Almost 15 years after McDonald’s brought a taste of America to impoverished Russians, a 37-year-old Muscovite has hit the firm with a U.S.-style lawsuit over a spilled cup of coffee, Russian media reported on Friday.
Olga Kuznetsova is claiming $14 in healthcare costs and $3,500 of moral damage after suffering first and second degree burns, media reported.
“I opened a door with one hand while carrying the tray with the other. But the door slammed and spilled the cup of coffee all over me,” she told Vedomosti daily. “I asked for help from the staff but they said they’d run out of ointment and only brought some ice and a towel.”
The paper quoted a McDonald’s spokeswoman as saying the firm had received a claim but was unaware of any lawsuit, which she said would be the first of its kind for McDonald’s in Russia.
In one U.S. case in 1994, a woman was awarded punitive damages of $2.7 million, later reduced to $480,000, for burns received when a cup of McDonald’s coffee spilled on her lap.
McDonald’s is widely popular in Russia, with restaurants in most major towns. The first outlet opened in 1990 when Moscow was still capital of the Soviet Union, and was greeted by queues around the block despite high prices by local standards.
