Unusual Lawsuit
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"Hot Coffee"
If you were alive in the '90s, you've heard the story of the woman who drove with coffee in her lap and sued McDonald's. It's practically an urban myth. But did you know that she sustained burns so intense she had to undergo hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of surgery and receive skin grafts? Did you know she wasn't even driving? This story is a portrait of the agenda behind tort reform and the perception of "frivolous" lawsuits.
Documentary available on Netflix and might be available on Youtube.
(According to IMDb: How the infamous McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit and similar cases were exploited as part of a right wing crusade to weaken civil justice.)
Peace.
If you were alive in the '90s, you've heard the story of the woman who drove with coffee in her lap and sued McDonald's. It's practically an urban myth. But did you know that she sustained burns so intense she had to undergo hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of surgery and receive skin grafts? Did you know she wasn't even driving? This story is a portrait of the agenda behind tort reform and the perception of "frivolous" lawsuits.
Documentary available on Netflix and might be available on Youtube.
(According to IMDb: How the infamous McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit and similar cases were exploited as part of a right wing crusade to weaken civil justice.)
Peace.
^ BTW-the documentary has GRAPHIC images of the injuries. (I really don't think anyone can imagine just how scalding hot that coffee was and the horrible injuries the poor woman incurred.)
Peace.
Peace.
She was NOT driving.
We did discuss that case in this thread, and it's probably best we not go there again. We were getting into a loop. And the pictures are on line if anyone wants to see them (though I don't think anyone needs to. We all seem to agree the burns were severe.)
Sigmund took that quote from another website. It was someone else explaining the documentary. I appreciate the heads up on the Doc.
I'm tired of hearing about lawsuits. Let's talk about blue raspberries some more. And by blue raspberries, I mean boobs.
If I'm tired, I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime.
Plane taking off. Or landing. Or during flight.
On the bus.
In a movie theater.
On a Disneyland ride, waiting for it to start.
In a car, stopped in traffic waiting for an accident to clear (this is as true as it gets. I was taking one of my sons and his coworker to work in a town down the highway. We turned on the interstate, and a bad accident had stopped traffic cold. I fell asleep with the car stopped in place, and woke up when my son said, "Dad, traffic is starting to clear.")
Getting home, waiting for dinner, on the living room rug, my feet up on furniture.
And so on.
The kids call it my superpower. But what I know is, if I allow myself to do that in public, I'm going to look ridiculous to everyone else. Such is the price to pay for such a superpower.
Plane taking off. Or landing. Or during flight.
On the bus.
In a movie theater.
On a Disneyland ride, waiting for it to start.
In a car, stopped in traffic waiting for an accident to clear (this is as true as it gets. I was taking one of my sons and his coworker to work in a town down the highway. We turned on the interstate, and a bad accident had stopped traffic cold. I fell asleep with the car stopped in place, and woke up when my son said, "Dad, traffic is starting to clear.")
Getting home, waiting for dinner, on the living room rug, my feet up on furniture.
And so on.
The kids call it my superpower. But what I know is, if I allow myself to do that in public, I'm going to look ridiculous to everyone else. Such is the price to pay for such a superpower.
...so are some none silicone breasticles....which I love almost as much as cookies....
Have you seen the documentary Hot Coffee? I found it very interesting and informative. It is not about just this one case.
It also explains that some of these cases where a jury awards a huge amount, the law does not allow such an award.
Good Morning.
Ummm...Are we discussing this or are we not discussing this?
I DID watch the documentary and thought it was interesting and informative and it discussed other cases
How the infamous McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit and similar cases were exploited as part of a right wing crusade to weaken civil justice.
It's exactly what and why I posted in the first place.
(In the future, I will think and re-think my addition to the conversation before I post and then not post at all.)
Peace.
Sometimes, I think a large punitive award isn't about the plaintiff necessarily being legally right, it's about juries wanting to stick it to a big corporation. Not because they're legally liable, necessarily, but because they've got all that money. Let's give some of it to the little guy.
Please, don't stop posting. Much better, isn't it, to go ahead and talk it through? Your insights are just as valuable as anybody else's.
You didn't mean any harm, I'm sure.
Punitive awards are supposed to punish bad behavior. So we'll see punitive claims in an auto accident where the driver was blind drunk or something. Or to an auto corporation that knows there's a dangerous defect but makes the car anyway, figuring that it can better afford the injury and death claims than to repair the defect.
In this case, it was issued against McDonald's because they knew that a certain number of people would get blistered by coffee that was too hot to be drinkable, but they stuck to their policy of putting it in the hands of their customers anyway, even after hundreds of complaints. Apparently, they didn't hear the populace saying en masse, "What the hell is WRONG with you?" and this was a way to get their attention.
A punitive award is not a criminal conviction. They were not found to be criminally liable. My lawyer friends would describe them as "felony stupid," but that's just a saying.
"a auto"? "too hot to be undrinkable"? Proofing fail. 
Fixed...."a auto"? "too hot to be undrinkable"? Proofing fail.