A New Jersey man is suing Starbucks after sustaining 3rd degree burns from hot tea that he claims was improperly “lidded.” The man’s lawyer says, “when he went to pick up the cup, the top wasn’t on correctly. The top came off.
“When you as a consumer go into a Starbucks and order tea and the lid is on the cup, when you pick up the cup, you have a right to expect that the server has put the lid on properly.
“If the tea spills out and burns you, it’s for two reasons: the lid isn’t on properly, or the tea is too hot. … If the beverage was hot enough to cause third-degree burns on Mr. Couso, it was too hot.”
It’s a bit hard to argue that tea can be served “too hot,” being that most black tea needs to be steeped at near boiling temperatures if you’re making it correctly. Lower temperature water is more appropriate for green or white or oolong teas…
We recommend Mr. Couso stick to the “improperly lidded” argument, just in case there are any hardcore tea drinkers on the jury.
Starbucks sued over spilled tea [North Jersey]
(Photo:tiangotlost)
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seinfeld, anybody?
First Mr. Fancypants, and now Mr. Tea?
(bwahahahaha… sorry, couldn’t help it
Personally, I like my tea scalding hot. As aforementioned, many teas won’t brew properly unless the water is extremely hot. I’ll wait the 5-10 minutes for cool down time in order to get a decent cup of tea, especially if I’m paying more than $1.50 for it…
@missdona: I think you mean “duly corrected”.
@iamtravis: I know, Kramer and his crazy lawyer.
Next time there’s lawsuit like this, it’s going to be someone suing for getting frostbite from iced tea.
Nice to see my photo is been used for a good cause.
[www.tian.cc]
Look at me, I can’t make sure my lid is on completely. I’m so clumsy that I can’t help but spill boiling hot tea on myself. I also need someone to dress me and wipe my butt.
I just hope that the tea was hot enough to sterilize him, preventing this guy from ever making more humans as incapable as himself.
I wonder if the patrons of dim sum restaurants realize that everytime they ask for more tea, it’s a possible windfall just waiting to happen? Because, as we all know, those immigrants who own and work there have all that disposable income.
Where’s Roy “Fancy Pants” Pearson when you need a frivolous lawsuit?
It’s people like this idiot that force companies to put warnings like
“Do not drive or operate heavy machinery after use.” on CHILDREN’S tylenol (or cough medicine, I don’t remember, but regardless, the important part is children’s medication). Yeah the world would be a whole lot safer if we kept those 4-year-olds off the forklifts!!!!!!!
Tea is hot. Be careful. Period. On the rare occasions I order something hot at Starbucks, I not only check the lid before I pick up the drink, but I also go to the milk and sugar counter and pick up a sleeve EVEN BEFORE I pick up the drink. The thing’s got your name on it; it’s not going anywhere. Oh, and the coffee near the temperature of the sun thing, it’s the law. You HAVE TO keep hot drinks at like 160F or something by law; some sort of food safety thing.
And the wording on the cups is “CAUTION: The beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot.” It’s near the bottom of the cup under the big logo. Check it out next time you go to Starbucks.
Case Dismissed! *Bangs gavel*
I work for Sbux and have to agree with the poster above who commented that tea-water spills on us all the time. It probably is hot enough to “scald” you, yes, but if anyone should have 3rd degree burns, it should be me, and I sure don’t. I’ve had entire cups of tea spill on me and nothing bad yet. I work in Canada and we never lid cups for customers. It’s sort of dumb when you just have to take the lid off to put milk, etc. in. And, we never double-cup water-based drinks, that would be a giant waste of cups. Policy in Canada is that water-based drinks always get a sleeve before handing off to customers (and still no lid). And, even with the no lidding, I’ve never witnessed a customer spill on themselves. And, even if they did it would be their fault and there wouldn’t be any suing over it? Starbucks cups are CLEARLY marked regarding the temperature of the drink. The sleeves are too. He might have a chance if this wasn’t true, but it is.
Oh Jesus Christ. What a Whinny baby. Big Whoop, the lid was loose. 3rd Firetrucking degree burns. Yea, right. I worked as patient pusher during college at a Level 1 trauma unit. Wanna see what 3rd Degree burns really look like? Yes steam burns are serious and they do happen. I got to see a poor dude that got hit by a steam blast from an open autoclave door. That was serious. But when the poor girl down at the bowling alley got burnt on the leg by a pot of coffee when the handle broke off, the burn was nothing more than a good 2nd degree with a couple blisters. Being burnt by a splash from a cup of hot water? Doesn’t pass the stink test.
Oh, and what idiot doesn’t check the lid to any beverage? I learned that lesson real well many years ago taking specimen cups to the lab. Spilled urine cups tend to leave one very stinky.
I recently wrote a paper on hot beverage liability and I have to say that this guy stands almost no chance of winning. Most courts/juries say what others have said, that personal responsibility overrides any duty a vendor has to secure lids/serve coffee tepid, etc., and that hot beverages being hot is an open and obvious danger.
The McDonald’s coffee case everyone refers to ([en.wikipedia.org]) is actually kind of special, in that McDonalds seemed to do everything wrong in handling the case. They argued that the victim was being overly litigious, despite McDonald’s insultingly low settlement offers to cover her medical expenses being what lead her to get a lawyer. A McDs VP testified that coffee injuries weren’t significantly serious to warrant more warnings/cooler coffee/stronger cups while pictures of the victim’s burned lady bits were still on display.
The Liebeck case is actually a great example of how to mess up a can’t lose lawsuit defense. Even then, the jury reduced the award because they also felt the plaintiff was partly responsible.
I made the mistake of joking about the McDonald’s case in front of an attorney and received quite an education. A. the woman was NOT driving, she was the passenger in the car. B. As another post said, coffee spilled in her lap, trapped by clothing, and she received severe burns in a very delicate area. C. Probably the most surprising at all to me was the fact that McDonald’s knowingly served their coffee several degrees hotter than other similar restaurants, because it tasted better, despite the fact that they also shelled out some amount of cash every year for burns. The fact that they did pay out money every year for this was evidence that they knew (or should have known) that the coffee presented a danger, but they considered those injuries and the money they paid out for them to be ‘just the cost of business’, showing little regard for their customers’ safety. It’s sad how that case was really twisted, and most of us probably just giggle about the ‘silly person who didn’t really think the coffee would be hot’. Like many others, I find it hard to believe tea guy would be so badly burned (or that he couldn’t check that the lid was secure for himself like most of us do when we pick up a scalding hot beverage), but maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the case than we all know, because the media loves to make people in these lawsuits look like idiots.
I think this guy is an idiot. Starbucks ussually gets to you to put your own lid on so it’s your own dumb fault it you burn yourself. Now tea is supposed to be hot if it wasn’t you’d be having a fit because it was cold. I swear Americans have to drop the attitude and stop suing everyone. Learn from us canadians and just live and let live.