WALNUT CREEK -- A woman is suing a Burger King restaurant for injuries she suffered when a drive-thru employee allegedly failed to secure a coffee cup lid he handed her, spilling hot coffee into her lap.

The suit, filed last week by Pleasant Hill resident Karen Dunn, seeks unspecified damages for medical expenses and wages lost because of an injury Dunn said she received in July, when a cup of hot coffee she had just purchased at the Burger King on 2855 N. Main St. spilled into her lap.

The complaint alleges that the Burger King restaurant's employees failed in their duty to guarantee "that scolding (sic) hot coffee cup lids be securely closed before being handed to a customer in the drive through lane."

Dunn did not immediately return calls for comment about the suit. Her attorney, Joel Siegal, said that Dunn was badly burned during the incident and that her injuries took weeks to fully heal. "She couldn't wear pants for a while because of the irritation, had to miss a business trip or two, and she couldn't swim or do her normal activities for a while," Siegal said.

There have been other instances in which fast-food restaurants were sued over hot coffee. Most famous was a 1992 case called Liebeck vs. McDonald's, in which an elderly woman sued the McDonald's franchise after she was burned by coffee that had been heated to 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. An undisclosed settlement was eventually reached.


The McDonald's suit -- and similar ones that followed -- received a fair amount of public scrutiny and accusations of frivolousness. But Siegal said in this particular case, his client is suing because she was legitimately injured. He said that Dunn, who owns her own event planning and production business based in Pleasant Hill, wouldn't file a frivolous suit.

"You do periodically hear of people who put foreign objects in food or things like that to file a lawsuit, but there's a profile for people who do that sort of stuff, and they're not high-functioning, well-earning, successful professionals like (Dunn)," Siegal said. "She doesn't need that; she doesn't need to walk around for months having these burns and not being able to wear what she wants or participate in swimming, and having to cancel business trips."

Burger King attorneys did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Contact Nate Gartrell at 925-779-7174 or follow him at Twitter.com/NateGartrell.