McDonald’s sells a billion cups of coffee each year, in part because its coffee is extremely hot—180 to 190 degrees—which is exactly what its customers prefer and which, McDonald’s believes, produces tastier coffee than the 140 to 145 degrees normally achieved at home. In 1992, then 79-year-old Stella Liebeck ordered coffee at an Albuquerque, New Mexico, McDonald’s drive-through. Her grandson, who was driving, pulled forward and stopped so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. The dashboard of the car was slanted so that the coffee could not be set on it. Liebeck, therefore, placed the coffee between her legs, and while trying to get the top off the container, she spilled the coffee on her lap, resulting in third-degree burns. She was hospitalized, required skin grafts, and was disabled for two years. Liebeck sued, accusing McDonald’s of gross negligence for selling coffee that was “unreasonably dangerous” and “defectively manufactured.”

Required:

• After learning the “facts” of the case, please discuss how this case and other cases portrayed inaccurately in the media or on television (Seinfeld) impacts the victims, the corporations sued, and their stakeholders.
• Also discuss the impact of frivolous lawsuits, those not as serious as this case, and the argument by some that the United States is an “over-litigious” society.
• Should consumers be limited in their ability to sue corporations (“Tort Reform”)? What and who is impacted by consumer lawsuits?