Hot Coffee Case Redux: Starbucks Not Liable for Spilled Drink

We all remember the McDonalds “hot coffee” case. Talk radio personalities and media pundits used the case as cannon fodder to lament the sorry state of frivolous lawsuits in America back when Stella Liebeck suffered serious burns in 1992 when her coffee spilled in her lap.

It turns out most of us were fed half-truths, and even false information about that case. You can read the real facts of how Ms. Liebeck was scalded after adding cream and sugar to her morning coffee here.

What brings the McDonalds case back to mind? It might be the California Court of Appeal’s decision last week in Shih v. Starbucks Corp. The cases have some similarities; two patrons who got burned by their hot drinks. But the Court noted some key differences, which is why Starbucks successfully had the case dismissed on summary judgment.

Tina Shih visited a Starbucks to meet up with her friend. She ordered a hot tea. Instead of fastening a sleeve to the cup of tea, the barista placed the brimming cup of tea inside a second, empty cup, known as “double-cupped.” Ms. Shih noticed the cup was hot, so she walked slowly. When she reached her table, she removed the lid of her tea, and “scooted” her chair closer to the table so she could lower her head to sip the tea slowly. Unfortunately, the chair moved faster than she expected, causing her to lose her balance and reach out to grab the table to catch her balance. This action jostled the now-open cup of tea, causing it to crash down and spill. Ms. Shih was burned in the process.

Ms. Shih sued Starbucks for products liability. The crux of her claim was that Starbucks offered a defective product—the hot cup of tea—because the cup of tea did not have a sleeve, and Starbucks did not warn Ms. Shih that the tea was hot. A product can be defective in its manufacture or design, or because it fails to include a warning about known risks. (Webb v. Special Electric Co., 63 Cal.4th 167 (2013).)

Ms. Shih argued that had Starbucks included a sleeve on the cup of hot tea, she would not have had to lower her head to try and slowly sip the tea. Rather, she could have used her hands to grasp the cup. In other words, she premised her injury claim on the lack of the sleeve, which had a cascading effect (scooting her chair, losing her balance, then spilling the tea) that resulted in her serious injuries.

The Court disagreed. “Shih spilled her drink because, after she walked to the table with the two hot drinks in her hands, put her drink down, and removed the lid, she bent over the table, pushed out her chair, lost her balance, grabbed the table to avoid falling, and knocked her drink off the table. Although it is foreseeable that a customer could lose his or her balance while seated at or rising from a table, such an event is not within the scope of the risk created by a restaurant’s decision to serve a hot beverage that is filled to the brim or that does not have a sleeve.”

The Court analogized to another recent case, Novak v. Contintental Tire. There, the plaintiff was severely injured in an auto accident when the car he was in suffered a tire blowout. The decedent survived that accident, but needed the use of a mobility scooter. Six years after the first accident, he was killed when his scooter was hit by a car in a crosswalk. The Court ruled that the tire company responsible for his initial accident was not liable for his death in the second accident, because the connection between the tire company’s conduct and the plaintiff’s death was too attenuated to show the later accident to be within the scope of the risk created by the tire company’s conduct.

Said another way, is it foreseeable that a defective tire could cause someone to become paralyzed and later get hit by a car in a crosswalk? The Court said no. There are too many “what ifs” in between.

The same applies to Tina Shih’s case. “Neither the failure to use a cup sleeve, nor the level to which a coffeehouse employee fills a hot drink generally increases the risk a customer will accidentally lose his or her balance, while attempting to execute the unorthodox drinking maneuver Shih performed here, just as tire defects generally do not increase the risk that a person who rides in a car with defective tires will later be hit in a crosswalk by a different car."

The Court noted that Ms. Shih’s case could be different if she had burned her hand immediately after retrieving the hot cup of tea from the barista, or if she would have dropped the cup because it was too hot to grasp. These hypotheticals would have brought the case within the ambit of Stella Liebeck’s hot coffee case against McDonalds—the hot drink in both scenarios would have increased the risk of harm with a direct link between the defective product (hot coffee/tea with no warnings or cup sleeves) and the injuries suffered (scalded lap or burned hands).

For questions about your defective product or burn injury or negligence case in Los Angeles, the Rabbi Lawyer is ready to assist, 24/6.