The Incident:
In an early morning of February 1992, a lady drove into a McDonald's restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico to have breakfast. She had just dropped her son at the local airport. She ordered Mcbreakfast with coffee and decided to have the breakfast in the car itself. She could not place the coffee cup on the dash board as it was slanted too steeply. Since both her hands were busy, she placed the coffee cup between her knees. She also tried to open the lid off the cup in that position. What she did not know was that the coffee supplied in that cup was heated to 170 Degrees.
Many people do not know that when you pour something very hot into containers and immediately close the lid, it can be very difficult to open for scientific reasons. You need to be a Tarzan to open the lids in case of metal containers. You will also spill the contents, invariably. In case of plastic containers you might damage the container and it can be dangerous. The same thing happened to the lady. Hot coffee poured out on her thighs and she suffered second degree burns on her private parts. She was hospitalized for 3 weeks and further went for skin grafting, which can be very painful. Her experience was traumatic, lost lot of weight and she also lost further 3 to 4 weeks recuperating. Her daughter had to stay at home to look after her and she lost her salaries and wages.
This lady wrote to McDonald's asking for just USD 2000 as compensation. McDonald's offered her USD 800. Her daughter decided to approach some lawyer and did so. The lawyer filed a case in courts asking for USD 100,000 as compensatory damages and 300,000 as punitive damages. The jurors were quite irritated and not amused when the case came up in courts and thought that the issue was frivolous. However, when they learnt that McDonald's had not reduced the temperature of the coffee for 10 years even after receiving 700 complaints, they changed their minds. Medical experts confirmed that at 170 degrees, coffee can cause serious second degree burn injuries. McDonald's blamed the lady completely for the incident and said it was her fault in keeping the cup between her knees. The jury decided in favor of the lady. She was awarded USD 200,000 as compensatory damages and USD 2.7 million as punitive damages. The trial judge later reduced it to USD 640,000. The case was finally decided out of court and the final settlement is a secret.
Please send your views on ethical and legal issues on the above to madhavan@mmg.name . We will publish the best one in these pages.
Reference: "Business Ethics" by Rogene A Buchholz and Sandra B Rosenthal, both Professors at Loyola University of New Orleans and published by Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA - 1998.
© September 22, 2007. www.madgopes.com . All rights reserved.
Business Ethics Consumer Rights and Complaints The Case of McDonalds Coffee Albuquerque New Mexico USA - To learn more about this author, visit Madhavan T Gopalachary's Website.
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Madhavan T Gopalachary
(Visit Madhavan's Website)
Madhavan Gopalachary, nick name "madgopes"
(g pronounced as in go) given by IIT
classmates, is a Mechanical Engineer and
an alumnus of Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras having passed out
specializing in IC Engines &
Thermodynamics.
He has nearly 35 years of experience in
the Corporate World. He started off as a
trainee and handled sales, marketing,
manufacturing, product management, profit
center management, strategic planning and
corporate development including R & D in
various organizations and at various
levels before becoming a CEO. His last two
professional assignments were at CEO level
before embarking to start management
consultancy business on January 01, 1998.
He has worked for British, Swedish MNCs as
well as very large Indian business houses.
He has spent a large portion of his time
from June 1998 till date in East African
Countries practicing as an independent
Management Consultant.
More details can be obtained at the
following web sites:
mmg.name/
mtg.html
mmgconsu
lting.biz/
Madhavan's articles can be accessed at www.madgopes.com
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