Burlington County Woman Filing First-Of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Against Dunkin' After Suffering Burns From Spilled Coffee
DELRAN, N.J. (CBS) -- A Burlington County woman is suing Dunkin' after she says a morning coffee run led to second- and third-degree burns on her legs.
Like millions of Americans, Samantha Picklo runs on hot coffee, even during a warm morning last August when Picklo says she drove up to a Delran Dunkin'.
"I ordered three cups of coffee and a couple wake-up wraps," she said.
She says she pulled up past the drive-thru window where a worker came outside with her coffee tray.
Picklo says the extra large cup was not secure in the cupholder.
"As he tried to pass it to me before I could even take it from him, I watched as the extra large cup of coffee just fell forward," Picklo said. "And then the other two had fallen right on me."
"I never felt such a pain in my life," she said.
Paramedics prepared to take Picklo to the hospital while a police officer interviewed store workers.
"Her legs are all burned up like there's skin coming completely off her legs from the degree of the burns," the officer said on body cam video.
Picklo spent three days recovering in the Jefferson Burn Center.
Her attorney, Paul D'Amato, claims this lawsuit is the first of its kind in the nation because it's focusing on the coffee cup tray and not just because of the coffee's temperature.
"And all the industry has to do is to have a holder that has higher sides and is more secure," D'Amato said.
Similar, he says, to the containers used by Grubhub and Uber Eats. He says they're also looking into who makes Dunkin's coffee trays and adding them to the lawsuit.
"Her goal, as well as her husband's goal, is to prevent this from happening to any other person in the future," D'Amato said.
The lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount of money for what Picklo went through.
She says this quick coffee run has led to months of challenges.
"There's a constant pain through itching and having a PTSD almost," Picklo said.
Dunkin's corporate office refused to comment on Picklo's lawsuit.
We went inside the Delran store and asked to speak to the franchise's owner. A man claimed the owner wasn't available and refused to give us any way to contact him.
Attorneys for the store stated in a court filing last month that it did not behave negligently and that Picklo's injuries were, among other things, a result of her own negligence.
