A growing number of ramen noodle lawsuits accuse Maruchan and Nissin Foods of selling instant noodle cups whose tall, tapered shape tips over too easily, spilling boiling liquid onto children and causing serious scald burns. The cases, filed in California, North Carolina, and other states since at least 2013, rely on two product liability theories: that the cup is defectively designed and that the packaging fails to warn caregivers about the tipping risk.1Source in file
What the Lawsuits Claim
Every case starts from the same physical complaint. A standard instant noodle cup is shaped like an inverted cone, wider at the top than at the bottom, and molded from lightweight Styrofoam or paper. Fill it with boiling water and the center of gravity rises. A bump from a child’s hand can send it over.
From that fact, plaintiffs build two claims. The first is design defect: the tapered cup is unreasonably dangerous when a feasible safer alternative exists, namely a shorter, wider container. Dr. David Greenhalgh, whose research is central to the litigation, has suggested manufacturers could invert the cup shape to look more like a Yoplait yogurt container and dramatically improve stability.
The second is failure to warn. Plaintiffs argue that manufacturers have not adequately alerted parents and caregivers to the tipping and spilling hazard. The American Burn Association has been asking manufacturers to add visible warnings and develop spill-resistant packaging since 2007, and repeated that call in 2008. The lawsuits contend those recommendations have gone largely unanswered for close to two decades.
The Research Behind the Cases
The scientific backbone of this litigation is a 2006 study by Dr. Greenhalgh, then chief of burn surgery at Shriners Hospital for Children of Northern California, published in the Journal of Burn Care & Research. Greenhalgh’s team tested 11 instant soup containers and measured the angle at which each tipped. The Cup Noodles design went over at roughly 21 degrees, the second worst in the group. The most stable container held until about 64 degrees. Height, the study concluded, was the single biggest factor in tipping ease, and the authors recommended a wider base and shorter cup.
A 2008 follow-up from Greenhalgh’s team in the same journal repeated the call for design changes and noted that these scaldings clustered in lower-income households with multiple children.
The injury numbers are large. Roughly 9,500 to 10,000 children a year are treated in the United States for burns from instant noodle soup, about 25 children a day. A ten-year retrospective study at University of Chicago Medicine, published in the journal Burns in January 2023, reviewed 790 pediatric scald admissions between 2010 and 2020. Instant noodles accounted for 245 of those cases, 31 percent of the total. The average patient was about five years old. Forty percent of the noodle burns happened while the child was unsupervised, and 29 percent of those children required surgery, including skin grafts.
Cases Filed So Far
No single verdict has defined this litigation. Instead, a handful of individual suits show the pattern:
- 2013, California, Nissin Foods. A mother sued on behalf of her toddler son, alleging the narrow-base design was unstable and that packaging warned against microwaving but not against tipping. The outcome has not been publicly reported.
- 2014, North Carolina, Maruchan. Kimberly Buffkin sued Maruchan and its parent Toyo Suisan Kaisha after her daughter suffered second-degree burns from a spilled Maruchan cup in 2011. The case, Buffkin v. Maruchan Inc. (M.D.N.C. Case No. 1:14-cv-00003), ended in a confidential settlement in 2016.
- 2021, Los Angeles, Maruchan. The firm ACTS LAW filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of a seven-year-old girl who suffered second- and third-degree burns from a Maruchan Instant Lunch cup. The complaint called the packaging “dangerous and defective” because of its unstable base and tall height.
- 2023, Long Beach, California. The Long Beach City Council approved a $300,000 settlement in July 2023 over a 2021 incident at Silverado Park day camp. A city employee had microwaved a Nissin Cup Noodles for a seven-year-old girl, contrary to packaging instructions, and the hot soup spilled onto her abdomen, causing severe burns and permanent scarring. The suit was filed against the city, not Nissin, and turned on employee negligence rather than product design.
Multiple law firms describe the litigation as ongoing and growing into late 2025, with cases active or under investigation in several states.
How Maruchan and Nissin Have Responded
Maruchan’s central defense has been volume. The company said in 2013 that it had sold more than 500 million Instant Lunch cups the year before and received only four burn claims, one involving a child. In the Buffkin case, Maruchan denied that the design was inherently risky, blamed the child’s father for the incident, and moved to dismiss.
Nissin has taken a similar line, saying “safe and proper enjoyment of our products is one of our priorities” and that its packaging is “prominently labeled” with warnings to handle the product carefully around children. Current Nissin packaging warns that contents are very hot and tells consumers not to microwave the cup directly. In a statement to CBS News, the company said, “Our hearts go out to children and families who have suffered burns of any type.” Both companies have declined interview requests from reporters covering the cases.
Where Regulators Stand
There is no broad federal recall or design standard for instant noodle cups. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has acted only on a narrower hazard: in December 2018 it issued Recall No. 19-048 for about 239,000 Lotus Foods rice ramen noodle soup cups because the paper cups were not microwave-safe despite labeling that told consumers to microwave them. Twelve incidents of cups sparking or catching fire were reported, along with one minor burn. Nothing in the available record shows the CPSC or FDA has issued rules addressing the cup-tipping hazard at the center of the burn litigation.