However, those who examined the facts more closely learned that the Liebeck case was more complicated than it first appeared. For one thing, Liebeck suffered third- degree burns on her thighs and buttocks that were serious enough to require skin grafting and leave permanent scars. After her injury, she initially requested $ 10,000 for medical expenses and an additional amount for pain and suffering. When McDonald’s refused, she went to court, asking for $ 300,000. Lawyers for the company argued in response that McDonald’s coffee was not unreasonably hot and that Liebeck was responsible for her own injuries. The jury saw it differently, however. First, McDonald’s served its coffee at 185 degrees Fahrenheit, significantly hotter than home- brewed coffee. The jury was persuaded that coffee at that temperature is both undrinkable and more dangerous than a reasonable consumer would expect. Second, before Liebeck’s accident, the company had received over seven hundred com-plaints about burns from its coffee. In response to the com-plaints, McDonald’s had in fact put a warning label on its cups and designed a tighter- fitting lid for them. Ironically, the new lid was part of the problem in the Liebeck case because she had held the coffee cup between her legs in an effort to pry it open. Although the jury found that Liebeck was 20 percent responsible for her injuries, it also concluded that McDonald’s had not done enough to warn consumers. The jury’s $ 2.7 mil-lion punitive- damage award was intended, jurors later said, to send a message to fast- food chains. Although the judge reduced the award— equivalent to only about two days’ worth of coffee sales for McDonald’s— he called McDonald’s conduct “ willful, wanton, reckless, and callous.”