> FYI their coffee is still just as hot, but they changed their cups.
This doesn't even make sense—water that hot destroys the flavor of the coffee. Why do they not just make and serve the coffee at a temperature people actually expect? Is it so hard to not be an asshole to your customers?
I believe the general consensus is that if they served the coffee cooler, by the time take-out customers got around to drinking it, it would be cold. Erring on the side of too hot maximizes customer satisfaction because the number of customers who would be upset at cold coffee is greater than the number of customers, buying coffee at McDonalds, who have sophisticated coffee tastes.
Anyway, Starbucks also serves their coffee about as hot as McDonalds. Turns out, coffee hot enough to cause horrific injury is rather common.
McDonald's knew that their coffee was dangerously hot and had been repeatedly warned about it, so the jury awarded punitive damages.