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Drinking in coffee houses and hot drinks on the go here in the UK became a serious thing due in large part to US sitcom Friends and its youthful, 'cool' coffee house dwellers in the mid-90s.
Even now it's apparently compulsory to announce with pictorial edvidence that you are out having a coffee on social networks.
‘Milk and coffee, who’d have thought.!?’ Cried self-potraying 'Larry' David in a 2001 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, lambasting the modern, coffee house culture boom and it’s over-elaborately-named milk and coffee based drinks.
Friends, however, certainly lay to rest the intensely, flirtatious, ghost of serialised adverts involving the instant coffee loving, Nescafé Gold Blend Couple, Tony and Sharon, who were affluent, well-spoken neighbours who hadn’t been formally introduced to each other. Sharon is throwing a dinner party and has run out of coffee…
‘Will Gold Blend be too good for your guests..? It’s a sophisticated coffee!’ Thank goodness, Tony, it’s 1987 when you say that.
The ads gripped the nation with its cliff hangers and movie style production (note, there were only four TV channels back then). Our Tony and Sharon’s 6 year storyline give the Ross and Rachel/Friends 10 year saga a good run for its money, helped in no small way by respected actors Anthony Head and Sharon Maughan’s performances.
Coffee has always been pushed as sexy or bohemian in media; harmless fun with a little social status attached.
Understatedly, the ‘milk and coffee’ we buy whilst out and about has an evil streak of its own. In an extreme case just recently, a 48 year old ‘Coffee Guru’ from Chicago was tragically killed when a coffee machine he was dismantling at a charity event, fell on top of him, crushing his head and body.
Despite hot drinks being the number one cause of scald injuries in young children, in 2012, a local UK council caused outrage amongst parents by banning coffee/hot beverages from being served at a ‘Parents and Baby’ social group as Health and Safety declaring the drinks to be hazardous to the young children.
I often wonder when anyone serves me a hot drink made with just boiled water if they've considered exactly what they are doing. Just the other day I was served a coffee at a service station which was placed on a tray. Without thinking, I attempted to turn the mug by the top rim, so I could grip the handle. My fingertips flicked away in shock as the extreme heat almost removed my prints and it became apparent that it would take nearly ten minutes for the drink to become comfortably drinkable. I was given no courteous warning as to how hot the recepticle or drink would really been.
What if I had ended up with spilled hot drink on my lap? A small sharp shock to my fingers is one thing. A sharp recoil as a tiny bit the coffee burns its way through the tip of my tongue is another. Being covered in half a pint of a hot drink accident is something entirely different, as the ‘woman who sued McDonalds’ found out in 1992.
Stella Liebeck, an elderly lady in Albuquerque in the US had the nasty misfortune with a cup of take away coffee from a McDonald’s Drive-Thru resulting in the spilled hot drink inflicting scald injuries to her lap after she had wrestled with the lid in an attempt to add milk and sugar. She was the passenger in the car that her grandson was driving at the time.
Liebeck suffered third degree burns (covering 6 per cent of her body) and eight days in hospital, setting her back approximately 11,000 US dollars. McDonalds offered her 800 US dollars in compensation, believing that it was an end sweetener to a scenario that involved a person spilling coffee into their own lap as opposed to restaurant negligence.
The legal to and fro-ing coupled with McDonald’s apparent cavalier approach to the claim for compensation demands went from an initial 20,000 US dollars to cover medical expenses and future earnings lost to ‘gross-negligence in selling a defectively manufactured and dangerous beverage’ claims and an initial 2.9 million US dollar settlement.
The final ‘punitive damages’ were eventually reduced to somewhere near half a million US dollars where up to 20 per cent of the blame was pinned to Liebeck, then in her early 80s and the rest of the blame lay squarely with McDonald’s who admitted that only 700 of their customers had complained about being burnt by their coffee.
When you see a ‘carry out’ cup bearing warnings and you notice that the beverage is cooler in temperature than your home brew it’s because there is real danger and costly lessons have been learned.
What to do If You Are Burnt by a Hot Beverage
Burns are one of the most common household accidents, and their treatment is often not known. These steps are strongly reccommended if you have a hot drink accident
- Remove clothing from burnt area of skin unless stuck
- Apply running water to the area until the pain eases
- Take pain relief medication
- To avoid further irritation/infection, cover the burnt area loosely with either a wet cloth or cling film
Slips, trips and falls are the main hazards when venturing out for a coffee-house treat or to a restaurant, loose flooring, poorly lit stairs and food and/or beverages spilled resulting in a wet floor can cause you serious injuries. The owner or manager of the establishment can be found guilty of restaurant negligence in any breaches of Health and Safety which lead to an accident causing a personal injury which includes spilled hot food or a spilled hot drink on to a customer especially if it causes burns.
Steps to Take If You are Burnt by a Spilled Hot Drink
If, for example, you have a hot drink accident in a coffee house and you have followed the steps to take for treating your coffee burns as mentioned above:
- Immediately report your injury to the establishment you were burned by the spilled hot drink and log it in their accident book
- Take clear photos (smart phones are handy for this) of your injuries and if possible of the exact location of the accident
- Consult a GP or visit the Hospital in order to get your injuries further treated
As with any accident in a fast food outlet, café or restaurant, if you feel you were injured due to the owner or manager’s negligence you may have a valid claim for personal injury compensation.
You can complete our online form or call us free (from a landline or if your mobile phone network provider does not charge for 0800 numbers) on 0800 756 7774 to talk to our specialist personal injury solicitors. All cases operate under a no win no fee basis.
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