A Broward, Fla., jury decided to award $800,000 to the family of a 4-year-old girl, Olivia Caraballo, as compensation for a second-degree burn caused by a Chicken McNugget in 2019.
The figure, which will have to be paid by a franchisee and McDonald's, is significantly less than the $16 million requested by the family's lawyers. The jury established that $400,000 would compensate the damage caused in the last four years and $400,000 would compensate for the future. The jury members made their decision after deliberating for less than two hours.
A South Florida jury hit McDonald’s with a $800k verdict this week for damages caused by a hot chicken nugget lodged in the seatbelt of a child for two minutes.
The winning theory of liability? Failure to warn. pic.twitter.com/FsmXOeg7OY
— Matt Margolis (@ItsMattsLaw) July 21, 2023
The girl's mother, Philana Holmes, expressed that she is happy with the verdict and that it is something she did not expect. The girl, now 8 years old, insists that she wants to remove the scar left by the burn.
Holmes explained that she purchased a Happy Meal for her son and daughter and delivered the food to her in the back seat of the vehicle before leaving. She claimed that at no time did McDonald's warn her that the order might be unusually hot.
Her daughter began screaming in pain, and that's when Holmes pulled into a parking lot to see what was happening and noticed the burn. Images of the wound were shown in court. Medical experts examined the burn. However, the lawyers' defense was based on the fact that more than the physical pain, the claim was for moral damage. The injury became a small brown scar.
A similar case was recorded in 1994. At the time, McDonald's was ordered to pay $3 million to a New Mexico woman after a cup of coffee left her with third-degree burns on her thighs. Later, a judge reduced the damages to less than $500,000.
