Jury awards Florida girl burned by McDonald’s Chicken McNugget $800,000 in damages
Philana Holmes, right, hugs her attorney, Keyla Smith, after a jury awarded her $800,000 on behalf of her daughter Olivia Caraballo, now 8, at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida jury awarded $800,000 in damages to a little girl who received second-degree burns when a hot Chicken McNugget fell on her leg as her mother pulled away from the drive-thru of a McDonald’s restaurant.
Lawyers for the family of Olivia Caraballo, who was 4 when she was burned in 2019, were seeking $15 million in damages. Jurors reached their verdict after deliberating for less than two hours on Wednesday, the South Florida SunSentinel reported.
The jury’s verdict form allotted $400,000 in damages for the past four years, and another $400,000 for the future from the McDonald’s MCD, -0.06% USA and its franchise operator, Upchurch Foods. A separate jury decided in May that the company and franchise owner were liable for the injury, which occurred outside a McDonald’s in Tamarac, near Fort Lauderdale.
“I’m actually just happy that they listened to Olivia’s voice and the jury was able to decide a fair judgment,” Olivia’s mother, Philana Holmes, told reporters outside the courtroom. “I’m happy with that. I honestly had no expectations, so this is more than fair for me.”
She testified on Tuesday that Olivia, now 8, calls the scar on her inner thigh her “nugget” and is fixated on having it removed, the newspaper reported.
Lawyers for McDonald’s argued that the child’s discomfort ended when the wound healed, which they said took about three weeks. They contended that the girl’s mother is the one who has the problem with the scar, and told jurors that $156,000 should cover damages, both past and future.
“She’s still going to McDonalds, she still asks to go to McDonald’s, she’s still driving through the drive-thru with her mom, getting chicken nuggets,” defense attorney Jennifer Miller said in her closing argument Wednesday. “She’s not bothered by the injury. This is all the mom.”
Defense attorneys declined to speak after the verdict.
Holmes testified that she had purchased Happy Meals for her son and daughter, who was sitting in the back seat, and was driving away when the nugget fell on the child’s leg. She said that the girl screamed in pain, and when she pulled over in a parking lot, she realized the nugget was lodged between Oliva’s thigh and the seat belt.
The mother testified that at no point did McDonald’s warn her the food might be unusually hot. The company testified they follow food safety rules, which require McNuggets to be hot enough to avoid salmonella poisoning, and that what happens with the food once it leaves the drive-thru window is beyond their control.
While both sides agreed during the trial in May that the nugget caused the burns, the family’s lawyers argued the temperature was above 200 degrees (93 Celsius), while the defense said it was no more than 160 degrees (71 Celsius).
Photos the mother took of the burn and sound clips of the child’s screams were played in court.
The case may stoke memories of the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit of the 1990s, which became an urban legend of sorts about seemingly frivolous lawsuits, even though a jury and judge had found it anything but.
A New Mexico jury awarded Stella Liebeck, 81, $2.7 million in punitive damages after she was scalded in 1992 by hot coffee from McDonald’s that spilled onto her lap, burning her legs, groin and buttocks, as she tried to steady the cup with her legs while prying the lid off to add cream outside a drive-thru.
She suffered third-degree burns and spent more than a week in the hospital.
She had initially asked McDonald’s for $20,000 to cover hospital expenses, but the company went to trial. A judge later reduced the $2.7 million award to $480,000, which he said was appropriate for the “willful, wanton, reckless” and “callous” behavior by McDonald’s.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Whatever. This is the kind of nuisance big businesses are prepared for. With “billions served,” it stands to reason grifters gonna grift at least once in a while. The only thing I would want to negotiate with the lawyers would be a lifelong ban on them as future customers. Nugget Girl can get her chicken fix somewhere else.
I can’t believe that McDonalds agreed that the Chicken nugget caused the burn.
Black people are getting money handed to them from everywhere these days.
Haha, fuck McDonalds.
…with the Burger King’s scepter. Wendy can lick it clean and Chik Fil A can cluck about it while Popeye pounds sand.
Feeding your children McDonalds is the real crime.
Another she boon in training.
The actual harm she’s doing to her body from fast food and all the growth hormone and vaccines and antibiotics and improper food and stressful treatment for the animals and GMO and glyphosate and the encyclopedia of non-food ingredients, etc., is a thousand times worse than a tiny burn.
Who do I hate more? Niggers or McDonalds? That’s a tough one. Niggers probably. Always looking for something for nothing.
That 800k will be gone soon enough.
Your ChatGPT-like format is recent and transparent all over this blog. You can’t hijack this place. And you’ll lose in the long term.
that rayssiss mknugget…
Wait until the mkrib fiasco surfaces – “We didn’t know it wasn’t kosher or halal you bigots; pay us 10 million bucks, schmucks.”
She will be broke by the end of the year.
Lawyers took $240,000.
The hospital where the girl was treated probably has its hand in there for a cool $25,000-$50,000.
Every relative from here to three states over will be coming out of the woodworks with needs and wants.
$500,000 doesn’t go as far as it used to.
One fancy SUV? $80,000.
Hair and nails? $2,000 a week.
Dining out? $2,000 a week.
Expensive clothes? $200,000 over twenty weeks.
“Black Girl” will be “Broke Girl” by….September-December 2023.
What makes you think they’re going to pay the hospital? That bill will be going to the bad debt file. And you’ll pay more at the hospital to help cover the niggers and mexicans bills.
Nope.
Hospitals collect on insurance payouts now.
You bet your bippy!
That’s assuming that the patient has insurance … almost all illegals don’t, hence the hospitals that have gone bankrupt (especially in CA) due to having to treat them for free.
Believe me, if you are a poor person, who had no insurance, was treated at a hospital and later receive an injury related settlement?
You will be paying your hospital bill.
Many people don’t realize that if your insurance company has to pay damages for whatever reason, they will come after you and you will pay them back out of any settlement.
Yep.
I’m sure those jurors were her “peers…”
Bingo!
Blacks are always on the lookout for their next victimhood payout. Apparently being black in the US pays very very well.
Deep fry the jury.
I saw a photograph of the burn. Unless they cooked that McNugget in molten lava it seems highly unlikely it caused that kind of damage. Looks more like a Munchausen’s by proxy lottery win.
They fry at 350F, but nothing goes immediately from the oil to the box to the leg..so way less than 350 upon arrival. And just HOW does it sit in contact for that long without parent caring enough about the screaming to get it off?
They are cool enough to eat in about a 30 seconds to a minute.
How do know?
Real world experience.
No way on earth they would third degree burns.
This was a shakedown
Pure meet simple.
‘Our Values’ in Clownworld:
This tells you everything you need to know about the case. The fact that there are sound clips tells you that this was a set-up to get money. Who in their right mind would record sound clips of their child screaming in pain, rather than doing something about it? My suspicion is that the mother purposely burned her child to get payoff money from McD’s. She’s worse than a grifter; she’s probably also a psycho who tortured her own child for the money.
Sounds plausible.
Case s/b thrown for technicality
Not a “chicken” mcnugget – gots no chicken in the chicken mcnugget
“Show me the chicken or we be acquitin'”, said defense attorney Johnny “Chicken” Cochran
Mammy woulda been goin’ apeshit inside & trashing McDonald’s if they got her order wrong!
Just another example of the juries playing Robin Hood.
“Steal from the rich and give to the poor.”
Mama knew and played it perfectly.
I hope McDonalds ties the award up in appeals court for years while the dollar devalues.
The mother testified that at no point did McDonald’s warn her the food might be unusually hot.
Unfit mother. Did not check to make sure the food she handed her own children was safe to eat.
Actually, this entire story is a fucking shakedown. That bitch deliberately burned her own daughter to get paid. Typical grog thinking.
I hope the next time Philana Holmes goes to Mc D’s, an employee pees in her drink (and you know she’ll go back because she wants that “magic black girl” physique.
The word stupid does apply.