Florida girl awarded $800K after getting burned by fast food chain's chicken nugget
A jury in Miami, Florida awarded a massive sum of $800,000 (P44 million) to a little girl burned by a fast food chain's chicken nugget.
The South Florida jury awarded the amount to eight-year-old Olivia Caraballo who received second-degree burns when a scalding hot Chicken McNugget dropped on her leg while her mother was backing out of a McDonald's drive-thru. The incident happened in 2019 when Olivia was four years old.
The child's mother, Philana Holmes, told NBC South Florida station about the horror she felt at that time.
“I heard a scream and I turned around and it's my daughter, in wedge in between the seatbelt [...] is a chicken nugget there that I wasn’t able to reach,” she said.
The family was asking for 15 million dollars in the lawsuit where a jury concluded that the fast food giant and Upchurch Foods were liable for failing to warn that the Nugget could be dangerously hot.
One of the courtroom's contentious issues was how long it took the wound to heal, which was three weeks. In addition, Olivia was only four years old when she sustained those burns.
On July 20, 2023, the family was awarded P44 million ($800,000) as compensation for the child's agony and suffering, deformity, and mental anguish against McDonald's and the franchise owner of Upchurch Foods Incorporated.
According to a report by Sun Sentinel, Philana told the jury that Olivia has a scar from the burn and has been anxious to have it removed.
Olivia's mother hopes that the investigation yields additional information and that warning labels will be placed on chicken nugget boxes.
Despite it all, the family's attorney Jennifer Miller told CBS News that Olivia remains fond of the fast food chain. She said, "She still asks to go to McDonald's, she's still driving through the drive-thru with her mom, getting chicken nuggets."