It’s Official: Hot Coffee is Hot

It’s Official: Hot Coffee is Hot

      In a just rendered decision, the Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected a plaintiff’s claims that a McDonald’s restaurant should be responsible after she tripped and spilled hot coffee on herself.  Faesy v. JG 1187, Inc. d/b/a McDonald’s Restaurant, No. 2014-CA-001367-MR (Ky. App. Sept. 4, 2015).  This particular decision is designated as “not to be published.”

      Margie Ann Faesy entered a McDonald’s restaurant in Lexington and purchased a number of beverages, including a hot coffee. While leaving the restaurant with the drinks in a carrier, she tripped, spilling the hot coffee on herself. In response to burns she suffered from the hot coffee, she filed a negligence action against the restaurant based upon, essentially, an assertion that the coffee was excessively hot. In contrast, she made no allegations to the effect that her fall could be in any manner blamed upon this particular McDonald’s restaurant.

      The trial court dismissed her lawsuit on the basis that, essentially, the fall was her own fault and therefore the consequences thereof were likewise her fault. That determination would be adopted and confirmed by the Court of Appeals. In addition, after discussing prior law dealing with claims based upon firearms, it wrote that:

A hot cup of coffee is also, to a much lesser extent [than is a firearm] inherently dangerous; as the circuit court indicated, everyone understands or should understand that hot coffee (which Faesy specifically ordered) is hot, and hot things cause burns.  However, it does not necessarily follow that a restaurant that serves such beverages is liable in damages to each person burned by such beverages. Here, despite Faesy’s allegation that 195 to 205 degrees was an excessively hot temperature for her cup of coffee, there is nothing of record illustrating that Faesy’s cup of coffee was any hotter than the temperature of coffee she would have received in any other restaurant, or hotter than the industry standard for coffee temperatures in general.… Moreover, hot beverages are most certainly not within the category of those substances or chattels which by their very nature are not only inherently dangerous, but unsafe for general use. Slip op. at 7-8.