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An Indianapolis couple, Michael and Alexis Brennan, is suing Starbucks, claiming that they served their daughter a cup of hot chocolate, which subsequently spilled and left her with serious burns. The daughter, whose age was not given, but was young enough to fit in a car seat, was said to have been riding strapped into that car seat in the back of the car when she spilled the drink. The mother stopped the car and got out to discover that the "skin on [her] leg was falling off of her."
Starbucks is supposed to serve their kids sized drinks at about 20 degrees less than their standard temperature, putting those drinks at about 140F or so, which is hot, but not incredibly so when you consider the size of the cup and the fact that they are often topped with an inch or more of cold whipped cream, as this particular drink was. The baristas can make it at a lower temperature if requested. A high percentage of parents test the temperature of their kids' drinks by taking a sip themselves, but Ms. Brennan only subjected the drink to a visual inspection before handing it to her daughter. A small child holding a drink of any kind in the backseat of a moving car, especially if he or she is small enough to have to be confined to a car seat, sounds like a recipe for disaster, regardless of whether the drink is hot or not. The parents are, of course, seeking (unspecified) damages.
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11-19-2006 @1:16PM calamari said... Okay -- sites about car seats say kids typically graduate to a booster seat and safety belt around age 4, so these people were giving a non-covered hot drink to a THREE- or FOUR-year-old in a moving car.
I wouldn't hand any open-topped drink to a four-year-old in a car, much less something with some heat and color to it.
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11-19-2006 @1:16PM lauren said... you have got to be kidding me.
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11-19-2006 @1:56PM Kiwi C. said... The parents deserve to lose this one. They should never have handed a non-covered hot drink to such a young child in a moving car to begin with, and should certainly have verified the temperature of the drink.
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11-19-2006 @3:23PM Vic said... Giving hot chocolate to a child young in a car seat is ludicrous. It sounds like the mother is trying to blame someone else for her bad judgement. The baristas are only filling your order. It's not their job to follow you around to make sure you don't do anything stupid once you leave the store.
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11-19-2006 @2:19PM melissa cupp said... this is a true case of poor parenting. The mother is looking to blame someone for her own lack of parenting skills. The child should have never been given a hot cup of chocolate without total supervisior such as the mother being in total control. I personally would not even take a drink of anything assumed to be hot without first testing the temperture let alone allow my child of any age have possession of it in a car seat. The story relates the child was served I would doubt that the employee actually handed the cup to the child in the carseat and not the mother. If somehow that did happen the mother is still neglect. I would hope any judge/jury would mandate parenting classes for this family for the sake of the child..
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11-19-2006 @2:26PM Nik said... You're kidding right? Theres a difference between "hot" and hot enough to burn skin off.
The McDonalds suit was stupid, this is justified.
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11-19-2006 @2:30PM Karen said... IN the McDonald's case, the woman who was burned by the coffee had 3rd degree burns - as in "burned the skin off". So why is it "stupid" and this one "justified"?
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11-19-2006 @2:41PM Audrey Fairchild, Ph.D. said... This is ridiculous. Parent negligence, nothing more. Sorry mom and dad, the responsibility for what your child eats and drinks is yours. You purchased the drink, not the child.
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11-19-2006 @2:49PM Jill said... The child should sue the parent for being an idiot.
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11-19-2006 @2:58PM Hawk said... Can coffee be hot enough to 'burn your skin off' ? I don't know... I've spilled boiling water on myself while parboiling something that didn't really fit in the pot, and I didn't watch in terror as my skeleton was exposed.
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11-19-2006 @3:38PM Yin said... Why in the world would you give a child who is young enough to be a car seat hot chocolate in a non-spillproof cup? This is pure parental negligence and idiocy.
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11-19-2006 @3:46PM Aaron said... As a former barista, I've gotta say that there is no way a "kid's hot chocolate" could cause a second or third degree burn. For that matter, a standard hot chocolate would only be 160 degrees--at the moment that the milk was poured into the cup. Even if the hot chocolate was purchased at a drive-through Starbucks, I'm guessing that the drink was at least 5 minutes old before the kid got it. According to wikipedia, scald time for hot water at 140 degrees is between 3 and 10 seconds of prolonged contact--the kid would have had to be pouring the drink on herself in a controlled stream, and I'm guessing that pain-aversion would kick in at about the .5 second mark. The science just doesn't work.
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11-19-2006 @5:11PM ryan said... The parents are idiots and deserve to have the hot chocolate poured on them.
And since people have already started drawing analogs to the McDonalds case...make sure you know the whole story and not just what the mass media told you.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
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11-19-2006 @6:03PM calamari said... Am I the only person starting to envision a CSI plot where the parents blame Starbucks to cover up for something else they let happen that *did* involve more heat? (Or maybe it's a House episode instead...)
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11-19-2006 @6:05PM Aaron said... I saw pictures of what happened to the Mcdonald's woman. She deserved every dollar she got. Her entire crotch was burned beyond recognition. She only asked for 20,000 dollars to cover medical bills and Mcdonald's refused to pay it. When it went to trial it became clear that this was a problem Mcdonald's was hiding, and thus, the court gave her punitive damages because of their negligence.
To be honest, these parents are dumb for what they did, but again, no drink should be served hot enough to burn skin off. If starbuck's is serving drinks at that high of a temperature then they deserve to lose some money to learn a lesson.
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11-19-2006 @7:38PM Steve said... Aaron, "hiding problems"? That's like saying you're hiding problems if you continue to sell knives even if you know that many people cut themselves with them.
In short - only in America.
If your coffee isn't as hot as possible that's reason enough to send it back in many places. So unless McDonald's or Starbucks found a way to serve superheated beverages these cases will continue to be nothing but examples of sue-happy Americans.
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11-19-2006 @8:14PM clarity said... I wouldn't give my child a hot drink without testing - though if I stopped at the same starbucks every day I might be lured into complacency if they usually served it at a good temp.
I don't know where you guys live, but starbucks moms around here often use Britax car seats. The Marathon model car seat my 5 yo is riding in will be good until 65 pounds. Given she's 38 lbs that might be until she's 8! Boosters aren't considered as protective as full shell car seats, if you can afford one with a higher height/weight limit.
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11-20-2006 @1:27AM Stephen said... Wow, the hot chocolate was so hot that it took off some skin. That sounds gross. How hot was the coffee, Starbucks? How could you not see how hot the drink was, mom?
Both parties were equally responsible. Only in America would a mom sue Starbucks for her forgetting to test the drink temperature.
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11-20-2006 @6:10AM Geoffrey M. said... This is why kids should stick to Jamba Juice cuz fruit doesnt burn you (unless ur allegic). I agree with #8 one this one.
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11-20-2006 @8:29AM Deryk said... When oh When are people going to just stop being stupid. I work closely with the public, most of them have no brain matter in between their ears or any sense at all like these parents. They deserve an Idiot Award.If you can't take care of your child, you should not have any in the first place. Remember people, its the parents who are suppose to rear their child, not the companies that serve us. Might as well stay at home people before you venture out in the "real" world and learn the Emily Post etiquettes. I am in total agreement with #8.
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