In January 2020, Yolanda Jackson pulled up to the drive-thru of the Church’s Chicken in Midfield and ordered a chicken pot pie.

According to the lawsuit she later filed, the pie was hot enough to leave her with serious injuries, including second-degree burns to her mouth, face, lip, left wrist and body.

What followed took more than six years.

Jackson’s claim outlasted a pandemic before it reached a courtroom Monday, when the case was heard as a bench trial, before a judge and no jury, in Jefferson County Circuit Court in Bessemer.

On Wednesday, the court ruled for Jackson and entered a judgment of $20,000 plus court costs against Church’s, WBRC’s Josh Gauntt reported.

Her attorney was Truman Fitzgerald, a Birmingham lawyer who spent 14 years with the Birmingham Police Department.

Fitzgerald announced the verdict on Facebook.

What bothered Jackson most, he wrote, was that she “was left scarred, and she felt unheard by Church’s.”

Jackson’s five-figure judgement sits a long way from the McDonald’s hot coffee case of 1994, when a New Mexico jury initially awarded nearly $3 million.

Church’s Texas Chicken, as the Atlanta-based chain now brands itself, operates more than 1,500 locations and reported $1.6 billion in revenue last year.