Having worked in an actual McDonald's store back in those days, the holding temperatures on the coffee pots were set higher than normal drinking temperature.
The reasoning for this was because people would buy their coffee in the drive-thru or lobby and take it home to drink. The whole concept of actually drinking it in the car was not considered when the holding temps were specified by corporate, not to mention spill-type accidents.
That may be why the temperature was set the way it was initially, but a big part of the court case was that they had had many instances of people burning themselves on the coffee and had decided it was cheaper to settle repeatedly.
