This isn't what happened. She was a passenger in a vehicle driven by her son. Her son parked the car, and while the vehicle was parked, she opened the lid of the coffee to put her sugar and cream. Back then, McD did not give you the safer cups that they are required to give you now. The cup at the time was quite flimsy and did not have a BLAZING HOT!!! DANGER!@!!!!! warning label. Even if it did, McD would still be negligent bc their coffee was so dangerously and unreasonably hot at the time that it caused third degree burns through multiple layers of clothing. Her being an old lady had nothing to do with her vulnerability to third degree burns. McDonald's had hundreds of complaints about their coffee's temperature prior to this incident but ignored them and refused to lower the temperature.

This woman's burns were incredibly severe and required skin grafts to her groin and buttocks. That being said, she did not initially want to sue. She was willing to settle for $20,000 in medical costs and lost wages, but McD's refused to pay more than $800. The woman got an attorney and sued and won millions, but there was a lot of controversy about punitive damages at the time (and still today). The judge substantially reduced the punitive damages, and they settled out of court to avoid the cost of appeals. Her attorneys got the vast majority of the settlement. It's actually a really sad case, the coffee scalded this woman so severely that suffered from these injuries until she died years later, being ridiculed by people who don't know anything about her case.

This case is widely discussed in many law school torts classes as an example of the controversy surrounding punitive damages, and McD's unprecedented PR success at blameshifting a victim.