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A woman is suing American Airlines over claims she was burned by hot coffee during turbulence and suffered second degree burns.
No, this isn’t another story like the 1994 lawsuit 81-year-old Stella Liebeck brought against McDonald’s when won $3 million after she spilled a cup of coffee on to her lap and suffered burns over 16 percent of her body (6 percent of them third-degree) including her pelvic region.
This lawsuit over spilled hot coffee is a bit more reasonable.
According to the lawsuit filed in a Michigan District Court, Gina Mason was flying from Baltimore to Detroit, sitting in an aisle seat on an American Airlines jet.
During the flight, a flight attendant parked a beverage trolley in the aisle before taking a seat due to the plane encountering some turbulence.
While the plane was bouncing around due to the turbulence, a pot of hot coffee that was on the beverage trolley fell off and landed on Mason’s lap.
Mason ended up with more than the 8 ounces of hot coffee Stella Liebeck had land in her lap in 1992.
As a result, Gina Mason ended up suffering first- and second-degree burns to her legs, thighs, and genital area. This, she claims, caused her anxiety and depression in the aftermath of the incident.
According to Business Insider, Mason is seeking “a comprehensive and open-ended amount of damages in excess of $75,000” from American Airlines.
That amount is far less than another recent lawsuit involving an airline and a hot beverage.
In July, a JetBlue passenger claimed she was scalded by hot tea during some turbulence and she filed a lawsuit against the airline asking for $1.5 million.
That was the first of two significant lawsuits filed against JetBlue in the span of less than two months.
In August, the airline was sued after a woman broke her ankle after her foot allegedly got tangled in a “hanging seatbelt.”