Olivia Caraballo was only four years old when she sustained second-degree burns from a chicken McNugget inside her McDonald’s Happy Meal. Now, a Broward County jury has awarded the now-8-year-old and her family $800,000 for her injuries.
As previously reported, Caraballo and her mother Philana Holmes visited a Florida McDonald’s in 2019, where they ordered the meal that Holmes handed to Caraballo; two minutes later she heard the child scream and realized that a nugget had fallen onto her lap. The scalding hot fast food favorite left the young girl’s thigh “disfigured and scarred.” In their lawsuit against McDonald’s and Florida franchisee Upchurch Foods, Inc, Holmes and the girl’s father, Humberto Caraballo, claimed that the McNuggets they were sold were served at a dangerously hot 200 degrees. “The reasonable, foreseeable, intended use is for a child to handle this box.
The law implies a promise from a corporation to, in this case, a child,” the family’s lawyer, Jordan Redavid said. “And if it is preventable, it’s warnable, you should warn someone about it, and if you don’t do that then you’re liable.”
They originally sought $15 million from the fast food giant.
Lawyers for McDonald’s argued that the food is served at high temperatures to avoid salmonella poisoning and is not intended to be pressed against human flesh, according to The New York Post. Jurors; however, found Upchurch Foods Inc. to be negligent due to their failure to warn customers about the potential risk of burns. They also determined that McDonald’s failed to provide proper instructions to their franchises on the safe handling of their food items. Though it took Caraballo and her parents almost four years to receive any form of justice, Holmes sees the victory as a crucial step in recovery for her daughter.
“I’m actually just happy they listened to Olivia’s voice and the jury was able to decide a fair judgment, I’m happy with that,” she said.