Child Left Disfigured After Chicken Nuggets Bought at McDonald’s

Child Left Disfigured After Chicken Nuggets Bought at McDonald's

(NewsReady.com) – McDonald’s has been found guilty of negligence after a child was allegedly injured by their food. A Florida jury found the fast food giant guilty of not warning unsuspecting customers that hot things can cause burns. Now, the company is facing having to pay compensation to the couple who brought the lawsuit.

In 2019, Philana Holmes took her daughter Olivia to a McDonald’s drive-thru in Broward County, Florida. She bought the 4-year-old a box of six Chicken McNuggets and handed them to her as she sat in the back seat. Holmes said she was just leaving the restaurant when she heard her daughter screaming. When she pulled over, she found Olivia had dropped the chicken nuggets in her lap; one had gotten trapped between the seatbelt and her thigh. She claims the skin was “really red” and says the burn left a scar.

Holmes and Humberto Caraballo Estevez, the girl’s father, decided to sue the fast food restaurant for $15,000, claiming it sold food that is “defective, harmful and unfit for human handling.” McDonald’s attorneys countered by saying that Olivia had dropped all six on herself, and the only one that caused a problem was the one that was held against her skin for two minutes.

In court, the parents’ lawyer claimed that McDonald’s and its franchisee failed to warn customers about the “dangers” of holding deep-fried hot food against their skin, or provide instructions for the safe handling of chicken nuggets. Therefore, it was guilty of negligence. On May 12, a jury agreed with him.

This isn’t the first time McDonald’s customers have been surprised to discover that hot things are hot. In 1994, a woman was awarded $2.9 million after she spilled a McDonald’s coffee in her lap; the jury decided that although there was a warning printed on the cup stating that the coffee was, in fact, hot, it wasn’t big enough.

In 1996, a British man, apparently unaware that the words “Hot apple pie” might be trying to tell him something, was awarded £750 ($940) after he spilled the filling on his arm.

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