?VORSICHT HEISS“
A press release issued by the Oldenburg Regional Court on 27.03.2024 states that no compensation for pain and suffering and damages will be awarded after scalding with hot tea (16th Civil Chamber Regional Court Oldenburg, judgment of 15.03.2023, file number 16 O 2015/23).
And McDonald was hit again. They already made headlines in the 90s. At the time, a woman who suffered third-degree burns to her thighs and crotch from hot coffee. A jury awarded her 2.9 million dollars (2.15 million euros). This McDonald's penalty payment was later reduced by a judge to 640,000 dollars and the parties involved settled outside the court for an unknown sum.
This year it was against a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Wildeshausen, Germany. This time it was about a tea in a cup with a lid in a cardboard bowl; the cup was labeled on two sides with a printed printed ?VORSICHT HEISS“ ("CAUTION HOT") and the symbol of a cup with steam vapors. The plaintiff claims that she tasted the tea about 8 minutes after purchase by the lid from the cardboard cup provided. The lid of the cup was not was not properly closed, so it came off and the hot tea spilled over her thigh. She suffered painful burns I. and II. degree on her thighs. She claims that the tea had also been brewed too hot by the defendant, so that it posed unnecessary health risks for the customers. She had the absence of any other indications, she was entitled to assume that she could safely lift the the lid without danger, and did not have to reckon with an excessive temperature. Compensation for pain and suffering of at least 5,000 EUR and the costs for a subsequent laser scar treatment, which is expected to cost to be estimated at EUR 33,000.
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The 16th Civil Chamber of the Oldenburg Regional Court dismissed the action as unfounded. The injuries suffered by the plaintiff were a highly regrettable accident for which, however, the defendant cannot be held responsible due to a lack of ascertainable breach of duty and is therefore not liable. With regard to the temperature of the tea, the Chamber stated in particular a preparation temperature of the tea water of over 90 degrees Celsius, even up to of up to 100 degrees Celsius, was already not in breach of duty. This corresponds to preparation of tea, that it is prepared with bubbling boiling water. It can also be assumed without further ado that every - at least the average - customer who orders a cup of tea, knows that it is brewed with hot water. With regard to a possible breach of the duty to protect was also to be taken into account that the cup in the present case was indisputably labeled with warnings in the form of the words "CAUTION HOT" and a pictogram of a cup with clouds of steam, which once again expressly referred to the hot contents and thus also to the dangers emanating from it. It would also be common knowledge that the typical lids of disposable cups are not firmly attached to the cups, but that the lid is only pressed onto the cup and clamped onto it. The lid thus functions more as a cover than as a part of the container.
The district court of Hagen (Germany) ruled in the same sense (judgment 09.09.1996, 14 C 149/96 - Mitteilung unter kostenlose Urteile). Anyone who burns themselves when eating food that is usually served hot is solely responsible for this. The restaurateur is not obliged, for example, to point out the risk of a possible burn if the soup is still steaming.