Classic First-World-Problem Lawsuit: Woman Accuses Starbucks of Putting Too Much Ice in Iced Coffee

[Purveyor]

We live in a world of misaligned consumer expectations—one in which Caesar salad is mostly iceberg lettuce, “fancy mixed nuts” means peanuts with a sprinkling of cashews, and a paid Netflix subscription comes with those pesky in-house ads. We live in a world, in other words, in which iced coffee comes with more ice than might be strictly necessary to cool your beverage.

Most of us adjust quickly to these admittedly not-very-burdensome indignities. When faced with the litany of disappointments inherent to modern capitalism, we might feel briefly betrayed, perhaps complain using the avenues that are presented to us or vow never to submit ourselves to that experience ever again, and then move on to the next purchase. But not all: In what might be the ultimate first-world-problem lawsuit, an Illinois woman is suing Starbucks for chronically underfilling its iced drinks.

For the past 10 years, the plaintiff has purchased cold drinks from Starbucks and found herself repeatedly chagrined by the copious levels of ice, according to the suit. So rather than stop purchasing drinks at Starbucks, she decided to take legal action. Her class-action lawsuit accuses the coffee giant of false advertising, fraud, and unjust enrichment, calling Starbucks’ cold drinks “defective.” It calls for $5 million in damages on behalf of herself and the millions of Americans who have purchased a Starbucks iced coffee over the past 10 years.

“In essence, Starbucks is advertising the size of its Cold Drink cups on its menu rather than the amount of fluid a customer will receive when they purchase a Cold Drink and deceiving its customers in the process,” the suit alleges. A customer who orders a Venti-size iced coffee, which is advertised as 24 fluid ounces, will typically receive about 14 ounces of coffee and a heaping shovelful of ice, it adds. (This isn’t the first time Starbucks has faced such accusations: A different suit last month claimed the chain’s lattes were 25 percent smaller than the menu implied.)

The suit then suggests an amazing fix: that the coffee chain increase the size of its cups, this despite the fact that a Trenta-size coffee is already larger than the human stomach.

MORE...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/05/02/starbucks_is_being_sued_for_putting_too_much_ice_in_ice_coffee.html

[guillaumeb]

1. The horror of it all.

I personally purchased a tube of toothpaste that promised to make me irresistible. So far it has not happened, in spite of me brushing my teeth up to 30 times a day. Can I sue the manufacturer?

[COLGATE4]

2. Absolutely! Go for it. I'd ask for at least

30 trillion dollars in punitive damages.

[guillaumeb]

3. Sorry anonymous poster,

but I did not identify the toothpaste in question as C******. It could have been C****, or P********. Perhaps I just need a little more time, and a lot more brushing with the toothpaste in question.

[COLGATE4]

4. If it had been P******** I'd suggest asking

for 40 trillion. And don't spend too much time brushing with either of those - it'll make you go blind.

[sufrommich]

5. Why not just ask them to go easy on the ice?

Note that anyone can use for anything but if I was Starbucks lawyer that would be my first question.

[Daemonaquila]

6. I'll still sit back and have some popcorn.

A suit against Starbucks, even as #firstworldproblems as this one? I'm totally ok with it. Couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

Speaking of Starbucks and suits, a friend's experience there this weekend drives home the point that a lot of people may laugh at "frivolous" law suits that aren't at all frivolous, and maybe they should be a bit more humble about their judgments. In this case, it was a flashback to the infamous McDonald's hot coffee in the crotch case. After seeing what happened to her, nobody gets to laugh at that case as far as I'm concerned.

She got her cup of coffee and went to the condiment area to fix it up. She was wearing a jogging hoodie, the kind that has cuffs that come up over the hand and lets the thumb pop through a hole to keep it all in place. She accidentally knocked the coffee over her hand and wrist while taking off the lid.

It hurt like hell and she didn't think anything of it, but then she pulled back the wet sleeve and a large portion of the skin from the wrist to the base of her thumb peeled right off - scalded away in a moment. Underneath, it was completely shiny and red, and didn't hurt, a very bad sign. By later that day, it was clear that all that layer of skin was dead as well, and she had a massive blister under it. It seemed like a stupid, everyday sort of minor injury, but it wasn't. She's going to need a heck of a lot of doctoring to fix that up, and a nurse noted that it was something that could require a skin graft. So laughing at the lady who did that in her lap at McDonald's and wound up needing skin grafts in her crotch... let's just check those assumptions at the door. Sometimes really stupid-sounding things actually have merit.

[Hekate]

8. My sis was one of those victims. She almost needed skin grafts on her ankle after dropping her cup

She ended up needing an ambulance (she and my BIL were out bicycle riding and they couldn't continue) and then daily treatment from a nurse at the Burn Center.

MacDonald's, btw, still way overheats its coffee. It just added an unreadable little notice on the lids about the contents being hot.

[Schema Thing]

7. I feel like "Ice" is a clue here....

[Hekate]

9. Probably should ask for the cold coffee in one cup and the ice in another. Mostly I just ask...

... if the coffee shop in question is using cold coffee from the fridge or hot coffee from the pot. Some idiots (not any particular brand) pour freshly brewed coffee over a cup of ice and hand you a lukewarm mess. You can't really know in advance, so I ask.

From now on, I will be forewarned about Starbucks and ask for separate cups. I do like my iced coffee.