Lawsuit Alleges Hot Chocolate Burned Child at Lake Tahoe Resort
It wasn’t a chairlift slip-up or on-snow collision that prompted one family to sue Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain Resort. No, this time, a cup of hot chocolate is to blame.
The lawsuit said that two winters ago, Brittany Burns went to the ski resort and, during a break at the Sky Deck Cafe, ordered a hot chocolate for her five-year-old daughter, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
According to the lawsuit, an employee topped the drink with whipped cream and then slid it through a window counter to the child without a lid.
The child tried to drink it. Instead, she spilled the drink, the “excessively and unnecessarily hot” liquid becoming trapped in her ski suit, badly burning her chest and abdomen, the lawsuit and legal team said.
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The complaint is seeking damages for medical expenses, loss of past and future income, and “loss of enjoyment in life.” It said the resort and its staff were negligent.
While ski areas in California are often protected from lawsuits by liability waivers that warn of skiing’s inherent risk, the family’s personal injury attorney, Roger Dreyer, said the hot chocolate case is different.
“You’re assuming the risk of skiing—OK,” he said. “But you’re not assuming they’ll cook the hot chocolate to a temperature that’s not consumable to a human being.”
Dreyer also said that the child has permanent scars.
Vail Resorts, which owns Heavenly, told the Chronicle it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
The case echoes similar past lawsuits.
Famously, in the 1990s, a woman sued McDonald's when she suffered second- and third-degree burns over 16% of her body after spilling a cup of coffee on herself. Jurors originally awarded her nearly $3 million in punitive damages. A trial judge later reduced the award to $480,000.
More recently, a jury ordered Starbucks to pay $50 million to a delivery driver who spilled hot drinks into his lap, suffering “severe burns, disfigurement, and debilitating nerve damage.” The lawsuit accused the company of failing to secure the lid.