PFB Investigates - Coffee Temperature...A Hot Subject

This lawsuit was not so much about the coffee temperature as it was
about the fact McDonald's knew they were serving out an unsafe menu
item, weighed the costs of changing the temperature and the cost of
paying out compensation to their customers. McDonald's chose to go the
"cheaper" route and burn their customers (pun intended). There were
several previous incidents. With Liebeck, she had multiple burns and
spent 8 days in the hospital and wanted McD to pay $20000 for medical
costs. Add the fact that they tried to settle for $800 and you think
what would you do?
And they did settle out of court for less than $600,000. This is about
what McDonald's used to make for selling coffee for one day, back in
the early 90s.
McDonald's was intentionally negligent.

sometimes i order my coffee with some icecubes in it

i prefer mine at room temperature

Some time back I acquainted myself with the details of this case. At
face value, it looked like a frivolous suit.

The reality was that the coffee the lady bought was *way* hotter than
the standard dictated. When some splashed from the cup onto her hand,
it caused her to drop the cup, where it opened and dumped onto her
lap.

She was so badly burned that she had to have skin grafts on the inside
of her thighs. If the coffee had been served at the temperature that
McD's own standards state, she would have been much less badly
injured.

I guess my point of view is this...how about we not worry what the
temperature of the coffee is, we just don't spill it on ourselves.
Short of an employee being the one to spill it on me, I can't think of
a single reason why a restaurant would/should be at fault for a person
getting burned.

How many people drink their coffee down immediately? How many people
take that coffee with them on a trip or to the office and expect it to
stay hot for a while? I'm sure there would be a lot less customers
buying coffee if the temperature was lowered much.

At least that is what I recall from looking into this when Angela
brought it up a few years ago. Here is what Bunn advises, a maker of
coffee urns and pots:

http://tinyurl.com/lzj5ta

They want the serving temperature to be a mimimum of 155 degrees.

I seem to recall that if coffee was served at a temperature low enough
to not scald, it was predicted many fewer people would drink it.

Isn't the temperature for a really thorough scalding around 145
degrees, and you can get scalded down to around 125 degrees? If that
is the case, it seems impossible to serve a really tasty cup of coffee
and have it not be scalding hot.

All of these coffees are at scald temperatures. At 160 degrees, an
adult will get a third degree burn in just a second. A child or
elderly person, in a half of a second.

For spills, you want the coffee to be no hotter than 140 degrees;
better 135. With clothes and air cooling with dispersed water, there
shouldn't be much harm.

For drinking, however, it should be below 135 degrees to be safe.

185 degrees causes a third degree burn in an adult in about a quarter
of a second.

Keep in mind that most people make tea at 212 degrees (which actually
makes subpar tea).

http://tinyurl.com/nzen2m (as well as others)