McDonald’s has been ordered to pay $1.2 million to an eight-year-old girl after she suffered second-degree burns from a piping hot chicken nugget.
Olivia Caraballo was just four years old when, in 2019, a family trip to a McDonald’s drive through in Florida went badly wrong.
Her mum, Philana Holmes, had bought Happy Meals for Olivia and her brother, handing the food to them in the back seat before driving away.
The young girl dropped an “unreasonably and dangerously hot” McChicken Nugget — estimated to be a scalding 93 degrees Celsius — into her lap and it had become wedged between her car seat and thigh, where it stayed for more than two minutes.
Pictures of the resulting burn and sound clips of Olivia’s screams were shown and played in court this week, as a jury in Broward, Florida determined how much Olivia was owed for her suffering. Her parents had sued McDonald’s and Florida franchisee Upchurch Foods, arguing their daughter was “disfigured and scarred” as a result of the incident.
On Wednesday, the jury awarded the family US$800,000 (A$1.18 million) in damages — $400,000 for Olivia’s past four years of suffering, and $400,000 for her future — after deliberating for less than two hours.
It was substantially less than the US$15 million (A$22 million) lawyers for the family had requested.
“This is a verdict for all time,” John Fischer, a lawyer who represented the family, said in closing arguments on Wednesday.
“When we walk out of those doors, that’s it. We don’t get to come back and say let’s check on Olivia in five years, let’s check on her in 10 years … you have to do it now or you can never do it again.”
But lawyers for McDonald’s argued Olivia’s discomfort ended when the wound healed and said it was only her mother who was bothered by the scar.
The fast food chain’s lawyers also argued the nugget would not have been more than 72 degrees Celsius — the temperature at which McNuggets are cooked to avoid salmonella poisoning — and was not meant to be pressed against human flesh for more than two minutes.
“She’s still going to McDonalds, she still asks to go to McDonald’s, she’s still driving through the drive-through with her mum, getting chicken nuggets,” defence lawyer Jennifer Miller said.
“She’s not bothered by the injury. This is all the mum.”
Olivia calls the scar left on her inner thigh “nugget” and is fixated on having it removed, the court heard.
In the initial weeks after Olivia was burned, the wound was bright red and so painful she would wet herself rather than take her underwear off because she was afraid of touching it, her mum testified.
The burn has since become a small, brown, raised scar that causes Olivia no physical pain. Lawyers for the family argued the young girl’s pain was now emotional.
“It’s not perfection, it’s not a badge of honour to have a scar as a woman,” one lawyer for the family, Keyla Smith, told the court.
“It’s not fair at all, but that’s the society we live in.”
Ms Holmes said she was pleased with the jury’s decision, despite them awarding a smaller amount in damages than had been sought.
“I’m actually just happy that they listened to Olivia’s voice and the jury was able to decide a fair judgment,” she told reporters outside the courtroom.
“I’m happy with that. I honestly had no expectations, so this is more than fair for me.”