Stella Liebeck was the 79-year-old New Mexico woman who spilled hot coffee from McDonald’s in her lap and sued the hamburger chain for the burns she inflicted on herself. In 1994, a jury awarded her nearly $3 million, but the trial judged reduced that extravagant sum to $640,000. While the case was on appeal, Liebeck and McDonald’s reached a confidential out-of-court settlement.
Maybe she settled for free coffee for life, or maybe a Happy Meal once a week.
Nobody knows the deal she made, but Liebeck’s suit has inspired copycat cases ever since – including, perhaps, the one filed in Jefferson County District Court in 2017 against Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas by a fellow named Israel Bob.
Israel Bob claims that he was lying in a bed in Baptist Hospital in 2015 and woke up to find a rolling table positioned over him with a black plastic cup of coffee on it. Though he doesn’t drink coffee and hadn’t asked for any, he nevertheless reached for it and spilt it on himself.
His story makes perfect sense, right? If you woke up in a hospital bed and found a cup of coffee you hadn’t ordered on a rolling table on top of you, the first thing you’d want to do is reach for it and pour it all over yourself.
Then, if it was still hot – which, allegedly, it was – you’d scream in agony for a few seconds and, two years later, sue the hospital for the brief pain and the little blisters the hot liquid had raised on your skin temporarily.
Not surprisingly, the trial court granted summary judgment to Baptist, but Bob appealed the decision last September and the case continues.
Someone should pour a bucket of cold water on his head.