On March 14, a jury awarded $50 million in damages to a Los Angeles supply driver who was badly burned after scorching tea spilled onto his lap in February 2020, experiences the Los Angeles Instances. The incident occurred on the West Adams Starbucks location on the nook of Western Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard.
The Los Angeles Instances reviewed Los Angeles County Superior Court docket information detailing {that a} Starbucks worker handed two scorching teas to a supply driver named Michael Garcia, which fell from the beverage carriers onto Garcia’s lap. Garcia testified that the barista didn’t correctly safe the lids to the new drinks, leading to “horrific burn accidents that required a number of surgical procedures” and “everlasting disfigurement” to his groin space. TheInstances additionally experiences that Garcia’s genitals had been topic to a number of rounds of pores and skin grafts, surgical procedures, everlasting disfigurement, further medical therapies, ache, and sexual dysfunction.
CBS Information experiences that Starbucks initially supplied Garcia $3 million earlier than that trial, and elevated the settlement quantity to $30 million. Garcia agreed to that quantity however below the situation that the corporate apologize and regulate storewide insurance policies to make sure that scorching drinks are safe earlier than handing them to prospects. The events didn’t agree to those phrases, sending the case to a trial.
The espresso big plans to attraction the decision. The New York Instances acquired an announcement from Starbucks over the weekend, which acknowledged: “We disagree with the jury’s determination that we had been at fault for this incident and consider the damages awarded to be extreme.”
If these circumstances sound acquainted, a well-publicized 1992 incident and lawsuit passed off after an aged girl suffered third-degree burns from spilling a espresso into her lap at a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Stella Liebeck sued and a jury awarded her $200,000 in compensatory damages, which was later lowered to $160,000.
