A jury agreed that a Starbucks location was careless in how it handled a boiling hot tea and gave the delivery driver $50 million in damages.
Michael Garcia took the cafe chain to court because a tea spill in the drive-thru made his penis look ugly for life. In a news release, Garcia’s lawyer Nick Rowley said that the accident had “forever changed” his life.
“No amount of money can fix the permanent and terrible harm he has been through, but this jury verdict is a necessary step toward holding Starbucks responsible for blatantly ignoring customer safety and refusing to take responsibility,” Rowley said.
The company said it would file an appeal and that it has “always been committed to the highest safety standards in our stores.”
Starbucks said in a statement, “We feel bad for Mr. Garcia, but we don’t agree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and think the damages awarded are too high.”
Garcia was working as a Postmates driver on February 8, 2020, when his lawyers say he went to the Los Angeles Starbucks to get three venti “medicine ball” teas. At the drive-thru, they gave him a cardboard box with the drinks in it. During the ride, one of the cups fell into his lap and the lid popped off.
Rowley’s company sent a video of the Starbucks workers making the drinks and the moment when Garcia’s tea spills into his lap. In court, Garcia’s lawyers said that the worker at the window didn’t properly lock the drink in the carrier.
Garcia got burns on his penis, groin, and inner legs that were the third degree.
Garcia had two skin grafts on his penis at Grossman Burn Center, according to Rowley’s company. Garcia feels pain whenever the area is touched.
The court case reminds me of the famous case about McDonald’s coffee. Three-thirds of Stella Liebeck’s body was burned in 1992 when a McDonald’s coffee spilled in her lap at a New Mexico drive-thru.
Some people say Liebeck’s case was pointless, but at trial, it was shown that McDonald’s coffee was much hotter than coffee from other places. At least 700 other people had been burned by McDonald’s coffee before, according to the American Museum of Tort Law. However, the company hadn’t changed its policy of keeping its coffee between 180 and 190 degrees.
According to the Journal of Consumer & Commercial Law, the 79-year-old woman first asked McDonald’s to pay her hospital bills. When the company refused, she went to court.
At first, the jurors gave her $2.7 million in punitive damages, but the judge lowered the amount. The amount that Liebeck and McDonald’s agreed to is secret.
