Frontier Airlines passenger Sean Miller is suing after being severely burned on a flight from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Philadelphia in September. He says that third degree burns and ongoing injuries are the result of spilling hot tea on his lap – disfiguring his penis.
He claims that a flight attendant handed him a cup of tea filled to the brim at an “unsafely and unreasonably high temperature” without a lid. He accidentally spilled the tea onto his groin area, and he argues that the tight seating configuration on Frontier prevented him from standing up to address the spill, leaving him trapped in “agonizing pain.”
Upon landing in Philadelphia, emergency medical responders met Miller and transported him to a hospital burn center. Despite treatment, he now has permanent discoloration and scarring on his penis and scrotum, significantly decreased sensation, and long-term sexual dysfunction. And he claims to suffer PTSD, self-esteem, and ongoing embarrassment. Then there’s the herniated disc and nerve damage from writhing in pain while unable to move. He is seeking $150,000 in damages.
Maybe this happened because Frontier Airlines planes just aren’t flown as smoothly as a luxury sedan drives?
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And of course this makes me think of the mohel in season 4, episode 10 of L.A. Law (“The Pay’s Lousy, But the Tips Are Great”) who performed a bris and said “oops.”
It’s especially on-point because of the theory in mitigation that the religious victim wouldn’t have sex until marriage, and would marry someone who was themselves a virgin, and therefore she wouldn’t have anything to compare the damage to! So unlike the Frontier victim, no ongoing embarrassment!
On the other hand, chuckle as though we might, this is probably most like the woman who sued McDonalds and won $2.7 million after spilling a cup of coffee in her own lap. It became an exhibit in how we desperately needed tort reform. And yet the judgment made a lot of sense to anyone who actually went and learned the facts of the case.
Stella Liebeck didn’t actually get $2.7 million. She wound up with $480,000. But the original verdict was for (very real) medical expenses and two days of coffee sales for McDonalds as a way of saying the fast food chain needed to change its behavior.
And they did! They stopped serving coffee at a temperature that immediately caused third degree burns. By dialing it back to 158 °F there’s 60 seconds – or enough time to react to a spill and avoid burns.
Leibeck wasn’t driving. The vehicle was stopped. She removed the coffee lid to add cream and sugar. The coffee spill caused extensive burns to her legs and groin. She needed skin grafts.
McDonald’s at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
McDonald’s had received hundreds of documented complaints about the dangerous temperature at which they were serving coffee, and they conceded it was at a temperature where it couldn’t be consumed immediately. The jury found McDonald’s negligent.
Complaints about tort law are usually that judgments are too punitive against companies, not that they aren’t punitive enough. Lawsuits are frequently more effective than legislators and regulators in generating changed behavior, and companies have a harder time lobbying jury vedicts than capturing the latter. Stella Liebec deserved her tort judgment against McDonalds. Does this passenger similarly deserve one against Frontier?
Yeah, $150K. Frontier should pay it and move on. If the description is correct, he could get a lot more with a jury.
$150k seems so low that I wonder if he could be bought off with a free lifetime pass on Frontier (similar to Kramer’s unlimited coffee at Java World on Seinfeld)
No one takes responsibility for their own actions anymore and is just looking for a payday. And of course they find some ambulance chaser to help them. So sad and pathetic. First of all I hope he is disfigured and has other issues and secondly I hope this gets thrown out and he gets NOTHING.
Maybe the request for $150,000 is the amount required by statute or to file the case.
I wanna see the injury.
The precise timing is important in this situation. Did this happen as the flight attendant handed him the cup of water or did it happen after he had full control of the cup of water and spilled it on himself? Further, did it happen after the flight attendant had moved away? When I get liquid refreshment from the flight attendant I always have my tray down. This provides a place to put the refreshment and also provides a shield against spills. One of the rules with dealing with hot liquid spills is to counteract the heat with a much cooler liquid so the hot liquid doesn’t keep burning. Even saliva can work to some degree. Was this attempted? It might be wise to always have at least a partial bottle of cool water handy. I have had tea on an airplane fairly often and never had a flight attendant completely fill the cup. I have also had a cup of hot water and a tea bag which seems to be what was given here per the pdf of the actual lawsuit. I’m not sure that the injured party did much to keep himself from having a burn in the first place nor did he seem to do his best to mitigate the burn after it occurred. I wonder what the jury will say.
Just ban hot beverages.
If this happened on an air carrier that makes tons of money, i.e. the “Premium Airline”, the asking price would be 200 times more.
I have no patience for this nonsense. If the FA spilled hot water on him, that’s one thing. That’s unlikely, because she would have immediately given him ice or water. If he had it and fumbled it, then it’s not the airline’s fault. I’ve never had airplane coffee or water so hot it couldn’t be drunk.
Did he holler for ice or water, or did he just sit there with hot water on him? Did he ask his seatmates to move so he could stand up? Evidently not.
Sounds like someone looking for a payday.
@jns:
The one thing you didn’t mention in your litany of reasons someone should not get compensation (are you Frontier’s counsel?) was that the FA did not hand it off properly.
Admittedly, I have only been flying LH and Austrian for past six years. That amounts to about 175 flights. Every time the FA brings my coffee or my wife’s tea, they are quick to tell us not to take the cup. She wants to place it on our table, sometimes asking us to lower our table first.
It takes two to tango. You didn’t think of that, did you?
This is a little tricky. Water has a very high specific heat capacity, that is it takes a LOT of energy to raise the temperature of water by 1 degree centigrade. When hot water is poured onto skin, that energy is transferred to the skin. Hand immersion into a bucket of water at 140 degrees will result in a severe burn in about five seconds. However, a cup of 140 degree water poured over the skin will result in a less severe injury because there is less total energy in the cup than the bucket. Plus, as the water spreads out and drips off the skin, the air begins to cool the skin. Additionally, clothing will absorb some of that heat.
However, the amount of energy in a cup (8 ounces) of water at 200 degrees (just shy of boiling) is considerable and would certainly cause a severe injury. Now, if that same water was at 170 degrees — quite a bit less energy.
Ultimately, if the tea was hot enough to cause a third degree burn to the man’s genitals, it was probably well above a temperature that it could be reasonably consumed. As with the McDonald’s case, I suspect the water was too hot. It may have been served unsafely (cup filled to brim, no lid).
This case may have merit. Consider the other side of things before ranting.
@Tim – Early in my legal career I represented a client with a similar injury claim and opposing counsel (like you) asked him to drop trow in the deposition. Needless to say that request was denied so counsel brought a motion.
Personally I would never order coffee or tea on a plane and you assume the risk given the possibility of unexpected turbulence. Reminds me of the Stella Liebeck case, which singlehandedly resulted in national tort reform.
No airline that I know of serves hot beverages with lids and of course it all comes down to costs. In the end $150K isn’t exactly breaking the bank, even for Frontier.
Hard to say who is at fault but seems like Frontier shares at least some of the blame. It’s a shame that anyone has to fight and argue over “medical expenses” though. In my view any man with an emergency burn down there deserves free medical care period.
There’s absolutely no reason that coffee or tea has to be served anywhere so hot. They serve it that way everywhere. Who can possibly drink something that is scalding hot. Wouldn’t you want to start having some sips as soon as it’s served to you?