An eight-year-old Florida girl has been awarded $800,000 (£618,000) in damages after she suffered second-degree burns from a McDonald’s chicken nugget.
A jury in Fort Lauderdale decided on the award after the fast food giant and a franchise holder was found to be at fault for the scalding hot nugget that burned Olivia Caraballo’s leg after she opened a Happy Meal in a car. The little girl was four at the time of the incident.
The girl’s family had been seeking more than $15million in their lawsuit, NBC6 South Florida reported.
Olivia’s parents Philana Holmes and Humberto Caraballo Estevez claimed the Tamarac restaurant served them “unreasonably and dangerously hot” nuggets in their lawsuit against McDonald’s and Florida franchisee Upchurch Foods Inc.
Ms Holmes had ordered a six-piece Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal from the drive-thru and handed the box to Olivia in the backseat.
According to their 2019 lawsuit, the girl dropped one of the red-hot nuggets onto her lap and it got wedged between her car seat and leg for roughly two minutes leaving her thigh “disfigured and scarred” from burns.
Ms Holmes said she was happy with the jury’s decision.
“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, according to NBC6.
