It's commonly used as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, because everyone knows coffee is hot right? Of course coffee can burn you.

The issue is that this particular coffee was negligently hot, so hot that the victim had third-degree burns on her privates. Also, the victim originally only sought coverage for medical expenses, but instead McD went to court and had to pay out a much larger amount.

Anyone who thinks this lawsuit was frivolous, try to find some of the pictures of her burns.

The media reporting was that is was frivolous, someone burned themselves on coffee and wanted to blame McDonald’s. That wasn’t the full story.

IIRC the narrative and the headline was “duh ! Hot coffee is hot! Idiot! “. ……But it turned out something like, McD coffee was like 99 degrees versus 70 degrees for your average cup and it was decided that makes a difference.

You’d have to check that, but that’s what I remember .

IMHO you still handle a hot drink like it could scald you , that’s your responsibility and your taught that from like 5 years old . However, you wouldn’t expect to be handed pretty much boiling water in a plastic cup .