Jacksonville Woman Wins Spilled-Coffee Lawsuit Against Starbucks

Starbucks has been ordered to pay $100,000 in a lawsuit.
Photo: MAHATHIR MOHD YASIN / Shutterstock.com

Last week, a group of jurors awarded $100,000 to a woman who said she was severely burned by a cup of coffee.

According to court documents, Joanne Mogavero got a coffee at a Starbucks drive-through in July of 2014. When she took the 20-ounce coffee, the lid popped off, spilling 190-degree coffee all over her stomach, groin and thighs, leaving her with first- and second-degree burns. The coffee left permanent scarring, and Mogavero paid about $15,000 in medical costs.

A plastic surgeon told Mogavero she would have to live with the scars.

The lawsuit wasn’t about the temperature of the coffee, it was about the allegation that Starbucks’ coffee cup lids pop off easily when the cup is grabbed too high, thus, allowing the coffee to spill out. 

Starbucks argued in court documents that the judge should dismiss the case because it wasn’t the company’s fault that the coffee spilled—after all, Mogavero was holding the coffee cup when it spilled. The judge denied the request and the case went to court. The jury found that Starbucks bore 80 percent of the responsibility for the spill.

During the trial, a Starbucks representative testified that the company gets about 80 complaints a month about lid leaks and lids popping off. Although Starbucks thought this information “would not be relevant,” the jury decided otherwise.

“My client didn’t want sympathy from the jury—she wanted justice—and the jury gave it to her with its verdict,” said Steve Earle of Morgan & Morgan, one of the attorneys representing Mogavero. “It was good to see a just result.”

The jury awarded Mogavero $15,000 for her medical expenses and $85,000 for pain and suffering, physical impairment, disfigurement, inconvenience, and the loss of capacity for enjoyment of life.

A Starbucks spokesperson emailed Jacksonville.com, “As we said in trial, we stand behind our store partners [employees] and maintain that they did nothing wrong. We’re considering an appeal.”

“Our hope with this is to raise people’s awareness that this is a real danger,” Earle said. “Starbucks kind of never took any responsibility.”