Is American law insane?

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Jul 30, 2012 5:38 pm

Blind groper wrote:This is a query for our American posters. Is your legal system totally off its nut?

Recently I was told of a case in which a woman bought a cup of coffee from MacDonalds, and spilled it on herself, causing burns to her legs. She sued MacDonalds and got compensation of nearly $ 3 million. She claimed the coffee was too hot and that Macdonalds failed to warn her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v. ... estaurants

Come on guys!
The coffee was too hot? Is she a moron or something? When someone serves me a cup of coffee, I treat it with caution, and allow it to cool down if needed. And the accident was one of her own making. She did the spilling. How the hell was MacDonalds at fault?

$ 3,000,000???
Shit. I would willingly dip my genitals in a hot cup of coffee to get that much money.

Is this normal? Are American judges totally living in fairyland? Is the American legal system insane?
One, if it were that easy to make $3,000,000, we'd all be wealthy. The facts reported are incomplete and isolated craziness can be found in any legal system.

Two, remember, this was a jury case, so those that saw the evidence were able to live with their judgment.

Three, the woman was 79 years old and in the passenger seat of a car, and she suffered 3rd degree burns over 6% of her body because the coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns.

Four, during the discovery phase of the litigation, it was discovered that McDonald's required franchisees to serve coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees F - that's like 82 to 88 C. Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000 (from the wiki article you cited).

The jury found McDonald's 80% at fault and the woman 20% at fault resulting in money damages of about $160,000. The jury awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages to punish McDonald's for 1-2 days of coffee revenues because of their negligence. The judge immediately reduced the award to $480,000. During the appeal process the case was settled for some undisclosed amount less than $600,000 total.

So, it's not as bad as all that. Oh, and no it is not "normal."

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Jul 30, 2012 5:52 pm

Blind groper wrote:
Bella Fortuna wrote:That case (the McDonald's one) is very old - 18 years ago - and the reason why we have these things now:
Actually, Bella, the MacDonalds case involved a cup with a warning on it also. The court ruled that the writing was too small!
The court didn't rule that. The jury found that the warning was insufficient in and of itself.

Frankly, if they had received 700 reports that the tops of their coffee cups were not sufficiently snug to prevent them from tipping over into people's laps in the drive through, and the coffee was 180-190 degrees F, then I think I can at least understand. It's not that the woman is so dumb she doesn't know the coffee is hot. It's that McDonald's is handing people coffees that are hot enough to cause third degree burns to people not expecting it to be quite that hot.
Blind groper wrote:
But, really. Someone buys a cup of coffee and does not realise that it might be hot??? The law should recognise a requirement for at least a little bit of common sense on the part of people who take out law suits.
Again, it's not the lack of realization that coffee is hot, but perhaps the lack of understanding of the superheated McDonald's coffee and how long she would need to wait to open it and add the cream and sugar.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Tero » Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:00 pm

Same laws are also a big hurdle to get healthcare costs down. Only cause where I supported Bush Jr.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by mistermack » Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:34 pm

Putting a written warning on the cup makes NO difference whatsoever.
If you are in the catering business, you know for a fact that some people are going to spill their coffee.
And a company the size of Macdonalds will know that better than anyone else.
So if they sell very hot coffee, they KNOW that some people will get burned.

You can't put dangerous stuff out there, and just think that a written warning absolves you of any duty of care. Unless you are selling cigarettes I guess. But it's hard to accidentally smoke a fag.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Svartalf » Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:54 pm

surreptitious57 wrote:Apparently in Florida it is a criminal offence to perform oral sex on your husband in a motel on your honeymoon.
Apparently, since at least 2003, any attempt at enforcing that one will fall on SCOTUS precendent and be without effect.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:56 pm

mistermack wrote:Putting a written warning on the cup makes NO difference whatsoever.
If you are in the catering business, you know for a fact that some people are going to spill their coffee.
And a company the size of Macdonalds will know that better than anyone else.
So if they sell very hot coffee, they KNOW that some people will get burned.

You can't put dangerous stuff out there, and just think that a written warning absolves you of any duty of care. Unless you are selling cigarettes I guess. But it's hard to accidentally smoke a fag.
Does an adult have any duty in that regard?
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Svartalf » Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:00 am

Blind groper wrote:it is worth noting, though, that similar lawsuits in Britain were thrown out of court. The British court pointed out that customers demand hot coffee, and reducing the temperature to that which would not scald would make the coffee too cold to be attractive. MacDonalds, in effect, are forced to serve coffee hot to satisfy customer demand. So it seems kinda ridiculous to blame MacDonalds for the fact that their coffee was the correct temperature to suit its customers, when the accident was caused by the woman herself.

The coffee cup actually carried a written warning about hot coffee, but the court ruled that the writing was too small.

This appears to me to be a very strong symptom of a system way out of whack.
Actually, Mc D serves coffee quite hotter than the normal standards practiced in companies engaged in similar activity, requiring a longer cooling period before you can drink it, and causing more grievous injury when accidents happen.

This said, the woman WAS a moron and engaged in imprudent handling of her coffee and the case SHOULD have been thrown out...

and if you want proof that the US law system is walking on its head... there are much more recent cases to show it. Just google "Kelo vs New London" for instance...
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Svartalf » Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:03 am

amused wrote:The real crime is that McDonald's coffee is shite, and they make it that hot so that you are miles away before it cools down enough to drink and you realize that it's shite.
You'd be surprised that it's better than the juice served a lot of the competition...
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Tero » Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:05 am

The whole business of eating and drinking in cars is silly. But I do have a lidded coffee mug for travel. I fill it myself and dont drink right away.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:09 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
mistermack wrote:Putting a written warning on the cup makes NO difference whatsoever.
If you are in the catering business, you know for a fact that some people are going to spill their coffee.
And a company the size of Macdonalds will know that better than anyone else.
So if they sell very hot coffee, they KNOW that some people will get burned.

You can't put dangerous stuff out there, and just think that a written warning absolves you of any duty of care. Unless you are selling cigarettes I guess. But it's hard to accidentally smoke a fag.
Does an adult have any duty in that regard?
Duty is irrelevant unless you think people should be omniscient and have 100% flawless motor control. It doesn't matter how diligent someone is with their coffee. Someone's gonna spill it on themselves no matter what. If someone is doing something glaringly stupid, part of the blame lies with them, sure, but this goes beyond that.

ETA: sorry for all the pronouns :VSOP:
Last edited by cogwheel on Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:10 am

cogwheel wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
mistermack wrote:Putting a written warning on the cup makes NO difference whatsoever.
If you are in the catering business, you know for a fact that some people are going to spill their coffee.
And a company the size of Macdonalds will know that better than anyone else.
So if they sell very hot coffee, they KNOW that some people will get burned.

You can't put dangerous stuff out there, and just think that a written warning absolves you of any duty of care. Unless you are selling cigarettes I guess. But it's hard to accidentally smoke a fag.
Does an adult have any duty in that regard?
Duty is irrelevant unless you think people should be omniscient and have 100% flawless motor control. It doesn't matter how diligent someone is with their coffee. Someone's gonna spill it on themselves no matter what.
I'm sorry, but that's absurd.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:11 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
mistermack wrote:Putting a written warning on the cup makes NO difference whatsoever.
If you are in the catering business, you know for a fact that some people are going to spill their coffee.
And a company the size of Macdonalds will know that better than anyone else.
So if they sell very hot coffee, they KNOW that some people will get burned.

You can't put dangerous stuff out there, and just think that a written warning absolves you of any duty of care. Unless you are selling cigarettes I guess. But it's hard to accidentally smoke a fag.
Does an adult have any duty in that regard?
Duty is irrelevant unless you think people should be omniscient and have 100% flawless motor control. It doesn't matter how diligent someone is with their coffee. Someone's gonna spill it on themselves no matter what.
I'm sorry, but that's absurd.
It's the large numbers that make the difference. :dunno:

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:14 am

the point is that people who serve large quantities of coffee have a duty to protect their customers from harm. They knowingly (whether it's intentional or not) put peoples' safety at risk and knowingly cause actual injuries by serving coffee that hot.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:15 am

cogwheel wrote:the point is that people who serve large quantities of coffee have a duty to protect their customers from harm. They knowingly (whether it's intentional or not) put peoples' safety at risk and knowingly cause actual injuries by serving coffee that hot.
And people have a duty to not do stupid.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:18 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:the point is that people who serve large quantities of coffee have a duty to protect their customers from harm. They knowingly (whether it's intentional or not) put peoples' safety at risk and knowingly cause actual injuries by serving coffee that hot.
And people have a duty to not do stupid.
And where the two duties meet is how they determine who pays how much to whom. :cheers:

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