A free cup of coffee could lead to a $750,000 payday for a North Carolina police lieutenant suing Starbucks, saying he was severely burned after the lid came off the cup and hot coffee spilled all over him.
Matthew Kohr and his wife, Melanie, are suing the company to cover legal and medical expenses, ABC News reports. Kohr, who had pre-existing Crohn's disease, said the burns caused his condition to flare up and he had to have intestinal surgery. His wife said she suffered emotional distress from losing her "intimate partner," the lawsuit says.
The incident took place in January 2012, and Kohr said he was not expecting to get burned the way he did. "I didn't know it was that hot," he said. Soon after, he had to take time off from work, and when he was on the job, he felt "edginess, nervousness, [and] wasn't comfortable in the car." Originally, Kohr wanted to sue for $10 million, saying it's "hard to put a price on what my wife had to go through, what my kids had to go through. What's a year and a half, two years of your life worth? I thought it was worth $10 million." A Starbucks spokesperson told ABC News that customer safety is "our top priority," and denied any wrongdoing.
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