Don't rest a hot cup of coffee on your leg while driving

You just might get burned -- as one young woman discovered. She's suing Starbucks for $250,000, claiming it's a lid problem, not a common sense issue. (Starbucks Gossip)

Comments

[Torgo]

Never been to a Starbucks. Never had a burned groin. I see a connection here.

[cherie]

A. Hot Coffee is....HOT
B. There are cup holders in EVERY Car
C. Always check the lid before you drive off
D. Doing dumb shit with your purchase after you've received the product and paid for it is your own damn fault and not the fault of the product or company that you purchased it from.

However, I've never understood why the hell the coffee is as damn hot as it is when you purchase it from these places. Sometimes its so hot you have to wait 30 minutes before its safe to drink or put ice cubes in it. I prefer iced coffee anyway.

[twerp]

She should be shot with an Uzi.

[Soo]

If there is any justice in the world, this woman will not only lose her lawsuit, she will be fined for stupidity.

[sometimesilie]

wOw, I hope she gets all that money! poor princess' burned groin- it positively *has* to be someone elses fault...someone else with a lot of money!

(actually I hope the jury members are allowed to take turns dumping coffee on her)

[nellagain]

Why the necessity to drink, feed, talk to distant friend and relatives WHILE DRIVING A CAR?

[sometimesilie]

2 of my favorite consumer warning labels-

on a chainsaw- do not stop blade with groin.
on a blender- do not use for the other use. (that's GOT to be a euphemism for something sexual, meaning some dOOd stuck his junk in a blender. AGGGGHHHHH!!!)

[sometimesilie]

a strap on feed back would eliminate these problems.

[G-Man]

Didn't we have our fill of people suing over hot coffee with the McD's case? If the lid wasn't on right then she deserves to be compensated with a replacement cup of coffee. Other than that she deserves - zilch, zero, nada, nothing, diddly, goose egg, nought, zippo (can anyone come up with some more? :D).

[NitroPress]

All pardons to our gracious host who clearly thinks more of Stawbuckies than I do, but...

This is just one more brick in the monument to the overall cow-like stupidity of 'Buckies customers. Anyone who can brave the insular manufactured culture to pay $5 for crappy sody-pop coffee served by a snotty pseudo-expert AND LIKE IT pretty much deserves... well, the wrath of God or whatever befalls them.

[NitroPress]

Don't bring up the McDonald's case unless you know all the facts. The Rush Limbaugh version won't fly here.

The woman in that case did nothing particularly stupid except spill a cup of coffee that was so hot it caused burns requiring multiple plastic surgeries to her thighs and genitals. McDonald's finally all but admitted they knew they kept their coffee at an unsafe serving temperature for purely economic reasons, and that their serving method and cups were deficient.

So when you hear the Rush/standup comic version about how someone got a million dollars for dropping their cup of coffee, recognize the accreted bullsh*t.

Now, Starbucks coffee... crap, you couldn't burn a baby with it by the time you finish squirting in ninety-leven kinds of goo.

Well said, Nitro.....

[nellagain]

Other things not to do while you are driving
Put a live weasel down you pants
Sharpen a French Chef's Knife
Test the fit on a blindfold
Change your bra
Change your jockstrap
Put pencils up your nose
Perform Brain surgery
Play kissy face with a boa constrictor
Have a colonscopy
I think that's the crop.

[Rat]

After Stella Liebeck, the old woman that made out like a bandit on the spilt hot coffee at Mc Donalds won all that money, the food, restaraunt establishments had "Caution, contents may be hot" or something similar to this printed on all their to-go cups.

To quote Farmer Bob: "Sterilize 'em"

[Bill]

Nitro---

thanks for bringing out the true sotr, but there is one clarification I need to make. That woman was willing to settle for actual medical costs, and zero for pain and suffering. Only when McD's rejected that offer did she get a powerhouse attorney who convinced twelve jurors unanimously that McD's was well beyond careless.

[kestrelmas]

/sighs.

Why didn't she use a cupholder instead of her thigh? Personally, I don't put any drinks in my lap while driving, hot or cold. I'm with G-man. Replace the spilled liquid at the store, put ice on your junk, chalk it up to you being stupid for balancing a drink on your lap instead of placing it in a cupholder, and move on.

[NitroPress]

Rat, I have a whole section on my advertising humor page about such warnings, titled "There Are Lawyers in the House."

[RockyMtnMac]

Coffee is hot!!??? WTF!! I didn't know coffee is hot! I'm a little scared right now! Why, oh why can't someone warn me about these things! My Gawd, what if I had been holding that coffee over the baby sitting on my lap while I was driving?

How is the average citizen supposed to know that coffee is hot? They don't exactly teach this stuff in school ya know!

Crap! What else aren't you guys telling me?

[Farmer Bob and the City]

I hope the hot coffee sterilized her.

Both her and her lawyer needs to be sterilized.

People who don't take responsibility for their actions need to be sterilized.

[sometimesilie]

"She drove to a nearby friend's house and disrobed."

"She discovered that she had severe blisters and burns on her hand, inner thigh and vaginal area," the lawsuit states."

Sounds like a porno gone awry.

[Gabe]

Even before I had a car with cupholders, I could drive, operate my clutch, and shift, in an older Ford Ranger (not a particularly smooth ride), with a hot cup of coffee in my lap, all without spilling it. Why? I actually check to see if the lid is on tight before pulling away from a window, or walking away from a counter. And why would I do that? Because I'm not an idiot, and I understand my safety and well-being is MY responsibility. I feel bad for the poor gal, getting burned in such a sensitive area, but I really just don't see that it's the fault of Starbucks, or the manufacturer of the lids and cups.
Or, we could just say:
How many people have to get burned before we take the dangerous hot beverages off the street? Too many injuries can be attributed to easy access to hot coffee. Save our children from hot beverages!!

[sometimesilie]

Rocky- what is this "Hot" you speak of? Is it some sort of color? Will it molest my neighbors cat? Does it come out in the wash? Is it a type of duck? People can't be expected to know everything...hmmm...now what are these round, concave cup-like hole-y things in my car? Do they have something to do with this "hot." Ooooo, look at that shiny nice red light! How pretty! I won-SMASH!

[RockyMtnMac]

Sometimesilie?
Sometimesilie are you OK?

CURSE YOU HOT COFFEE AND SHINY OBJECTS!

[MONKEY JERK]

SHE WILL PROBABLY WIN THE SUIT.

[Cluckie]

Looking down into my trash can, I see two coffee cups...both with warnings on them. One is Caution: Contents Hot! and the other is Hot! Be careful. Even the Tim Horton's sleeve has the warning on it. If you're gonna be stupid enough to juggle something you KNOW damned well is hot while you're driving, don't b!tch about the consequences. If I spill coffee on myself while I'm driving, I've assumed the risk and clean up the mess. To expect starbucks or any other place to pick up the tab for your stupidity is just nuts.

[cherie]

I STILL have no sympathy for the McDonalds woman....COFFEE IS HOT!!! If YOU spill it on YOURSELF then its YOUR fault...not the fault of the mfgr..no matter how damn HOT it was....

Thats like me slipping and falling in my hottub and sueing the company that made it. STUPID!!!

Or...as someone above suggested....putting your dick in a blender and then sueing Hamilton because their blender ground up your dick...

Get real people.

[G-Man]

Nitro - The McD's lady still did the same dumb thing and had the coffee between her legs. Was the coffee too hot? Yes, but she held the cup in a careless manner. It's kind of like pointing a gun at your head and squeezing the trigger with the safety on and then suing the manufacturer if the safety didn't work.

[A.V.]

There is absolutely no excuse for this demonstration of stupidity.
Would this idiette sue the phone co because she hit another vehicle while texting?

I hope she burned her vag shut so she can't breed.

[Kelly]

sometimesilie - I always wondered what the 'other use' thing on the blender directions were... I honestly can't think of anything and didn't go THERE.

[Dave]

"This is just one more brick in the monument to the overall cow-like stupidity of 'Buckies customers. Anyone who can brave the insular manufactured culture to pay $5 for crappy sody-pop coffee served by a snotty pseudo-expert AND LIKE IT pretty much deserves... well, the wrath of God or whatever befalls them." -NitroPress

I'm an occasional Starbucks customer. I'd frequent Starbucks more often but there's not an easily accessible location near either my house or my workplace. I don't know what kind of reputation Starbucks has and I couldn't care less. I buy coffee there because it's damned good. And I certainly don't pay five dollars for it. A regular coffee is comparable in price to Dunkin Donuts, or any other coffee shop. Maybe just slightly more. Big deal. I'll pay the extra quarter. It's well worth it, as the coffee is a hundred times better. Also, I've never been served by anyone snotty. The folks at my local Starbucks are very pleasant.

As far as the woman in the story, it's unfortunate that she was injured. But I hardly think that Starbucks should be held responsible for her own carelessness. If the cup were in the cupholder where it belonged, it wouldn't have spilled on her. And if she was holding the cup by the top, then she could very well have inadvertently loosened the lid herself.

[KC]

We need generic laws against driving while distracted, so we don't have to write separate ones about cell phones and coffee cups and whatever other as-yet-unforeseen things foolish people allow to divert their attention away from their driving. It's irresponsible at best to operate a vehicle weighting several tons while holding any drink on your thigh, whether hot or not, and whether it spills or not. I hope applicable laws let them charge her with something like that.
_______________________

Well, the pick of the litter she's not,
If she doesn't know coffee is hot.
"Oh, those cups and their lids
Are to blame for this." Kids,
Do you think you can say "IDIOTT"?

[Joe]

"[She] balanced the extremely hot cup of coffee on her thigh with her hand on top of the cup as she pulled away from the window and negotiated a turn onto the roadway,"

In HER OWN STATEMENT she admits to reckless driving. She should be brought up on criminal charges, not trying to sue a company. As much as i dislike Starbucks, this lawsuit is bullshit. It doesn't even have a smidgen of credibility like the McDonnald's coffee lawsuit. The reason that one was successful was because McDonald's keeping the coffee at a temperature that was absurdly high. To hot to even drink, and hot enough to cause third degree burns. Here all that happened was some moron spilled her own coffee on herself.

[Caffeinated Katie]

Not all cars have cup holders and some cars don't have cup holders that you can actually fit anything in. I've got a '97 VW and the stupid cup holder is so small I can't even fit a 12oz. can of soda in it. That being said, the woman is an idiot. Even though I don't have usable cup holders in my car, I don't put drinks between my legs. I bought one of those cheap plastic cup holders you wedge into the door and it works just fine. I also don't buy coffee, seeing as I have a coffee pot/espresso machine in my house. I brew my own and use travel mugs where the lid screws on tightly.

[NitroPress]

@Dave - Starbucks has some of the lousiest coffee on earth. I mean the dark brown stuff (watch out, people, because it's HOT!) in the pot on the back shelf that gets poured into a cup and drunk without a "barista" doing a damn thing but handing it to you with a scowl.

I've never had a cup of Starbucks coffee that didn't taste old, burnt and sour. The bottom line is that all their coffee is crappy and only drinkable if you put nine kinds of flavoring in it. Since, barring the very occasional mocha with dessert from a good restaurant, I don't drink candy-coffee, Starbucks is an endless source of amusement to me. I love watching people spend hundreds a month there for their caramel mocha frappe whooshy fix and then trying to talk to me about coffee.

Almost nobody under 30 drinks coffee any more - not if you exclude drinks that contain less brewed coffee than a dish of coffee ice cream.

[Paul]

I guess it's time to print

DO NOT HOLD COFFEE IN CROTCH

on all coffee cups...

[NitroPress]

@Paul: Yeah!

And on the lid should be IF YOU WOULD BE EMBARRASSED TO HAVE A STRANGER READING THIS YOU HAVE THIS CUP IN A *BAD* LOCATION!

[steveO]

Only when McD's rejected that offer did she get a powerhouse attorney who convinced twelve jurors unanimously that McD's was well beyond careless.
--------------
McD's deserved the punitive part for having not just taken care of it in the first place. She would have gone away, no one would have known.

[Dave]

"I love watching people spend hundreds a month there for their caramel mocha frappe whooshy fix and then trying to talk to me about coffee." -Nitro
Ah, well I have no use for that kinda crap. That's not coffee to me.
As far as Starbucks (regular) coffee goes, though, I guess we just have a difference of opinion. Theirs is the best coffee I've ever tasted, while you think it's the worst. And what you consider old burnt and sour tasting, I consider rich robust and full of flavor. And far from having to doctor it up in order to make it palatable, Starbucks is the only coffee I can actually drink black, and not miss the cream and sugar one bit!
I also loooooove Starbucks ice cream. What can I say? I'm an unabashed Starbucks fan. Once I tasted theirs, it's difficult for me to enjoy wimpy flavorless coffee again. It's like, once I switched to ale, I could never go back to lager. Know what I mean?
Having said all that, I refuse to refer to my cashier as a barista. The fact that they have their own secret language and code words is kinda creepy and cultish. Still, my cashiers/servers are always very friendly. They never scowl, honest.

[elchampino]

I won't set foot in a *$ (or any other food chain for that matter). My GF manages one. We've somehow learned to make it work.

Although I'm sure I'd be on the express train to the dog house if I ever referred to her profession as not a "barista" but a "coffee-getter".

[rose]

You know maybe Im giving her to much credit maybe Im not. Shit happens! But common sense can save your a** from doing stupid shit.I would like to know if it was just a mishap or was she just another dumbass behind the wheel. Thanks to all the stupid people I need a good laugh now and again.

[InquizitiveOne]

When oh when will we finally have a Nerf world, where we all float around in our own little sterilized safety bubbles?!??? Doesn't anyone realize the leading cause of injury and death is life? How can they expect us to go through life in this danger-filled world and not be killed or horribly maimed at any second??? Why isn't anyone doing anything? We can travel to other planets but can't turn off gravity?!? I'm seeing government conspiracy here....

If I remember correctly, the McD's coffee case was eventually overturned and that lady received nothing.

I am with the others, anyone who places hot coffee in their laps (besides going to a Starbucks) deserves whatever happens to them.

She'll collect. The coffee is dangerous if used as it was designed to be used, which is to drink it while hot as hell. Anybody handing something this hazardous to people knowing they will be handling it while operating a motor vehicle just has to know that something bad will eventually happen. It's like handing out guns.

[themom0925]

FYI
Verdict and settlement
Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald's was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was neither large enough nor sufficient. They awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced by 20% to $160,000. In addition, they awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages. The jurors apparently arrived at this figure from Morgan's suggestion to penalize McDonald's for one or two days worth of coffee revenues, which were about $1.35 million per day.[4]
The judge reduced punitive damages to $480,000, three times the compensatory amount, for a total of $640,000. The decision was appealed by both McDonald's and Liebeck in December 1994, but the parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000.[14] Lieback died on August 4, 2004, at the age of 91.

[Wow, really?]

Actually, I have a Toyota p/u with no cup holder - My 7 series BMW had no cupholder - my 69 Stingray has no cup holder... I have spilled (Not in the Vette), but knew the risk when I decided to purchase a beverage... never coffee though - don't mind a little ice, but I didn't want to hardboil the junk...

[mumto3boyz]

yuck... starbucks does taste old burned and gross.

when my oldest got out of basic we stopped at target and he wanted a black coffee. They were stumped. BLACK COFFEE???? haul out the manual for this order!!! he said it was gross.

[jj]

Seems a lot of you people are actually trying to think of this in a "common sense" light......which never EVER happens in courtrooms. She'll get some cash out of this, no doubt about it.

Yesterday I went to Starbucks, purchased a Grande Mochachocolota half caff double espresso pumpkin spice latte with extra cream and skim....brought it home and spilled it all over my antique oriental rug after tripping over my dog.....I was gonna call my lawyer today to hit up Starbucks and Petco for $50,000 each....but now this b%#$@ch has stolen my thunder!!!

[twerp]

I can't handle black coffee. I'm just wimpy like that. Bring on the syrups and cream!!

My normal cup of coffee consists of 8 splenda packets and a buttload of fat-free french vanilla coffeemate.

I do like to treat myself to a latte once in awhile--with extra syrup!

[Ace]

STS you truly got a LOOOOL outta me.

If only I could have someone pay for all the self-inflicted injuries....including and not limited to:
-Motorbike accidents
-Putting superglue on a VERY small piece of sponge which absorbed the liquid, stuck to my fingers and started burning my fingers (chemical heat reaction)
-Jumping off/onto places just to see if I can, and not even on a dare
-Any and all accidents that occured due to trying to burn or cut something that was not exactly meant to be burned or cut (ever tried to light a nylon rope on fire and have it drip on you?)