There is a whole page (or 2, or 3) dedicatd to that case, just here on Overlawyered, but there were several issues with that case, starting with it not being thrown out, as it obviously should have.

In summary, the deciding reasoning for the jurors turned out to be 1) the McDonald’s execs came across as uncaring, and 2) the misunderstood “statistically insignificant” to mean “we don’t care if people get hurt” instead of what it really means (“people who managed to injure themselves with our product are incredibly rare”).

You can make your own decisions about if that means it was “badly defended” or not… prsonally, I think it was one of those “perfect storm” kind of things (or perhaps “comedy of errors” would b a better phrases…).

BUT it should never have been tried at all. McDonald’s should have won on summary judgment. The judge’s refusal to throw out the claim is the real error here.