♪♪ -An 81-year-old woman
has been awarded $2.9 million after she sued McDonald's, claiming their coffee
was too hot. -The public perception of it is Stella Liebeck
won a lottery -- she bought the coffee,
she spilled it on herself, and now look,
she's a millionaire -- when, of course, the facts are
much more complicated than that. -Stella Liebeck
was a 79-year-old widow sitting in the passenger seat
of a parked car when she was burned
on February 27, 1992. She had recently quit her job
as a department-store clerk and moved to Albuquerque
to be near her daughter. -The day that the burns
happened, my mother and my nephew went through the drive-through
at McDonald's and got breakfast and coffee, and they pulled
into the parking lot. And in the Ford Probe, there's
slanted surfaces everywhere. There's no place
to put the coffee. She put it between her knees
and lifted the lid off, and, in the process of
doing that, spilled the coffee, and all of the hot liquid
went into the sweat suit that she was wearing
and pooled in the seat. -All I remember is trying
to get out of the car. I screamed, not realizing
I was burned that bad. I knew I was in terrible pain. -The severity of the burns caused Stella Liebeck
to go into shock, and her grandson immediately
took her to the emergency room. -She was burned
over 16% of her body. 6% of the burns
were third-degree. She was in the hospital
for a week. -Medical bills were $10,000, so Stella reached out
to McDonald's and asked to be reimbursed. -We couldn't believe
that this could happen over spilling the coffee, so we wrote a letter
to McDonald's, asking them to check
the temperature of the coffee and to give recompense
for the medical bills, and the response from McDonald's
was an offer of $800. -Stella Liebeck
had never sued anyone before Albuquerque attorney
Ken Wagner took her case. Before they went to trial,
they tried twice to settle out of court,
but McDonald's refused. -We bought a product.
It was used as intended. It was unreasonably hot and therefore
unreasonably dangerous, and those were
the essential facts. -I was not in it for the money. I was in it because I want them
to bring the temperature down so that other people will not
go through the same thing I did. -McDonald's policy
was to serve coffee between 180 and 190 degrees. A burn expert testified
that liquid at 180 degrees could cause third-degree burns
within 15 seconds. Lawyers produced documents
that showed that between 1983 and 1992, nearly 700 people claimed that they had been burned
by hot coffee at McDonald's. -McDonald's was on
big-time notice that they had a product
that was dangerous, and it was burning people. We argued that to the jury, that they were callous
and indifferent and simply not turning down
the temperature. -An expert for McDonald's
testified that burns
are exceedingly rare -- one for every 24 million cups
of coffee served. -They just said, "It's
statistically insignificant, and we're not going to change
what we do." -People interact with
hot beverages all the time in a fast-food restaurant, and that doesn't
necessarily mean that the restaurant
is doing something wrong. -Attorney Tracy Jenks
tried the case for McDonald's and argued that Liebeck
bore personal responsibility because she spilled the coffee
on herself, and McDonald's coffee
wasn't any hotter than the coffee
at other fast-food restaurants. She said the reason
the coffee was so hot was because that's
what customers wanted. -McDonald's had a really,
really strong reason for why they brewed their coffee
at the temperature they did. It was an industrial standard based on the maximum extraction
of the flavor and the maximum
holding temperature. -But the jury saw how liquid
at that temperature can scald when they were shown
graphic photos of Liebeck's legs
and burned groin. -The photos depicted
where they had to graft the skin from the side of her legs
to close the third-degree burn. And I think if people
would have seen the severity of the burns, they would have realized
it was not a laughing matter. -After seven days of testimony
and four hours of deliberation, jurors unanimously agreed
to award Stella $200,000 in compensatory damages, but because
she caused the spill, they reduced that to $160,000. Jurors then set punitive damages to send the message
to McDonald's to turn down the temperature
of the coffee. -I remember I could see
Judge Scott going like this with his pencil,
and I thought, "Oh, I hope he's counting digits
on the verdict form," and he was. -They based the amount
on the revenue from two days of coffee sales --
$2.7 million. The size of the award
got the media's attention, but it overshadowed
the rest of the story. Details of the case
and the facts related to how the jury made its
decision went mostly unreported. -Several days
after the verdict, I had news crews from France,
Japan, Germany in my driveway wanting to interview me. I mean, I was stunned. -After the verdict came in
Wednesday, August 17th, the Albuquerque Journal
ran the first story. The Associated Press
and Reuters wire services then filed reports, and the story was picked up in
dozens of newspapers worldwide. It became an international
news event. But as the story's reach
got bigger, the word count got smaller. In some papers,
it was not more than a blurb. -697 words
in the Albuquerque Journal became 349 words in the AP and became as few as 48 words
in various renderings by major metropolitan
newspapers. 48 words can't explain a lot, and then
"woman, coffee, millions" sounds like a rip-off, not like a logical consequence
of a thoughtful trial. -The report aired on more than
a dozen national broadcasts and twice as many
local news shows. The condensed
telling of the story created its own version
of the truth. Instead of pointing out
she spilled the coffee in the passenger seat
of a parked car, this was the new narrative. -It seems she was holding a cup
between her legs while driving. -Clamped it between her legs, drove down the street,
spilled it, burned herself, sued McDonald's, and collected. -Stella has received letters
saying stuff like... -I was driving down the road. I had no business driving down
the road with the coffee between my legs
and all that stuff. See, that's just plain ignorant. -My mother was made the villain
in this story. It's like bullying.
It feels like bullying. -I mean, it's not like
the McDonald's person leaned over the car and
poured it. It was an accident. -Very much like urban legends,
it is a very compelling story. Once everybody decides
what is true about something and the media has been sort of
an echo chamber for it, then how do you deal with the
fact that they might be wrong? -Now she claims
she broke her nose on the sneeze guard
at the Sizzler, bending over
looking at the chickpeas. -"Ooh, my coffee was too hot!"
It's coffee! -Republican lawmakers crafting
the Contract with America seized the moment. They tapped into public outrage
over frivolous lawsuits to promote the Common Sense
Legal Reform Act. Liebeck's case
became exhibit "A." -If a lady goes
to a fast-food restaurant, puts coffee in her lap,
burns her legs, and sues and gets
a big settlement, that in and of itself is enough to tell you
why we need to have tort reform. <i>-She spilled hot coffee</i>
<i>on her lap</i> <i>while sitting in her car</i>
<i>and claimed it was too hot.</i> <i>Every day, we hear about</i>
<i>another outrageous lawsuit.</i> -Stella's portrayal as
a scheming wannabe millionaire was based on the jury's award, but that amount
was only a suggestion. In reality, the judge significantly reduced
the punitive damages. -The judge reduced the award
to about $650,000. -According to a source
familiar with the case, it was settled
for less than $500,000. Stella was not allowed
to talk to the press, but over the last two decades, her lawsuit has become a part
of the cultural discourse. [ Laughter ] -Pardon me. Excuse us. -Ohh! Aah! Ohh! Coffee! Ohh! We got a chance?
-Do we have a chance? You get me one coffee drinker
on that jury, you gonna walk out of there
a rich man. -[ Clicks tongue ] -Stella's daughter says that,
although over the years some stories have given greater
context and a new perspective, such as the documentary
"Hot Coffee," her family is still haunted by a perception
that doesn't seem to go away. -♪ Plasma getting bigger,
Jesus getting smaller ♪ ♪ Spill a cup of coffee,
make a million dollars ♪ -I like Toby Keith,
but he did the "American Ride." -♪ The fit's
gonna hit the shan ♪ -Do we have to keep living this
over and over and over again? -Popular misunderstanding
of the case is so ingrained that even the legal system has
had to learn to grapple with it. In 2011, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a personal-injury case
retried out of concern
that the defense attorney might have tainted
the jury's decision by comparing the case
to Liebeck's. Meanwhile, courtroom attorneys
across the country now use the case
to screen potential jurors. -It's a wonderful litmus test. If you're putting someone
on a jury, you really have to know
how they feel about this case to know whether
they're open to the facts that you're going to present. McDonald's has been, in the
public mind, cast as the victim. That Stella Liebeck needed
to defend her reputation is the saddest piece
of this whole story, to me. -Stella Liebeck died in 2004
when she was 91. -The emotion
that she went through, she just felt like
people were coming at her. -McDonald's representatives
didn't return e-mails or calls, but according
to franchisee handbooks, coffee must now be held
and served 10 degrees lower. ♪♪