A mother has won a legal battle with McDonald’s after her daughter suffered second-degree burns from a hot chicken nugget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Philana Holmes told jurors that her four-year-old daughter suffered burns to her upper thigh after the McNugget fell from a Happy Meal onto her leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a lawsuit similar to the infamous 1992 McDonald’s “Hot Coffee” case, she took the owner of the franchise where she purchased the meal to court in South Florida, claiming negligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also claimed that the fast food giant had failed to warn customers about the “dangerous” temperature of the food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, lawyers for McDonald’s argued that the nuggets had to be hot to avoid risks of salmonella.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also argued that the McNuggets were not designed to be pressed between a seat belt and human flesh for more than two minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurors found the franchise holder liable for negligence and failure to warn customers about the risk of hot food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also found McDonald’s USA liable for failing to provide instructions for the safe handling of the food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, McDonald’s USA was not found to be negligent, and the jury dismissed the argument that the product was defective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another jury will now decide on how much McDonald’s USA and its franchise owner, Upchurch Foods, will pay the child and her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesperson for Upchurch Foods said it was “deeply disappointed” with the verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Owner-operator Brent Upchurch said: “The facts show that our restaurant in Tamarac, Florida, did indeed follow those protocols when cooking and serving this Happy Meal.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurors heard two days of arguments about the incident, which took place in 2019 when Ms Holmes’s daughter, Olivia, was aged four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She told the court that she bought Happy Meals for her son and daughter at a drive-thru window at a McDonald’s in Tamarac, near Fort Lauderdale, and then handed the food to her children, who were in the back seat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A mother has won a legal battle with McDonald’s after her daughter suffered second-degree burns from a hot chicken nugget. Philana Holmes told jurors that her four-year-old daughter suffered burns to her upper thigh after the McNugget fell from a Happy Meal onto her leg. In a lawsuit similar to the infamous 1992 McDonald’s “Hot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2561,2563,2562,1276],"class_list":["post-6718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chicken-nugget","tag-legal-battle","tag-mcdonald","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6720,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions\/6720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}