After suffering through years of his wife’s awful coffee, the man spit it out and took the coffee maker to his lawyer. Dropping it on the attorney’s desk, the man snarl, “Here they are!”
The now infamous Hot Coffee Lawsuit began when Mrs. Liebeck sought the help of a personal injury attorney in a law office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The firm she walked into just so happened to the be law office of an acquaintance familiar with Reed Morgan ’s work on the previous hot liquid spill case.
Claiming she was innocent of the charges, Coffee helped her lawyer prove that fact, instructing him to subpoena various records and then, she recalled, drafting the subpoenas herself. The documents exonerated Coffee—revealing, for instance, that Coffee had filed a formal disclosure indicating that she had signed for the client.
In 2011, trial lawyer Susan Saladoff made a documentary, “Hot Coffee,” that exposed the true story and corrected some of the public perception of the case. (“Hot Coffee” is available in the museum’s gift shop.) But even after that, the myth of “the woman who got rich after abusing the court system over spilled coffee” persisted.
Linda Coffee, 27 years old, on her way to the Supreme Court to make history. by Paula Bosse. UPDATE 5/4/22: See a brand-new video interview with Linda Coffee — recorded yesterday in Lakewood — in which she responds to the leaked Supreme Court draft, here.Also, the companion Dallas Morning News article (paywall) is here.. The most important woman in the abortion rights fight is someone you ...
McCorvey has actually given birth three times.Her first daughter, Melissa, was legally adopted by Mary. Accounts have varied as to why Mary sought custody of Melissa; McCorvey has said that Melissa was kidnapped because her grandmother disapproved of McCorvey’s sexual orientation ― according to a New York Times piece in 1995, she “confided in her mother that her sexual preference was for ...
Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington argued in favor of Norma McCorvey, also known as Jane Roe, and her right to have an abortion in the case Roe v Wade.Coffee came up with the name Jane Roe. Although Weddington is more well known for this case, Coffee was the one that came in contact with Norma McCorvey. It was argued that a woman has a constitutional right to have an abortion because of the ...
Sarah Weddington poses with a signed copy of the Roe v Wade decision in front of the US supreme court in 2005. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty
Discover Linda Coffee‘s Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates.Learn How much net worth Linda is in this year and how she spend her expenses? Also learn about how she is rich at the age of 49 years old? also know about her Social media accounts i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and much more.
Top image is a screenshot of a June, 1970 interview of Linda Coffee conducted by Channel 8 reporter Phil Reynolds; this interview can be seen on YouTube here (from the WFAA archive, G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University).
All high school-era photos of Linda Coffee are from various editions of The Crusader, the yearbook of Woodrow Wilson High School.
Linda Coffee, The Dallas Attorney Who Took Roe v. Wade to the U.S. Supreme Court | Flashback : Dallas
An old, stingy lawyer was dying and was determined to prove wrong the old saying; “You can’t take it with you.” He told his wife to go down to the bank and withdraw enough money to fill two pillowcases. His plan: Put the bags directly over his bed and when he died grab them on his way up to heaven. One day the old ambulance chaser died. When his wife was up cleaning in the attic one day, she came across the forgotten pillowcases. She then said to herself, “That old fool. I knew he should have had me put them in the basement!”
A doctor and a lawyer in two cars collided on a country road. The lawyer, seeing that the doctor was a little shaken up, helped him from the car and offered him a drink from his hip flask. The doctor accepted and handed the flask back to the lawyer, who closed it and put it away.
A1: It only takes one lawyer to change your light bulb to his light bulb.
From the number of lawyers at the bottom of the ocean being ‘a good start’ to the question of ‘how many of lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb’, we decided to make a list of every lawyer joke we could find (even those that had very little to do with a lawyer), tallying up 214 jokes that make us facepalm, shake our heads, giggle and outright laugh.
Farmer Joe was in his car when he was hit by a truck. He decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court. In court the trucking company’s fancy lawyer was questioning farmer Joe.
Farmer Joe said, “Well I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road….”
Satan laughs uproariously and answers, “Yeah right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?”
Since the verdict was handed down in 1994, a number of lawsuits have been filed against coffee vendors, including Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Burger King, as a result of coffee-related burns. In most cases, the coffee temperature was not as hot as the coffee in Stella’s case and the plaintiffs were not successful.
The aftermath of the McDonald’s hot coffee case. The case of Stella Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants— more commonly known as the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit—is often cited as a classic example of frivolous litigation in the United States. In much of the public’s eye, Stella Lieback was a greedy plaintiff who spilled warm coffee on her lap ...
Why didn’t Stella try to settle the case before filing a lawsuit? One of the common misconceptions about the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit is that Stella was eager to sue McDonald’s for millions of dollars. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Unable to settle, Stella filed a personal injury lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico alleging that McDonald’s was “grossly negligent” for selling coffee that was “unreasonably dangerous.”. Enjuris tip: A person or business acts with gross negligence if they act with a “reckless disregard for the safety of others.”.
Most other restaurants serve coffee at 160 degrees, which takes 20 seconds to cause third-degree burns (usually enough time to wipe away the coffee). Home coffee makers typically brew coffee at about 135-150 degrees.
Evidence presented at trial showed that McDonald’s required franchisees to keep coffee heated between 180-190 degrees and that the restaurant received more than 700 complaints from customers who were burned as a result of the coffee.
On February 27, 1992 , Stella Liebeck, 79 years old, purchased a cup of McDonald’s coffee. While sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s parked car, she attempted to remove the lid in order to add cream while holding the coffee cup between her knees.
Coffee was in the Southern Methodist University library when, in early September of 1969, she came upon mention of another suit involving sex and its ramifications: People v. Belous. Only days before, the California Supreme Court had exonerated a doctor who had referred a woman to an illegal abortion provider.
The case that Coffee originated would affect the lives of millions of women. But it did not much affect hers. She returned to the tedium of bankruptcy law. Weddington, for her part, entered the world of politics and activism, where she has been ever since.
Coffee quickly fashioned for her a pseudonym, combining, she explained, Jane (which was suitably common) with Roe (which, along with Doe, was standard legal vernacular). A month earlier, Coffee had also received a phone call from a law-school classmate named Sarah Weddington.
Over the course of a few days, in the small Texas town where she now lives, Coffee told me her story. To the best of her memory, she had not given an interview since speaking with the historian David Garrow more than two decades ago. Linda Nellene Coffee was born in Houston on Christmas Day, 1942.
Home was on a lawny lane. But the center of Coffee’s life was a Southern Baptist church on Gaston Avenue, where her grandfather was a deacon and where she went to Sunday school, played softball, and sang in a choir.
As a matter of course, she named Henry Wade, the Dallas district attorney, as the defendant.
Coffee met with her at once. The would-be plaintiff was ill at ease. Coffee was incapable of small talk, and pale and unkempt besides. She looked, McCorvey recalled, “like she got out of bed and forgot to comb her hair.” Still, McCorvey wanted an abortion and wished to proceed with a lawsuit. Coffee quickly fashioned for her a pseudonym, combining, she explained, Jane (which was suitably common) with Roe (which, along with Doe, was standard legal vernacular).
But even after that, the myth of “the woman who got rich after abusing the court system over spilled coffee” persisted. Liebeck’s attorney Kenneth Wagner said Liebeck was concerned about the number of other people who had been burned by McDonald’s coffee—and that the number included children.
While parked, Liebeck put the coffee cup between her knees and removed the lid to add cream and sugar, and she spilled it. She was wearing sweatpants, which held the scalding liquid against her skin.
The jurors awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages for her pain, suffering, and medical costs, but those damages were reduced to $160,000 because they found her 20 percent responsible. They awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages. That amounted to about two days of revenue for McDonald’s coffee sales. The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000, while noting that McDonald’s behavior had been “willful, wanton, and reckless.” The parties later settled for a confidential amount. According to news accounts, this amount was less than $500,000.
At this temperature, spilled coffee causes third degree burns in less than three seconds. Other restaurants served coffee at 160 degrees, which takes twenty seconds to cause third degree burns. That is usually enough time to wipe away the coffee.
Stella Liebeck, the 79-year-old woman who was severely burned by McDonald’s coffee that she spilled in her lap in 1992, was unfairly held up as an example of frivolous litigation in the public eye. But the facts of the case tell a very different story. The coffee that burned Stella Liebeck was dangerously hot—hot enough to cause third-degree burns, even through clothes, in three seconds. Liebeck endured third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, including her inner thighs and genitals—the skin was burned away to the layers of muscle and fatty tissue. She had to be hospitalized for eight days, and she required skin grafts and other treatment. Her recovery lasted two years.
Her recovery lasted two years. Liebeck offered to settle the case for $20,000, but the company refused. McDonald’s offered Liebeck only $800—which did not even cover her medical expenses. When the case went to trial, the jurors saw graphic photos of Liebeck’s burns.
Coffee that other restaurants serve at 160 degrees can also cause third-degree burns, but it takes 20 seconds, which usually gives the person enough time to wipe away the coffee before that happens. “Our position was that the product was unreasonably dangerous, and the temperature should have been lower,” Wagner said.
Coffee was in the Southern Methodist University library when, in early September of 1969, she came upon mention of another suit involving sex and its ramifications: People v. Belous. Only days before, the California Supreme Court had exonerated a doctor who had referred a woman to an illegal abortion provider.
The case that Coffee originated would affect the lives of millions of women. But it did not much affect hers. She returned to the tedium of bankruptcy law. Weddington, for her part, entered the world of politics and activism, where she has been ever since.
Coffee quickly fashioned for her a pseudonym, combining, she explained, Jane (which was suitably common) with Roe (which, along with Doe, was standard legal vernacular). A month earlier, Coffee had also received a phone call from a law-school classmate named Sarah Weddington.
Over the course of a few days, in the small Texas town where she now lives, Coffee told me her story. To the best of her memory, she had not given an interview since speaking with the historian David Garrow more than two decades ago. Linda Nellene Coffee was born in Houston on Christmas Day, 1942.
Home was on a lawny lane. But the center of Coffee’s life was a Southern Baptist church on Gaston Avenue, where her grandfather was a deacon and where she went to Sunday school, played softball, and sang in a choir.
As a matter of course, she named Henry Wade, the Dallas district attorney, as the defendant.
Coffee met with her at once. The would-be plaintiff was ill at ease. Coffee was incapable of small talk, and pale and unkempt besides. She looked, McCorvey recalled, “like she got out of bed and forgot to comb her hair.” Still, McCorvey wanted an abortion and wished to proceed with a lawsuit. Coffee quickly fashioned for her a pseudonym, combining, she explained, Jane (which was suitably common) with Roe (which, along with Doe, was standard legal vernacular).