Add The New York Post on Google A woman says the French fries at a Midtown East McDonald’s were so blisteringly hot they burned the inside of her mouth.
Catherine Luongo is still salty after allegedly being scorched by “extremely hot and overheated” fries at the 42nd Street outpost on March 5, she said in a lawsuit.
A NYC woman is suing McDonald’s after allegedly burning her mouth on fries. AFP via Getty Images “[Luongo] sustained serious and severe personal injuries to head, body and limbs; a severe shock to the nervous system [and] suffered great physical pain and mental anguish,” the filings reads.
Her potentially “permanent and lasting” injuries were so severe they left her bed-ridden, she claimed in the filing.
She blames the “careless” chain for serving her the sizzling spuds and for failing to warn her that eating them came with a risk, according to court papers filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Luongo is no stranger to lawsuits. She sued Walmart in 2025 and Panera in 2018, court dockets show.
She claimed a worker at a Glendale Panera accidently hit her hand with a chair, causing “severe” and “permanent” injuries, according to documents filed in Queens Supreme Court. She ultimately won $150,000.
The case against Walmart, which was originally filed in Queens Supreme Court, but moved to federal court after Luongo demanded $1 million in damages, is ongoing, according to records.
Luongo alleged in that case that an employee was returning multiple shopping carts to the Valley Stream store, when one of the carts with a metal pole attached hit her in the parking lot, leaving her bruised and wounded.
Walmart and Luongo are handling the matter privately, but as of July 9 have not reached a settlement.
Luongo is demanding unspecified damages in the suit against McDonald’s.
The alleged incident comes more than 30 years after an elderly New Mexico woman famously sued the burger giant after a piping-hot coffee spilled onto her lap and gave her third-degree burns.
The case, Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, initially won her a whopping $2.7 million. The award was later reduced in a confidential settlement.
She is suing a McDonald’s in Midtown East. Leonardo Munoz for NY Post Stella Liebeck claimed the 180- to 190-degree beverage left her with injuries so severe she was hospitalized for a week and needed skin grafts.
Leading up to her case, McDonald’s had received more than 700 similar complaints from customers who said they had been burned, according to the Consumer Attorneys of California. In the aftermath of the case, McDonald’s was forced to lower the serving temp of its coffee and slap warning labels on the cups.
More recently, the chain was sued by a Massachusetts mother in 2023 after her toddler suffered first- and second-degree burns on her legs from “unreasonably and dangerously hot fries.”
The child needed surgery and was allegedly left “disfigured and scarred,” per the document.
“I think [Luongo’s case] is going to be very fact determinative,” food poisoning attorney Ron Simon told The Post. “How hot were the fries? Was the meal mishandled?”
McDonald’s and Walmart did not return requests for comment. Luongo’s attorney declined to comment.
