Kerry Christensen drove his car through a grocery store parking lot and hit pedestrian John Boyle. When Boyle sued Christensen, Christensen admitted liability. A jury trial was held to determine damages. During closing argument, Christensen’s counsel stated the following:
How many days has it been since the accident? How many days for the rest of his life? And how much per day is that worth? That’s what’s been done here. That’s how we get verdicts like in the McDonald’s case with the cup of coffee.
Boyle’s lawyer objected to the reference to the landmark 1994 verdict in Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, in which a New Mexico jury awarded $2.86 million to a woman who burned herself with hot coffee. The judge overruled the objection, and Boyle won an award of $62,500. On appeal, the Utah Court of Appeals held that the jury was not unduly influenced by the “cultural reference” to the famously large jury award against McDonald’s over a spilled cup of coffee, noting that it was “shorthand to make the point that, in Christensen’s opinion, Mr. Boyle’s damages methodology was likely to render this jury’s verdict excessive.” For the full story, click here.
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