The Stella award was created in the United States in 1992.
On a sunny morning, our protagonist, Stella Liebeck, an 80-year-old woman, bought a 49-cent McDonald’s coffee. She wanted to sweeten her life starting with her breakfast, so...Spoilers!
She was sitting in her car, holding the coffee in her lap, taking off the lid and trying to add sugar, when the worst thing you can imagine happened. Yeah, the coffee spilled...
There was no doubt that Stella was scalded, and her family sued McDonald because the coffee was too hot. Most dramatic of all：Not only did McDonald lose the lawsuit, but it was a complete loss, and Stella’ s compensation award was up to $1 million!!
Surprised!
Since then, a civic organization called Stella was found, and each year it will award a Stella award for such unexpected and absurd lawsuits. Stella has become the proper name for a kind of ridiculous lawsuit. Come on, let’s take a look at the Stella award selection.
No one can make me fall down!
In Texas, Catherine was tripped by a child and sprained her ankle when she running in one furniture store. Thus, she sued the store at anger and the court judged that the store shall compensate Catherine $780,000 because the store did not ban children from playing in it. The problem is that:
It was none other than her son who tripped her up!
Nothing is better than a boy’s hand
Carl, 19, received $78,000 plus medical bills from his neighbor who ran over his hand. Why was it so just right? Because Carl was stealing the tire cover of his neighbor’s car while his neighbor was driving...
The importance of front teeth
Miss Walton, from Texas, wanted to go to a nightclub. In order to avoid paying $3.50 for a ticket, she came up with a brilliant idea -- sneaking out the toilet window! Then she dropped two of her front teeth...
In the end, the judge ordered the nightclub to reimburse Walton for expenses she spent in filling her teeth and $12,000 in damages. Oh my god!
You should have stopped me when I was angry
Amber has filed a $113,500 claim against the restaurant for breaking her tailbone.
Why did her fall? Because the ground was slippery.
Why was the ground slippery? Because half one minute ago, Miss Amber spilled a drink on her boyfriend who was arguing with her.
Please don’t eat the stick of the lollipop
The Stella award was given to Mr Malfoy of Oklahoma, whose confusing act not only dazzled but made him become a millionaire.
Malfoy caused a serious traffic accident on the freeway when he set his new touring bus on autopilot at 70 kilometers per hour and then went to the back of the touring bus to make coffee. Surviving Malfoy sued touring bus manufacturer for $1.75 million and won the lawsuit! The reason is that the bus’s instructions should have specified: don’t leave the driver’s seat to make coffee in the back of the touring bus.
Are judges and juries kidding us when they try cases?!
These judgments look really shocking but they are not in fact. Thinking seriously, you can find the justice of judiciary, the strict of system and the warmth of law in those seemingly absurd cases.
In the Stella case, the 80-year-old Stella suffered third-degree burns to her thighs and stomach because of the hot coffee, forcing her to spend two years in hospital undergoing skin grafts before she could walk again. At first, Stella’ s daughter only asked McDonald for $20,000 in medical and nursing expenses, but McDonald haughtily offered to pay only $800 which made Stella’ s family decided to protect rights by lawsuit.
There is no question of this case at first, but Stella’ s injury photos were open at the trial, which were shocking and successfully reversed the balance of victory and defeat.
According to the survey, the temperature of McDonald’s coffee is 10 to 15 degrees Celsius higher than the average temperature of other fast food restaurants. Scald experts said that if it had been coffee from another store, Stella would have suffered a second-degree burn at most. Hence the following classic dialogue:
Judge: Why do you sell such hot coffee?
McDonald’s lawyer: We consulted coffee experts and found that the coffee at this temperature is the most mellow coffee.
Stella’ s lawyer: But why didn’t you consult a burn specialist for consumer safety?
The obvious answer was no, which led the jury to decide that McDonald was liable for 80% of the damages i.e. $16,000. The story was supposed to end, but soon a second turning point came.
Because the court found that Stella was not alone and that McDonald dismissed anyone who got burned by a cup of coffee. McDonald said, ‘McDonald sold 10 billion cups of coffee in the 10 years from 1982 to 1992, with an accident rate of 0.000007 percent’. That was the sentence that infuriated the jury. They argue that McDonald cares only cold, so-called ‘scientific probability’ and even gloats about this ‘low probability’, but never cares the enormous pain suffered by the 700 or so customers who were scalded. So they taught McDonald a lesson of a lifetime with their sky-high compensation.
This representative judgment gives businesses an alarm about ‘product safety responsibility’: caution is the parent of safety, otherwise you may go bankrupt accidentally!
The businesses all found that in addition to increasing the duty of care and improving product safety performance, reminding consumers is also a very direct and effective means! So......
McDonald: Hot drinks. Be careful and avoid burning your mouth.
Shower cap: This shower cap can only be used for one head every time.
Children’s toy superman suit of America: It cannot make you fly.
Some sleeping pill: Caution, you will feel sleepy after taking this medicine.
Japanese shredder: It cannot make you be in multiple places at once.
Brand oven: Do not use it for magic...Do not use it as an aquarium.
What the hell? Perhaps this is the surprising effect of the Stella’ s case. Once bitten by a snake, twice shy.
No matter what the purpose of each business is for, these strange but lovely instructions, really reduce the number of product accidents, which reflects the business concern and responsibility for consumer safety, and the warmth brought by law.
This special article is over here! Over the past year, thank you for supporting and trusting in Mak&Gu&Tasng Lawfirm. In the future, we will give you more professional and better service, and love you more!
Reference: yuanyich. ‘Stella Award’ : chasing down absurd lawsuits
