Burger King has succeeded in having a compensation award to a customer overturned at the High Court today.
Last March, the Circuit Court awarded €17,500 to a young mother from Dublin who dropped a "paper cup" of boiling water on herself in a Burger King restaurant and was scalded from her waist to her groin.
Jane Freeman said that staff in Burger King in Dublin's Ilac Centre had given her the water after refusing to heat her baby's bottle.
Counsel for Ms Freeman said his client had been given the boiling water in a partly-filled, cardboard beaker to heat the bottle herself. Ms Freeman (24), of Dolphin's Barn, said the cup had been left at her table and when she lifted it, it burned her fingers forcing to drop it, spilling the water over herself.
Burger King waitress Belinda O'Connor said it was a regular practice to give out boiling water to a mother who wished to heat a baby's bottle. She gave the water to Ms Freeman at the cash desk and had placed the beaker inside "three or four" other beakers.
Judge Mary Faherty said Ms Freeman had suffered first-degree burns and the manner of her reaction to lifting the container suggested that only a single container had been used.
But today Judge Eamon De Valera found the company had no case to answer and reversed the Circuit Court decision.
Burger King successfully maintained that the paper cup of hot water was sealed with a lid and had been placed inside three or four other containers before Ms Freeman carried the cup from the counter to her table.