A Florida jury awarded an 8-year-old girl $800,000 in damages after the child suffered second-degree burns from a McDonald’s chicken nugget four years ago, according to a local report.
In May, a separate jury found the fast food giant and a franchise holder at fault for the scalding hot nugget that burned the leg of little Olivia Caraballo, then 4, after she opened a Happy Meal in the car.
After just two hours of deliberation Wednesday, the Broward Country grand jury decided on the dollar amount — which is significantly lower than the $15 million the girl’s family had asked for in their lawsuit, NBC6 South Florida reported.
Olivia’s parents Philana Holmes and Humberto Caraballo Estevez sued McDonald’s and Florida franchisee Upchurch Foods, Inc. claiming that the Tamarac restaurant served them “unreasonably and dangerously hot” nuggets at a scalding 200 degrees.
Holmes had ordered a six-piece Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal from the drive-thru and handed the box to Olivia in the backseat.
The girl dropped one of the red-hot nuggets onto her lap and it got wedged between her car seat and leg for roughly two minutes — leaving her thigh “disfigured and scarred” from burns, the lawsuit filed in August 2019 states.
The girl’s parents said the fast food chain and franchise owner failed to warn customers about the dangers of the hot food, failed to properly train employees and cooked the food to a higher degree than necessary.
Lawyers for McDonald’s argued that the nugget would not have been more than 160 degrees — the temperature the McNuggets are cooked to avoid salmonella poisoning — and was not meant to be pressed against human flesh for more than two minutes.
Jurors in May found Upchurch Foods Inc. liable for negligence and failure to warn customers of the risks associated with hot food and McDonald’s liable for failing to provide instructions on the safe handling of its foods. They did not find McDonald’s actions to be negligent for the burn incident, however.
On Wednesday, Holmes told reporters that she was happy with the jury’s decision, despite the lower amount in damages.
“I’m actually just happy they listened to Olivia’s voice and the jury was able to decide a fair judgment, I’m happy with that,” Holmes said, according to NBC6.
The case is reminiscent of the infamous 1990s hot coffee lawsuit against the same fast food mammoth.
In that case, a New Mexico jury awarded Stella Liebeck, 81, a whopping $2.7 million in punitive damages after a scalding McDonald’s coffee emptied on her lap delivering third-degree burns to her legs, groin and buttocks.
The woman spent more than a week in the hospital.
Read More:Florida jury awards 8-year-old girl $800K after she got 2nd-degree burns from a McDonald’s chicken nugget
2023-07-20 00:42:00