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McDonald's hot coffee case...
Basar
IstanbulRegistered User regular
IstanbulRegistered User regular
Part 1:
I remember being a part of a very intellectual discussion in a business law course during college. Of course the topic of discussion was the famous McD's hot coffee case.
For the uninformed: http://www.vanfirm.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm
Aside from being an amazing investment for the elderly lady (hey, it was only $0.49 for a coffee), I think its a bad decision by the court and I still like to discuss it with different people.
==========
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700
claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This
history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of
this hazard.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
==========
Which, IMO, should not matter because one could use the same argument for a gas station: person goes to a gas station, gets a can of gas, smoke while filling up his lawnmower, causing the gas to lit and burn himself.
Q1 -Should this entitle me to sue the gas and cigarette companies as they knew their products were flammable? I know that most gas stations have "No Smoking" signs around but the McD coffee cups at the time (see facts below) had the hot liquid warning at the time (contrary to popular belief).
Q2 - Also, wouldn't the average person practice common sense and not smoke in a gas station with no "No Smoking" signs?
Q3 - Also worth to mention is, McD serves more than a billion cups of coffee per year, 700 complaints in 10 years is hardly negligence IMO. A common argument by McD haters is that they were selling coffee unfit for human consumption, which brings up the question: who were they selling those billion cups of coffee to? Camels?
Q4 - Was this the first time this old lady drank McD coffee or was she a frequent/occasional drinker?
Q5 - Would she have suffered similar burns if the coffee was at the kept at national average? I would say yes.
Q6 - The reason companies put lids on their coffee cups is to avoid burns. I would say removing the lid between her knees is a pretty damn good reason to throw this case out of court.
There are about a million other questions to be brough up but I am sure some of you will bring them up anyways...
The only thing I have going for the old lady is that McD didn't offer her any help... yeah, fvck that, they shouldn't have to, but they could have kept it a little low profile and we wouldn't have been in the current mess right now. Everyone sues everyone. Kickass. I would've also loved to see her sue her caregivers or something as she's 81 years old and most certainly must have had some sort of help with her... I know for sure that I wouldn't sue McD if I give a 150F coffee to my little cousin (4 yo) and she burned herself.
I think for the jurors, it wasn't about McD serving hot coffee. It was about a poor (financially) old woman who got burned due to her own negligence. But they empathized and sided with her. If it had been a middle aged male with relatively little scars after the incident he would have been laughed out of the court room. Collapse of justice. My personal opinion is: she should have sued god for making her a damn idiot.
Well, I guess the lesson to be learned is: if you have deep pockets, you are fvcked in America!
Facts:
* 3rd degree burns on 6 percent of her body, including her groin, inner thighs, and buttocks.
* Spent 8 days in the hospital.
* Permanent scarring over 16 percent of her body.
* Final punitive damages paid by McDonalds is known to be less than $640,000 (agreed on by McDonalds for dropping an appeal) but the exact amount is unknown due to a confidentiality agreement.
* McDonalds' coffee was between 180-190F degrees.
* Majority of other restaurants keep their coffee between 155-165F degrees.
* Contrary to general public's knowledge, McDonalds actually had "Caution: Contents hot" warning on coffee cups, however they were printed in gold letters & alot smaller than they are printed on current coffee cups.
Other McD cases:
Couple sues McD for hard bagel:http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=17840
Vegetarian sues McDonald's over meaty fries: http://overlawyered.com/archives/01/may1.html#0504a
Anyways, I am off to drink some Drano. Now they have warning on the sides saying "Do NOT drink" as well (they only had it on the cap before), I am gonna be rushed to the hospital as a happy puppy. Then I am gonna sue Charmin because the damn double layered paper hurt my ass.
Discuss.
I remember being a part of a very intellectual discussion in a business law course during college. Of course the topic of discussion was the famous McD's hot coffee case.
For the uninformed: http://www.vanfirm.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm
Aside from being an amazing investment for the elderly lady (hey, it was only $0.49 for a coffee), I think its a bad decision by the court and I still like to discuss it with different people.
==========
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700
claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This
history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of
this hazard.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
==========
Which, IMO, should not matter because one could use the same argument for a gas station: person goes to a gas station, gets a can of gas, smoke while filling up his lawnmower, causing the gas to lit and burn himself.
Q1 -Should this entitle me to sue the gas and cigarette companies as they knew their products were flammable? I know that most gas stations have "No Smoking" signs around but the McD coffee cups at the time (see facts below) had the hot liquid warning at the time (contrary to popular belief).
Q2 - Also, wouldn't the average person practice common sense and not smoke in a gas station with no "No Smoking" signs?
Q3 - Also worth to mention is, McD serves more than a billion cups of coffee per year, 700 complaints in 10 years is hardly negligence IMO. A common argument by McD haters is that they were selling coffee unfit for human consumption, which brings up the question: who were they selling those billion cups of coffee to? Camels?
Q4 - Was this the first time this old lady drank McD coffee or was she a frequent/occasional drinker?
Q5 - Would she have suffered similar burns if the coffee was at the kept at national average? I would say yes.
Q6 - The reason companies put lids on their coffee cups is to avoid burns. I would say removing the lid between her knees is a pretty damn good reason to throw this case out of court.
There are about a million other questions to be brough up but I am sure some of you will bring them up anyways...
The only thing I have going for the old lady is that McD didn't offer her any help... yeah, fvck that, they shouldn't have to, but they could have kept it a little low profile and we wouldn't have been in the current mess right now. Everyone sues everyone. Kickass. I would've also loved to see her sue her caregivers or something as she's 81 years old and most certainly must have had some sort of help with her... I know for sure that I wouldn't sue McD if I give a 150F coffee to my little cousin (4 yo) and she burned herself.
I think for the jurors, it wasn't about McD serving hot coffee. It was about a poor (financially) old woman who got burned due to her own negligence. But they empathized and sided with her. If it had been a middle aged male with relatively little scars after the incident he would have been laughed out of the court room. Collapse of justice. My personal opinion is: she should have sued god for making her a damn idiot.
Well, I guess the lesson to be learned is: if you have deep pockets, you are fvcked in America!
Facts:
* 3rd degree burns on 6 percent of her body, including her groin, inner thighs, and buttocks.
* Spent 8 days in the hospital.
* Permanent scarring over 16 percent of her body.
* Final punitive damages paid by McDonalds is known to be less than $640,000 (agreed on by McDonalds for dropping an appeal) but the exact amount is unknown due to a confidentiality agreement.
* McDonalds' coffee was between 180-190F degrees.
* Majority of other restaurants keep their coffee between 155-165F degrees.
* Contrary to general public's knowledge, McDonalds actually had "Caution: Contents hot" warning on coffee cups, however they were printed in gold letters & alot smaller than they are printed on current coffee cups.
Other McD cases:
Couple sues McD for hard bagel:http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=17840
Vegetarian sues McDonald's over meaty fries: http://overlawyered.com/archives/01/may1.html#0504a
Anyways, I am off to drink some Drano. Now they have warning on the sides saying "Do NOT drink" as well (they only had it on the cap before), I am gonna be rushed to the hospital as a happy puppy. Then I am gonna sue Charmin because the damn double layered paper hurt my ass.
Discuss.
i live in a country with a batshit crazy president and no, english is not my first language
Basar on
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Posts
The only thing I have going for the old lady is that McD didn't offer her any help... yeah, fvck that, they shouldn't have to, but they could have kept it a little low profile and we wouldn't have been in the current mess right now. Everyone sues everyone. Kickass. I would've also loved to see her sue her caregivers or something as she's 81 years old and most certainly must have had some sort of help with her... I know for sure that I wouldn't sue McD if I give a 150F coffee to my little cousin (4 yo) and she burned herself.
I think for the jurors, it wasn't about McD serving hot coffee. It was about a poor (financially) old woman who got burned due to her own negligence. But they empathized and sided with her. If it had been a middle aged male with relatively little scars after the incident he would have been laughed out of the court room. Collapse of justice. My personal opinion is: she should have sued god for making her a damn idiot.
Well, I guess the lesson to be learned is: if you have deep pockets, you are fvcked in America!
Facts:
* 3rd degree burns on 6 percent of her body, including her groin, inner thighs, and buttocks.
* Spent 8 days in the hospital.
* Permanent scarring over 16 percent of her body.
* Final punitive damages paid by McDonalds is known to be less than $640,000 (agreed on by McDonalds for dropping an appeal) but the exact amount is unknown due to a confidentiality agreement.
* McDonalds' coffee was between 180-190F degrees.
* Majority of other restaurants keep their coffee between 155-165F degrees.
* Contrary to general public's knowledge, McDonalds actually had "Caution: Contents hot" warning on coffee cups, however they were printed in gold letters & alot smaller than they are printed on current coffee cups.
Other McD cases:
Couple sues McD for hard bagel:http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=17840
Vegetarian sues McDonald's over meaty fries: http://overlawyered.com/archives/01/may1.html#0504a
Anyways, I am off to drink some Drano. Now they have warning on the sides saying "Do NOT drink" as well (they only had it on the cap before), I am gonna be rushed to the hospital as a happy puppy. Then I am gonna sue Charmin because the damn double layered paper hurt my ass.
Discuss.
IIRC, the McDonalds in question was contacted several times by the county or state health department regarding the extremely high temperature of their coffee. They refused to lower it, and when someone got burned (old lady, quite serious), they got sued hard.
The average person is an idiot.
I don't remember seeing that, link?
If that's true, the lady should have sued the health department for not taking legal action against McD. Believe it or not, the government really have the power to do so...
Anyways, I am off to drink some Drano. Now they have warning on the sides saying "Do NOT drink" as well (they only had it on the cap before), I am gonna be rushed to the hospital as a happy puppy. Then I am gonna sue Charmin because the damn double layered paper hurt my ass.
Discuss.
and when people try to sue me i will be like "bitch the directions clearly state to not get it on your skin you are clearly incompetant and this case should clearly be thrown out of court"
Something like hot coffee (assuming it's not unreasonably hot) is perfectly safe, as long as people take pre-cautions...so, assuming the labels are there, and easy enough to read, they shouldn't have been held liable.
However, if they were, in fact, breaking regs that required their coffee not be so hot, then yes, of course they should be liable.
you just wrote an, im assuming because i didnt read it, in depth review of the court case, but you somehow missed the central arguement in the trial for the plantiff?
Some website whose absolute truth I know nothing of, but if contested, I'll troll around for something else
If a company decides to do a cost-benefit analysis and lands on the side of "putting the consumer at risk," they deserve to get fucked proper when someone gets hurt.
Most people have a reasonable expectation that coffee sold to them will not be so hot that spilling it on themselves will give them third degree burns. Liquid that hot in disposable containers crosses over from being the consumers responsibility to being the vendors.
Not all McD's coffee was that hot every time it was served I would guess. The negligence was in McD's knowing that sometimes their coffee was sold at temperatures that could be physically dangerous to their customers and yet they did nothing to prevent it.
I'll answer this with a definition of third degree burns from wikipedia: Third-degree burns additionally have charring of the skin, and produce hard, leather-like eschars. An eschar is a scab that has separated from the unaffected part of the body. Frequently, there is also purple fluid. These types of burns are often painless (insensate) because nerve endings have been destroyed in the involved areas.
I submit that no coffee that I generally buy is hot enough to produce this effect.
No one expects their coffee to be hot enough to produce third degree burns.
Enter corporate lobbys pushing for tort reform so they can easily make these cost benefit analysis decisions without worrying about any punishment.
Throw in a bit of "Whoa that's alot of money" (tapping into people's jealousy and greed) and you've got a winning strategy.
As Derrick said, a lot of corporations, who own media outlets, have a vested interest in limiting liability for such actions.
no.
It would be her fault for just spilling coffee on herself. It would be dumb to sue over that.
It is not dumb to sue over a corporation making coffee so hot that it melts your skin and makes you spend tens of thousands of dollars on skin grafts and burn treatment.
I mean
have you read the fucking thread?
There's a reasonable expectation that if I spill coffee on my jeans I won't suffer burns that extend the full-thickness of my skin within two seconds, meaning even if I react as quickly as humanly possibly my skin and nerves are permanently fucked.
What if you ate their supposedly healthy salads? You know, the salads that turned out to contain more fat than Happy Meal.
I sort of see what you're going for here, but I still don't buy it. My "reasonable expectation" of what will happen if I spill coffee on myself is that I will get burned, so I'll make an extra effort to not spill it on myself at all, such as not removing the lid and putting it between my legs, I mean, that's common sense.
That is not at all a valid comparison. If you light gasoline on fire, you expect it to explode. If you spill coffee on yourself, you'd expect it to maybe hurt a little and ruin your pants.
Not cause third degree burns. For reference, a third degree burn is the worst kind. A first degree burn would be like a sunburn, where your skin turns red and there maybe is some swelling and peeling. A second degree burn is the kind where you get a blister. A third degree burn involves singed flesh.
It's an issue of, imo the whole "reasonable person" thing they use so often for legal matters.
A reasonable person can desire coffee, and desire that it be appropriately hot. A reasonable person also realizes that should they spill coffee on themselves, it'll hurt.
A reasonable person, however, does not expect drinking coffee to amount to a risk of permanent scarring and skin damage due to burns. The proximate cause for this damage is pretty clearly McD's keeping their coffee far hotter than a reasonable person expects, and refusing to change after it's been demonstrated how damaging it can be.
They're effectively saying (or were) "Fuck it, we can afford the damages if and when it happens".
I don't think you understand what third degree burn actually means. I suggest you look it up.
While you're at it, look up skin-grafts.
If you still think that's perfectly acceptable, well you're either an asshole, an idiot, or a mean combo thereof.
Yes, one should expect to be burned to some degree, but the severity of the burn is legally very, very relevant.
So basically you can't argue that the ruling was a fucked up interpretation of the law. You're only really recourse is to argue for some kind of legal reform which ignores severity in cases like this, which is incredibly silly.
Because if you fall over on a bike, you should expect to be injured, right?
*sigh*
Well, that didn't take long to pull out the "ooh, a different opinion so he's either dumb or mean" routine.
Look, I understand that a third degree burn is a horrible thing to suffer, and it tragic that the woman suffered this, but I just think we're a sue-happy country sometimes.
Do you think that McDonald's was negligent or not in serving their coffee well above acceptable levels despite numerous warnings that it was dangerous?
In many cases we are, but the point here is that McD's was taking a product which should only be of mild-risk to use, and whose customers expect it to only be of mild risk, and making it far more dangerous than anyone would reasonably expect. They know they're doing this, but for whatever reason, wish to continue doing so...as such, the penalty for their actions should be increased as to help further discourage their practice. In a perfect world, the damages they suffer, and the money received by those damaged perfectly balances out the risk of damage to each and every consumer.
There are very strong opinions on both sides, including among people who are very knowledgeable about the case. It is not obviously one sided.
The primary reason the jury sided with her is because of the OP's statistical significance argument. McDonald's got an expert to say the same thing. A statistician sat up there and said that this woman among billions is statisically insignificant - effectively zero. The old woman said, "it hurt." The statistician may have been correct, but the jury were humans.
The point of the statistical analysis was: to guarantee that no one would ever get burned by the billions of cups they serve, they'd have to bring the average temperature down so low that few people would want the average cup at all. If 700 among billions get burned, the 700 is not the significant number, the (billions minus 700) is. It's mathematical proof that there was no negligence, especially considering the warnings.
Coffee is supposed to be hot. This case is equivalent to suing a razor blade manufacturer if you cut yourself. Razors are supposed to sharp. Manufacturers know that, and they know people get cut, even die. They could make them dull enough as to not cut skin, and some people would still use them, but most would not. Although one ought to be able to use a razor without cutting himself, the use of a razor inherently assumes some risk, as does ordering a hot beverage.
Maybe some people don't like their coffee that hot, but many do. And it's a lot harder to warm it up than to let it cool.
Coffee is supposed to be brewed at 190 - 200 degrees. This coffee was estimated at about 180 degrees when served, which is hot as fuck but reasonably understandable. People get furious when coffee isn't hot. I've personally watched people throw coffee down on the counter and storm out at Wendy's because it wasn't hot enough, even though I know their coffee is served a lot hotter than I like it.
It's funny how you guys accuse those who disagree with the decision as uniformed, when so far this thread has demonstrated that the people who agree with it are much less so informed.
See, now that's just dumb. You're going out of your way to cause pain here when an accident happens by adding punishment to the rider when they have a accident. Also, yes, if you ride a bike and flip over into a ditch, breaking your neck as you hit the ground...well, that's not the company's fault.