Less than a week after a jury awarded nearly $79 million to a woman injured by a Domino's Pizza driver, the company is dropping the 30-minutes-or-less guarantee that made it the world's No. 1 pizza delivery business.
"That certainly was the thing that put it over the edge," Domino's founder and owner, Tom Monaghan, said Tuesday of the verdict. "We've been debating continuing this 30-minute guarantee policy for a number of years."Scores of lawsuits have been filed against Domino's over accidents involving delivery drivers.
In place of the pledge to deliver the pizza within 30 minutes or take $3 off, Domino's will offer a refund if a customer is dissatisfied for any reason.
Domino's, with 5,400 stores in more than 30 countries, built the world's largest pizza delivery business on its 30-minute promise, but Monaghan said he thinks he will do fine without it.
"Eighty percent of getting a pizza delivered in a timely manner is getting the pizza in the oven fast," he said. "The speed of driving is a very insignificant part of it."
On Friday, a Circuit Court jury in St. Louis awarded Jean Kinder $78 million in punitive damages in addition to $750,000 in actual damages. She suffered head and spinal injuries in 1989 when her car was struck by a Domino's driver who ran a red light.
Kinder's lawyer, Paul Kovacs, said the jury's message to Domino's was to stop the delivery policy.
The delivery driver settled with Kinder for $150,000.
Domino's, founded in 1960, began guaranteeing delivery within a half-hour in 1984. From 1984 until 1986, a late pizza was a free pizza.
The company never charged its drivers for late pies, but Jack Simpson, who has delivered on and off for Domino's over the past four years, said he won't miss the guarantee.
"I know I tended to rush a little more when it looked like the pizza was going to be late," he said.
"We're absolutely ecstatic," said Keith Mestrich, spokesman for People Against Dangerous Delivery, a Washington-based coalition of consumer groups opposing the 30-minute policy.
Wall Street analysts who follow Domino's rival Pizza Hut, a unit of Pepsico Inc., said they think Domino's might suffer without the guarantee that sets it apart from rivals.
In other lawsuits over the past two years, a Delaware jury awarded $645,000 to a couple whose car was struck by a Domino's vehicle; Domino's paid $2.8 million to the family of an Indiana woman killed by a delivery truck; and a West Virginia jury rejected a couple's claim that the 30-minute guarantee caused a Domino's delivery vehicle to hit their car.