Articles Posted in Product Liability

A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, claiming that an employee improperly served her a cup of hot tea at a drive-through window, which caused the tea to spill, severely burning her and killing her dog, who was in the car at the time.

The plaintiff, Deanna Salas-Solano, is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from the coffee company, according to the complaint her lawyers filed in the US District Court for the District of Colorado. The incident occurred in September of 2015, when Salas-Solano visited the drive-through window of a Denver Starbucks and ordered a Venti hot tea. According to her complaint, she did not specify that she wanted her drink extra hot. When the Starbucks employee handed her the cup of tea, its lid was not secured, it lacked a hot-cup sleeve, and it was not double-cupped, which is Starbucks’s standard procedure for serving hot tea. The complaint also alleges that the beverage was unreasonably hot. Once she took the cup of tea into her hands, the hot temperature began to burn them, the complaint states. Hot tea then began to spill out of the cup through the unsecured lid and onto her body, which caused her clothing to melt. The tea caused severe burns to Salas-Solano, which caused her to experience intense pain on her stomach, legs, and lap.

Possibly the most disturbing aspect of the incident concerns the plaintiff’s dog. When Salas-Solano began to scream and writhe in pain after the tea spilled, her dog, Alexander, jumped into her lap and caused the rest of the tea to spill onto his body. The dog was then taken to an emergency veterinarian, and died shortly after form injuries caused by the hot tea. Salas-Solano was also taken to a hospital, where she was treated for severe burns and, the following day, underwent skin-graft surgery for “2% total body surface area second-degree burn injury to the abdomen and bilateral thighs,” according to the lawsuit. She has since reportedly suffered permanent scarring, loss of feeling and emotional distress, among other things, the suit states.

The Supreme Court of Missouri recently upheld a jury’s award of $38 million to a girl born with spina bifida after her mother took the epilepsy drug Depakote, manufactured by Abbott Labs. The court ruled that there was evidence Abbott knew the birth defect risk surpassed what it listed on the drug’s warning label. The seven-member court voted unanimously to affirm a St. Louis jury’s award, including $23 million in punitive damages, to 14-year-old Maddison Schmidt on her claims that Abbott Labs failed to warn about the risk of birth defects posed by Depakote.

In its nine-page opinion, the court rejected Abbott’s argument that the Depakote label provided an adequate warning as a matter of law, stating that, even if the warning was in the proper form and contained the right type of information, it failed in its most fundamental test—to be complete and accurate so as not to mislead consumers. The court also noted that while Depakote’s label stated that use of antiepileptic drugs could increase the risk of birth defects, and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had estimated the risk of spina bifida was one or two percent — but that Schmidt presented evidence that Abbott was aware of multiple studies showing the risk of birth defects was 10 percent or greater, and that the risk of spina bifida was even higher. “As Depakote’s label did not reflect this relevant information, a reasonable inference could be drawn from this evidence that Abbott’s arming was not complete and accurate and, therefore, did not adequately warn,” the court wrote in its opinion.

This ruling is only the latest in a string of legal and regulatory setbacks for Abbott Labs. In 2008, the FDA issued a safety alert regarding antiepileptic drugs such as Depakote. The FDA warned that patients who take antiepileptic drugs may have an increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behavior. The FDA subsequently required drug manufacturers to update their prescription labels to include a warning about this risk.Then, in 2013, the FDA issued another safety alert regarding Depakote and other valproate drugs, warning that, because these types of drugs are associated with lower IQs in children, pregnant women should not take them for the presentation of migraines. In addition, the FDA advises that pregnant women who are being treated for epilepsy or manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder should only take valproate drugs in instances in which the benefits of the drugs outweigh the risks of birth defects.