McDonald’s did (and still does) deliberately serve coffee at temps much too hot for human consumption because they say it lets them keep it for longer without going stale. Your normal everyday cup of hot coffee does not cause your skin to slough and peel away from your body when spilled in your lap.
Imagine hair shampoo with an ingredient that causes massive retinal damage and permanent blindness if it gets in your eyes. You’re basically saying there’s no safety problem there because everyone knows shampoo stings your eyes.
Can’t they have their cake and eat it too, using e.g. a plate heat exchanger? If designed well it could be even easy to clean. As a bonus they could save some energy by preheating the water for brewing more coffee.
But maybe lawsuits and massive PR campaigns are cheaper…
That’s what drove the size of the payout in the original McCoffee lawsuit. The plaintiff was initially just after medical expenses, but during the trial it came out that McDonalds was already aware of a large number of these burn cases [1].
They had made a calculated decision that the occasional medical bill was outweighed by the profits to be gained by overheating their coffee [2], and were daft enough to leave explicit evidence of that decision.
The punitive damages award was an attempt to discourage corporations from making that sort of explicitly bloodthirsty calculation.
[1] Which, to be clear, were not normal hot beverage scalding incidents. These were lengthy-hospital-stay permanently-disfigured grade burns.
[2] It isn’t just about avoiding having to throw away coffee. The excessive temperature also drives the aroma further, bringing in caffeine addicts from the surrounding neighbourhood.
