Incident details
Villana Holmes told the court that in 2019 she bought Happy Meals for her son and daughter in her car through the McDonald’s order aisle in Tamarack, Florida, then delivered the food to her two children, who were in the back seat. After the car pulled away, her autistic daughter started screaming, and as soon as the mother stopped the car, she saw the burns on the daughter’s thigh and took photos documenting what happened on his telephone. Holmes told jurors her 4-year-old daughter suffered burns to her upper thigh after a McNugget fell on her and got stuck between her thigh and the seat belt for two minutes.
What happened in the courtroom?
Holmes alleged the fast-food giant “failed to warn customers of unsafe food temperatures.” However, McDonald’s lawyers argued that “chicken nuggets must be hot to avoid the risk of salmonella”.
They also stated that “the McNuggets were not manufactured in such a way as to allow them to be trapped (safely) between a seat belt and human flesh for more than two minutes”.
Both parties agreed the chicken nugget caused the burns, but the family’s attorneys claimed the temperature was over 93 degrees Celsius (200 Fahrenheit) while McDonald’s attorneys said it was 71 degrees Celsius (160 Fahrenheit).
Court opinion
The jury found the parent company “responsible for negligence and failure to warn customers of the dangers of hot food”. They also found that McDonald’s in the United States was “responsible for failing to provide instructions for safe food handling”. However, the jury rejected the claim that the product was faulty, Sky News reported. Another jury will now decide how much McDonald’s and its parent company, Upchurch Foods, will pay the child and his mother.
It should be noted that the case bore similarities to the famous 1992 “McDonald’s” hot coffee case, when a New Mexico woman sued the company after suffering burns when coffee was spilled on her. .
Stella Liebeck (then 81) was initially awarded $2.7 million in damages, but it was later reduced to $480,000.
A Briton also sued McDonald’s in 1995 over an apple pie he bought and suffered burns when some of its contents spilled onto his arm, and he won £750 in compensation.
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