Short version: the woman suffered third degree burns over 6% of her body (1% = the size of a handprint) including her crotch, and lesser burns over 16%. She required emergency medical attention, expensive skin grafts, etc. This was not just someone spilling a bit of coffee on their arm and flinching in pain, but instead was a horrific life-threatening injury (I’m somewhat reminded of Rush Limbaugh suggesting that waterboarding is no big deal, similar to a fraternity hazing ritual). A jury made up of people (including self-professed conservative republicans) who initially thought the case was a joke ended up rewarding the woman a big pile of cash, because they felt after hearing all the evidence and four hours of deliberation that McDonalds needed to be seriously punished for what they felt was unacceptable carelessness with customer safety.
Here’s a 1995 Newsweek article: http://www.newsweek.com/1995/03/19/are-lawyers-burning-ameri...
> What happened next on the morning of Feb. 27, 1992, was an accident. "I took the cup and tried to get the top off," she later testified. She looked for a place to set it down, but the dashboard was slanted and there was no cup-holder in the Ford Probe. "Both hands were busy. I couldn't hold it so I put it between my knees and tried to get the top off that way." Liebeck tugged, and scalding coffee gushed into her lap. She screamed. Chris leaped from the car to help her. Desperately, she pulled at her sweat suit, squirming in a bucket seat as the 170-degree coffee seared her skin. By the time they reached an emergency room, second- and third-degree burns had spread across her buttocks, her thighs and her labia. All that she remembers is the pain. [...]
> After the spill, Liebeck spent seven days in an Albuquerque hospital and about three weeks recuperating at home with her daughter Nancy Tiano, then was hospitalized again for skin grafts. She had lost 20 pounds -- down to 83 pounds -- and was practically immobilized. The grafts were almost as painful as the burn, her daughter Judy Allen recalls: "She was in tremendous pain; I didn't know if she'd survive this." In August Liebeck wrote to McDonald's, asking the company to turn down the coffee temperature. She wasn't looking to sue,but the family thought she was entitled to her out-of-pocket expenses -- about $2,000 -- plus the lost wages of her daughter who stayed home with her. According to the family, McDonald's offered $800.
> The case proceeded in the stylized manner of the civil courts: expert witnesses were gathered, settlement offers were made. Just before trial Morgan suggested $300,000, but McDonald's wasn't interested. In August 1994 they went to trial before a jury filled with citizens annoyed at having to listen to a case about spilled coffee. "I was just insulted," recalls Roxanne Bell, 38, a preschool teacher. "The whole thing sounded ridiculous to me." According to several jurors interviewed by Newsweek, three witnesses turned the case around. First there were the photos of Liebeck's charred skin and the testimony of Dr. Charles Baxter, a renowned burn expert from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He testified that coffee at 170 degrees would cause second-degree burns within 3.5 seconds of hitting the skin. [...]
> After deliberating for about four hours, the jury found for Liebeck. Her compensatory damages -- out of pocket plus pain and suffering -- were set at $200,000. To be fair, the jurors knocked off 20 percent because she had contributed to the accident. Then they hit McDonald's with a stern warning: $2.7 million in punitive damages. "It was our way of saying, 'Hey, open your eyes. People are getting burned'," recalls juror Bell. A month later, trial Judge Robert H. Scott reduced the award to $640,000, calculating punitive damages at three times compensatory. He, too, wanted to deliver a message to McDonald's that it "was appropriate to punish and deter" its corporate coffee policy. Scott, another self-described conservative Republican, insists the case was "not a runaway. I was there." After further post-trial skirmishing, the two sides settled out of court. Part of their deal includes keeping secret the final amount.
etc.