A California delivery driver received $ 50 million in damage after a jury agreed that a Starbucks location was negligent in its handling of hot tea.
Michael García sued the coffee chain after a tea spilled in his lap in a drive-thru and caused permanent disfiguration to his penis. His lawyer Nick Rowley said in a press release that the accident has changed forever, “from Garcia.
“No amount of money can undo the permanent catastrophic damage it has suffered, but this jury verdict is a critical step to hold Starbucks for the flagrant contempt for customer safety and the inability to accept responsibility,” Rowley said.
Starbucks said he plans to appeal, adding that “he has always committed to the highest safety standards in our stores.”
“We sympathize with Mr. García, but we do not agree with the jury’s decision that we were to blame for this incident and we believe that the damages granted are excessive,” Starbucks said in a statement.
Garcia was working as a postmates delivery driver on February 8, 2020, when he arrived at Los Angeles Starbucks to collect three “Ball of Medicine” of Venti, according to his lawyers. They gave him a cardboard carrier with the drinks in the drive-thru when a cup fell directly into his lap and the upper part left one of the drinks.
The video provided by Rowley’s firm shows Starbucks employees preparing drinks and the moment when tea spills in Garcia’s lap. Garcia’s lawyers argued in the Court that the employee in the window could not properly secure that drink in the carrier.
Garcia suffered third grade burns in his penis, groin and internal thighs.
Rowley’s firm said Garcia had two leather grafts in his penis in Grossman Burn Center and that any friction to the area causes pain in Garcia.
The judicial case reminds the infamous demand for McDonald’s coffee. In 1992, Stella Liebeck, 79, suffered third grade burns after an McDonald’s coffee spilled in her lap in a drive-thru in New Mexico.
Liebeck’s case is sometimes criticized as a frivolous demand, but evidence in the trial showed that McDonald coffee was significantly hotter than that of Other restaurants. According to the American Turtle Law Museum, at least 700 people had been burned before by McDonald’s Coffee, however, the company He had not changed his policy of maintaining his coffee between 180 and 190 degrees.
The 79 -year -old woman initially asked McDonald’s to pay her medical bills and only filed a lawsuit after the company refused, according to the Journal of Consumer & Commercial Law.
Initially, $ 2.7 million was granted in punitive damage, but a judge reduced the jury verdict. Liebeck and McDonald’s were made up of an unrelated amount.
