McDonald's forced to pay $800K to 8-year-old after getting traumatising injury

In 2019, a four year old little girl was left with a second degree burn after a McNugget fell on her lap. Now four years later, a Florida court has awarded her $800,000.

This is not the first time that McDonald's has been at the centre of a burning scandal. In 1994, McDonald's was forced to pay $3million to a customer after they had dropped coffee on themselves, resulting in them getting a third degree burn.

Here’s what happened to the 4-year-old girl.

The McNugget incident

In 2019, a family went to pick up McDonald's for dinner. The mother explains that after retrieving her items from the drive-thru she handed the packages to her children in the back seat. She testified that she had to stop the car as her four-year-old daughter started screaming.

She then looked at her daughter and that’s when she saw the burn. The mother took pictures of the burn and recorded her daughter’s screams and those documents were used in court.

When presented with the evidence, the jury was very fast in coming to a verdict: 2 hours. They awarded ‘$400,000 in damages for the past four years, and $400,000 for the future.’

In court, McDonald's attorney tried to argue that the little girl wasn’t as traumatised as the mother led to believe. He said:

She’s still going to McDonalds, she still asks to go to McDonald’s, she’s still driving through the drive-through with her mom, getting chicken nuggets. She’s not bothered by the injury. This is all the mom.

The fast food giant’s lawyer was faced with the fact that the incident still left an indelible mark on the young girl’s body. The family’s attorney also argued that having a scar for a woman is not the same as for men saying:

It’s not perfection, it’s not a badge of honour to have a scar as a woman. It’s not fair at all, but that’s the society we live in

Read more: McDonald's to axe two popular dipping sauces from today, but fans will not be happy

Unexpected response from netizens

After the 1994 court case Liebeck v. McDonalds, the giant of fast food, implemented concrete change. Indeed, now, on their coffee packaging, there is a warning about hot content. The mother of the young victim hopes that McDonalds will do the same for the rest of their packaging so that no other kid or person has to go through what her daughter did.

However, online reactions to the story are not as empathetic as you would imagine.

Numerous Twitter users question the truthfulness of the story.

One says:

Seems like someone's fishing for a golden Nugget 🤔

And others comment:

It might be "fast food," but I don't think those nuggets could come from the fryer quick enough to merit that kind of burn. 🤔

Horrible that the girl was burned but there just ain’t no way that was caused by a nugget.

Sources:

Daily Mail: McDonald's told to pay Florida family $800K after chicken nugget caused second-degree burns to four-year-old girl at drive-thru

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