 2:32 PM CDT Updated: Sep 26 2012 9:14 PM CDT

Washington (CNN) - A Tennessee woman sued Southwest Airlines and a flight attendant Tuesday for $800,000 for serving tea she says severely burned her. On December 28, 2011, Angelica Keller was seated in the window seat of the front row on Flight 955 between Nashville and Houston with a stop in New Orleans. She ordered hot tea, and the suit says the flight attendant brought her a cup of "extremely hot water" sitting in another cup which contained the tea bag and condiment packets.

In the "plaintiffs efforts to extricate the tea bag from its position of being wedged between the tilted paper 'hot cup' of extremely hot water and the shorter clear plastic soft drink cup, the extremely hot water spilled into her lap at her groin area," the suit said. Keller's body suffered second degree burns and her skin blistered, peeled and she was permanently scarred, the lawyers said. "Our Customers' comfort is our top priority at all times, and we safely serve about 100 million drinks onboard every year," Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said in a statement. "The referenced event is unfortunate, and we are currently reviewing it. We can't provide additional details due to the pending lawsuit that was filed."

Southwest does not have tray tables in the front rows of its aircraft, and Keller's suit said that contributed to the accident. It also said the airline served the drink in an unreasonable manner and used "hot water at a temperature too hot for use in an aircraft." Mainz was unable to provide the standard temperature of the water on Southwest flights, but said it has never been an issue in the past. The suit, filed Tuesday, seeks $300,000 for property damages, medical bills, injuries and pain and suffering as well as $500,000 in punitive damages.

Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved.

[Retro4Life]

Sounds to me like someone doesn't believe in personal responsibility. I can't see how the airline could reasonably be expected to foresee something like this; if she was clumsy, it's her fault. If it wasn't hot, my guess is that she would have complained about it being too cold. There's no pleasing some (most) people.

[Family Ties Forever!]

It was terrible how the woman from McDonalds was severely burned by the cofee that was way too hot.

[Big3sCompanyFan]

Originally Posted by Family Ties Forever!

^True. The article reminds me of when the woman sued McDonalds over hot coffee.

What's disgusting is she actually won!

The judge needs to throw this out immediately!

[phoebe7165]

She was permanently scarred??? Give me a break!!! I have had 2nd degree burns before and I wasn't scarred in the least bit.

She ordered hot tea, and was brought "extremely hot water", what did she expect?? Duh!!!! Just another person trying to get money from a big company.

[Janice]

Like most people, I thought that the McDonald's coffee case was a scam until I saw it profiled on Dateline. The coffee they served her was scalding hot. No customer should be served a beverage that is so insanely hot that it can burn your skin off, like acid.

http://www.slip-and-sue.com/the-famo...uit-revisited/

The famous/infamous "McDonald's Coffee Spill Lawsuit" revisited

Everybody “knows” the story: A lady bought coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through, spilled it on herself, and suffered minor burns. She sued McDonald’s, and with the help of a clever injury attorney, managed to convince a jury that it was all McDonalds’ fault for not providing adequate warning that hot coffee is indeed hot, and can scald you. The lady walked away with a multi-million dollar award.

The case has entered the popular culture as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the justice system: frivolous lawsuits, unscrupulous attorneys, unreliable juries, greedy plaintiffs who blame others for their own mistakes, and judges who aid and abet the whole sordid process.

The McDonald’s Coffee Spill Case is a classic example of “miscarriage of justice,” right? Wrong.

Slip-and-sue.com has researched what really happened. When one looks at the real facts of the case, an entirely different picture emerges than the one painted by typical retellings of the story…

The plaintiff and the spill incident. The plaintiff, a 79-year-old grandmother named Stella Liebeck, was not driving, nor was the vehicle moving when the injury occurred. While the car was stopped, Mrs. Liebeck, who was sitting in the passenger seat, tried to hold the coffee cup between her knees as she removed the lid. The cup tipped over, spilling the contents into her lap.

The injury. Mrs. Liebeck’s injury was anything but trivial. The scalding-hot coffee caused third-degree burns over 16% of her body, including her genital area. She had to be hospitalized for eight days. She required extensive skin grafts and was permanently scarred. She was disabled for a period of two years. During the ensuing trial, Mrs. Liebeck’s physician testified that her injury was one of the worst cases of scalding he’d ever seen.

The coffee. At the time, McDonalds’ corporate specifications explicitly called for coffee to be served at a temperature between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. An expert witness testified that liquids at this temperature will cause third degree burns of human skin in two to seven seconds. (Coffee served at home is typically 135 to 140 degrees.)

McDonalds’ culpability. During discovery, McDonald’s was required to produce corporate documents of similar cases. More than 700(!) claims had been made against McDonald’s, and many of the victims had suffered third-degree burns similar to Mrs. Liebeck’s. Yet the company had refused to change its policy, supposedly because a consultant had recommended the high temperature as a way to maintain optimum taste. Some have speculated that the real reason for the high temperature was to slow down consumption of the coffee, reducing the demand for free refills.

Greed? Despite the pain caused by her injury, and the lengthy and expensive
treatments she required, Mrs. Liebeck originally offered to settle with McDonald’s for $20,000. The corporation offered her a mere $800, so the case went to trial.

The settlement. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages to Mrs. Liebeck, which was reduced to $160,000 because the jury felt that only 80% of the fault lay with McDonald’s, and 20% with her. They also awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, essentially as punishment of McDonald’s for its callous treatment of Mrs. Liebeck, and its years of ignoring hundreds of similar injuries. This amount was held to be reasonable given that it represented only two days’ worth of McDonalds’ revenue from coffee sales alone. The trial judge reduced the punitive damages, however, to $480,000. After further negotiation, Mrs. Liebeck ultimately received $640,000.

The aftermath. In subsequent investigations, it was found that the Albuquerque McDonalds where the incident occurred had reduced the temperature of its coffee to 158 degrees. The corporation as a whole ultimately changed its policies as well, and now explicitly forbids serving coffee at the scalding temperatures that injured Mrs. Liebeck. There is no way of knowing how many additional injuries have been prevented by this case, which forced McDonald’s to change its policies, and which has doubtlessly served as a warning to other restaurants as well.

So what’s the bottom line? The case was neither about a gold-digger, nor a defendant that was taken to the cleaners based on a flimsy pretext. Rather, a huge corporation had knowingly injured hundreds of people as the direct result of a needlessly dangerous corporate policy, and was finally held accountable by one of the victims.

The loss to McDonald’s soon disappeared behind the decimal point in its financial statements, in which not the dollar, but the million is the unit of reporting. Mrs. Liebeck’s financial gain hardly made her rich, but it did serve as reasonable compensation for her extensive medical bills—and for the extensive pain and suffering that her injury caused her.


Those interested in reading more about the case can find additional documentation here, here, and here.

[robyrob]

there is no reason for it to be served at anything higher than 140 degrees

[spunkygirl]

The fact that the McDonald's lady would set it between her legs is enough for me to say yeah that was stupid.

What do people expect, it's COFFEE it's going to be hot. I seriously have no patience for stupid people

[Big3sCompanyFan]

We all agree these are stupid and frivolous cases and verdicts!

[AKA]

Originally Posted by Big3sCompanyFan

We all agree these are stupid and frivolous cases and verdicts!

No, we don't. In the famous McDonald's case that many ridicule, a 79-year-old woman suffered third-degree burns on her pelvis, groin and buttocks. She had to get skin grafts, and endured an eight-day hospital stay, which preceded two years of odious treatment.

This was coffee that McDonald's kept way too hot -- at least 180 degrees -- when they could easily have kept it below 140 and it would have been just as good.

Just imagine if this had happened to your grandma and not a nameless, faceless woman. There are frivolous lawsuits, but this wasn't one of them; it was justified, as was the verdict.

Read Janice's post above. Lots of useful info.

[Family Ties Forever!]

I'm sorry I referred to the McDonalds case. Thanks for the information about it. It's terrible that she was burned so badly. I had forgotten how badly she was hurt. Water shouldn't be served at 180-190 degrees. That's way too hot.

[AKA]

Nothing to be sorry about, Jenny. Most people don't know all the facts about it (myself included until recently). We all have a tendency to think that all lawsuits like this are frivolous, and for good reason. But because of what I've learned about the McDonald's case, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt before jumping to conclusions.

[Janice]

Originally Posted by Family Ties Forever!

I'm sorry I referred to the McDonalds case. Thanks for the information about it. It's terrible that she was burned so badly. I had forgotten how badly she was hurt. Water shouldn't be served at 180-190 degrees. That's way too hot.

Jenny, don't be sorry. I'm sorry for being so abrupt in my reply. I should have given the article a kinder lead-in. You know I wuv you, Chicky-dee.

[Family Ties Forever!]

Originally Posted by Janice

Jenny, don't be sorry. I'm sorry for being so abrupt in my reply. I should have given the article a kinder lead-in. You know I wuv you, Chicky-dee.

Thanks Janice.

The article helped remind me about the details of the case.

[Schmoopie]

Originally Posted by Family Ties Forever!

link

Passenger Sues Southwest Over Hot Tea Spill
Tennessee woman says tea severely burned her
Author: By Aaron Cooper CNN
Posted: Sep 26 2012 2:32 PM CDT Updated: Sep 26 2012 9:14 PM CDT

Washington (CNN) - A Tennessee woman sued Southwest Airlines and a flight attendant Tuesday for $800,000 for serving tea she says severely burned her. On December 28, 2011, Angelica Keller was seated in the window seat of the front row on Flight 955 between Nashville and Houston with a stop in New Orleans. She ordered hot tea, and the suit says the flight attendant brought her a cup of "extremely hot water" sitting in another cup which contained the tea bag and condiment packets.

In the "plaintiffs efforts to extricate the tea bag from its position of being wedged between the tilted paper 'hot cup' of extremely hot water and the shorter clear plastic soft drink cup, the extremely hot water spilled into her lap at her groin area," the suit said. Keller's body suffered second degree burns and her skin blistered, peeled and she was permanently scarred, the lawyers said. "Our Customers' comfort is our top priority at all times, and we safely serve about 100 million drinks onboard every year," Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said in a statement. "The referenced event is unfortunate, and we are currently reviewing it. We can't provide additional details due to the pending lawsuit that was filed."

Southwest does not have tray tables in the front rows of its aircraft, and Keller's suit said that contributed to the accident. It also said the airline served the drink in an unreasonable manner and used "hot water at a temperature too hot for use in an aircraft." Mainz was unable to provide the standard temperature of the water on Southwest flights, but said it has never been an issue in the past. The suit, filed Tuesday, seeks $300,000 for property damages, medical bills, injuries and pain and suffering as well as $500,000 in punitive damages.

Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved.

At first I found this really stupid but now I can kind of see their point. I don't like Southwest for this very reason. My husband and I were flying back from Dallas and were seated in the front row. We were handed our drinks but had nowhere to put them, so I can see how this woman could have gotten burned. If she has scars and so forth, she may have a valid point. I think the amount she's asking for, is insane but how stupid to not have trays in front!

Thanks for including the info about the other cases. Very informative and pretty scary to be honest!