Because in the US legal system that uses laypeople as judges ("juries"), lawsuits tend to be won by those who put on the best play for the juries, not by those who have the better arguments on their side like in Continental Europe. And to make matters worse, sometimes juries go for obscenely excessive damages against companies to "make a point" - just look at the McDonald's coffee case.
The McDonald’s coffee lawsuit was not frivolous[1][2]. The company served coffee at extremely dangerous temperatures. The claimant had severe third degree burns and only wanted McDonald’s to pay for her medical expenses. McDonald’s had a least 700 complaints about the problem before the lawsuit and did nothing until after the lawsuit. Please stop repeating corporate propaganda.
No, what happened to Stella Liebeck was terrible, and it's right that she had the public's sympathy, however her coffee was not excessively hot by modern standards.
Stella's coffee was served within the temperature range that was, and still is, recommended by professional coffee associations like SCAA and NCA [1]. The NCA recommends that coffee be held and served at around 180-185 deg F (~80-85 deg C), which is likely near the temperature at which Stella was burned. This is a perfectly reasonable service temperature, widely used by coffee shops, restaurants, and home brewing machines to this day.
Stella Liebeck took her cup of coffee and squeezed it between her legs in order to fiddle with the lid. The result was tragic, but completely expected. If I spill a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee on my crotch today, I fully expect to sustain third-degree burns. So I take a little extra care with it until it has cooled to drinking temperature, which happens pretty quickly.
Tea is generally even hotter. Any good tea shop will serve a pot of freshly boiled water, at least twenty degrees hotter than hot coffee. Spilling that on yourself is guaranteed to melt your skin. Great care is warranted.
Again, what happened to Stella was terrible. She didn't deserve it, and she didn't deserve the hate she got afterward. But she did something really stupid. I sympathize, because I do stupid stuff all the time, and I have the scars to remind me.
We're surrounded by extremely dangerous things that require great care to use properly. It's useful for coffee to be held and served hot, just as it's useful for knives to be sharp and cars to be able to reach highway speeds. There will inevitably be accidents, but making the world completely safe for people who use these things carelessly would mean depriving everyone of their proper use.
>The company served coffee at extremely dangerous temperatures.
Yes, it was frivolous to many peoples eyes, including mine. McDonald's still serves their coffee at the same temperatures today. They just changed the cups and added warnings at least according to the Wikipedia article on the case.
The McDonald's coffee case is often cited this way, but I think a spilled a coffee that causes third-degree burns and necessitates skin grafts is probably too hot.
The article you linked to notes they still serve the coffee at the same temperturea today, just changing the cups and adding warnings. Probably not too hot or they would have changed it after the lawsuit.
Coffee drinkers like their coffee hot. They tell me the taste is much better when it is brewed hot. I know I was working at McDonalds at the time of the suit, and a few weeks later we adjusted our temperatures to the minimum of the acceptable range from the max, and immediately got complaints. (the complaints didn't start until after the adjustment)
Would you not expect to get coffee made with boiling water? This is what you would get if you made it at home. It can't havr been much hotter than that or it would have evaporated.
