LOS ANGELES (CNN) – A jury in California has ordered Starbucks to pay $50 million to a delivery driver who was burned by hot coffee.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2020, Michael Garcia was picking up drinks at a drive-thru through in Los Angeles.

His lawyer says one of the drinks fell out of the container and onto Garcia, causing severe burns, disfigurement and debilitating nerve damage to his genitals.

The lawsuit accused Starbucks of breaching its duty of care by failing to secure the lid.

The coffee company plans to appeal the verdict.

This case is reminiscent of a famous 1994 lawsuit where a woman sued McDonald’s after suffering third-degree burns when hot coffee spilled onto her lap.

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Michael Garcia was picking up drinks at a drive-through in Los Angeles when he “suffered severe burns, disfigurement, and debilitating nerve damage to his genitals when hot drinks ultimately spilled” onto his lap, according to the lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in 2020. The lawsuit accused Starbucks of breaching its duty of care by failing to secure the lid.

Michael Parker, Garcia’s lawyer, said his client was picking up three beverages and one of the hot drinks wasn’t fully pushed into the container. When the barista handed Garcia the order, a drink fell out of the container and onto Garcia, Parker said.

Garcia’s damages included physical pain, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation, inconvenience, grief, disfigurement, physical impairment, anxiety and emotional distress, according to a recording of the verdict from Courtroom View Network.

Starbucks said it plans to appeal the verdict.

“We sympathize with Mr. Garcia, but we disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We have always been committed to the highest safety standards in our stores, including the handling of hot drinks.”

The lawsuit is reminiscent of a famous 1994 lawsuit against McDonald’s in which a woman spilled hot coffee on her lap and suffered third-degree burns. The plaintiff in that case, Stella Liebeck, was originally awarded nearly $3 million.

Los Angeles, CA – A California state court jury found Starbucks liable on Wednesday for severe burns a Postmates driver suffered while picking up a drive-through order, and the full trial was webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.

The jury found Starbucks entirely responsible for plaintiff Michael Garcia’s injuries, assigning him no liability in the first phase of the bifurcated trial after 40 minutes of deliberation and setting up a second phase to determine damages next week to compensate for burns to his thighs and genitals. 

In a brief liability phase that only lasted two days, Garcia’s attorney Nick Rowley of Trial Lawyers for Justice told the Los Angeles County jury that the barista working the window failed to properly secure one of the hot drinks in the takeout container, however Starbucks unsuccessfully maintained the spill only occurred after Garcia had total physical control of the beverages.

Sign up today for a monthly or annual subscription to CVN’s trial video library and get unlimited on-demand access to last week’s liability phase, the upcoming damages phase, and hundreds more trials featuring many of the best plaintiff and defense attorneys in the country.

Rowley delivered a “hands on” opening statement with Garcia seated directly next to him, at times interacting with Garcia to recreate the act of handing a tray of drinks through a car window.

Rowley told jurors Starbucks had a documented corporate policy that drinks must be fully secured in a tray, and he said surveillance video from inside the drive-through clearly showed one of the three cups not fully placed in the container.

He also rejected arguments from Starbucks that having an unrestrained dog in the car contributed to Garcia’s injuries, stressing it wasn’t in violation of any local ordinance and that it shouldn’t affect how a Starbucks employee does their job.

“This young man did nothing to cause this to happen,” Rowley insisted. “Nothing at all.”

Representing Starbucks, Stephen Pelletier of Price Pelletier LLP disputed Rowley’s characterizing of the surveillance video, instead telling jurors that an accident reconstruction expert determined Garcia was in full control of the drinks when they spilled.

He argued Garcia had made similar orders countless times before, knew he would be holding scalding hot beverages, and should have taken the same care that he supposedly used every time prior.

Pelletier defended the training Starbucks employees undergo, and he said their actions that day all complied with those standards.

“In this case, the handoff was successful and it must be evaluated from the point where the drinks are moved from the counter all the way to point where the drink spilled,” Pelletier explained.

The trial is taking place before Judge Frederick Shaller.

The case is captioned Michael Garcia v. Starbucks Corporation, case number 20STCV10214 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The wreck happened in the California Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, California back in 2016. The jury’s decision was reached on Monday, February 10th of this year.

According to Long Beach Post, 43-year-old Leila Miyamoto was fully stopped in the road for at least a minute as she waited to make a left turn near Wardlow Road and

“The loaded truck weighing 37,000 pounds smashed into the rear of Leila Miyamoto’s van, totaling it and shattering the rear window,” her attorneys wrote in court filings.

The force of the impact caused Miyamoto’s head to slam into the steering wheel, and left her needing “numerous neck and back surgeries.”

“Her injuries and limitations since the time of the collision have put significant strain on her marital relationship and have hindered her ability to care for her children in the way she did before the crash and her quest to get the medical care that she needs in order to restore as much of her pre-collision functionality as possible has been long and arduous,” they wrote in court papers.

The negligence lawsuit was filed against Services Group of America, Inc., Food Services of America, Inc., Systems Services of America, Inc., and truck driver Daniel Almazan.

Defense attorneys argued that Miyamoto stopped suddenly in the roadway without using a turn signal, and that she has since overstated the extent of her injuries. However, the jury concluded that truck driver Almazan acted negligently when he crashed into the back of her van, despite the possibility that she stopped unsafely in the roadway. Miyamoto was awarded $21.3 million in the lawsuit.

“The jury saw through their attempts to distort the truth and delivered a powerful verdict for Leila who has endured years of pain and hardship,” Nick Rowley, an attorney for Miyamoto, said in a statement.