All she asked for was her medical bills be covered , McDonald ' s refused after that she retained a lawyer Morgan Reed who wanted to settle for 90 , 000 $ after all was said and done . McDonald ' s refused 3 more settlement offers so it went to court . The amount awarded was decided by the JudgeJury and not her Lawyer , McDonald ' s had multiple chances to settle for much lower , the highest amount her Lawyer Mr . Reed asked for was 300 , 000 Which included all his fee ' s . It came out during the trial McDonald ' s knew the coffee was too hot but ignored it for almost a decade , The 2 million awarded was for punitive damages which is to deter the defendant from allowing a similar incident to happen . It was a message to McDonald ' s to resolve this issue before it runs into the tens of millions in lawsuits which now have a precedent . Interview with Morgan Reed