Friday, May 4, 2012

Please provide me a brief summary of the case of Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, P. T. S., Inc. New Mexico District Court (1994), using the IRAC system of legal writing.

The IRAC system of legal writing stands for Issue, Rule, Analysis, and Conclusion, and is used to assess legal cases like the one mentioned above.
Issue: In 1992, Stella Liebeck was burned by scalding hot McDonald's coffee after it spilled while she was attempting to put sugar and creamer into it in the car. She received coffee that was roughly 190 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough to cause third degree burns in about three seconds, which she did, even through sweatpants, in spite of the fact that she wasn't driving and was attempting to be safe with the coffee.
Rule: There are two standards that are assessed in this case, the first being the common practice of how to heat coffee in a fast food restaurant. Typical recommendations—and household coffee makers abide by this—state that coffee should be between 135 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit (typically centered at 140 degrees). The other standard is the responsibility McDonald's and Liebeck both had in this case. Who is responsible for the damage caused to Mrs. Liebeck, the business who supplied the hot coffee or herself for failing to properly contain it?
Analysis: The court ruling was overturned and contested several times. Initially, she was offered $800, an incredibly low sum. Eventually, the courts ruled that McDonald's was 80% responsible and that she should be awarded roughly $160,000, as well as several hundred thousand additional dollars for punitive damages. It seems that this was a case of recklessness and acceptable risk for the McDonald's corporation, as they deemed the low amount of injuries and complaints weren't significant enough to warrant the additional cost of making the necessary changes. Because of this and the fact that many other individuals had been injured by the coffee, McDonald's seems to be in the wrong for their negligence.
Conclusion: The courts were right to penalize McDonald's for the suffering caused to Mrs. Liebeck. However, it seems that the compensation ended up being fairly low for her when the company was certainly unconcerned with the potential for injury prior to this occurring, and there is still a significant chance that something similar will occur again.

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