Is American law insane?

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:20 am

cogwheel wrote:
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:
A reasonable person wouldn't have put the coffee next to her money maker.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:26 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:
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:
A reasonable person wouldn't have put the coffee next to her money maker.
A reasonable person wouldn't have thought a cup of coffee from mcdonalds could cause 3rd degree burns.

See I can do it too! :mrgreen:

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:27 am

Then again, a reasonable person wouldn't be drinking McDonald's coffee in the first place...

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:29 am

cogwheel wrote:Then again, a reasonable person wouldn't be drinking McDonald's coffee in the first place...
Boiled kootch should have been the only thing she got out of this. A reasonable person will keep themselves out of trouble when they can. And she was the only one in that car.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:33 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:Then again, a reasonable person wouldn't be drinking McDonald's coffee in the first place...
Boiled kootch should have been the only thing she got out of this. A reasonable person will keep themselves out of trouble when they can. And she was the only one in that car.
That's why I said what i said earlier. Reasonable people can't be expected to be 100% in control of either their minds or bodies. This is why drivers are forced to carry liability insurance, regardless of how responsible you are. No one has perfect judgement all the time. Everybody has random twinges and jerks every now and then. And there are always things entirely out of our control....

Any company that deals with large numbers of people needs to take this kind of thing into consideration.

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:34 am

cogwheel wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:Then again, a reasonable person wouldn't be drinking McDonald's coffee in the first place...
Boiled kootch should have been the only thing she got out of this. A reasonable person will keep themselves out of trouble when they can. And she was the only one in that car.
That's why I said what i said earlier. Reasonable people can't be expected to be 100% in control of either their minds or bodies. This is why drivers are forced to carry liability insurance, regardless of how responsible you are. No one has perfect judgement all the time. Everybody has random twinges and jerks every now and then. And there are always things entirely out of our control....

Any company that deals with large numbers of people needs to take this kind of thing into consideration.
What you said and what I said were not equivalent.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:37 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
cogwheel wrote:Then again, a reasonable person wouldn't be drinking McDonald's coffee in the first place...
Boiled kootch should have been the only thing she got out of this. A reasonable person will keep themselves out of trouble when they can. And she was the only one in that car.
That's why I said what i said earlier. Reasonable people can't be expected to be 100% in control of either their minds or bodies. This is why drivers are forced to carry liability insurance, regardless of how responsible you are. No one has perfect judgement all the time. Everybody has random twinges and jerks every now and then. And there are always things entirely out of our control....

Any company that deals with large numbers of people needs to take this kind of thing into consideration.
What you said and what I said were not equivalent.
You said all she should have gotten out of it was a "boiled kootch," implying the incident was ENTIRELY her fault. You don't care what state of mind she was in, what particular motion she was making at the time, what was going through her mind... The fact that she spilled coffee on herself was dumb. She deserves the consequences.

She shouldn't have been boiled at all. That's why McDonalds was held partly responsible.

Or are you simply talking about the punitive damages she received?

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:38 am

You don't read my "implications" very well, I see.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:41 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:You don't read my "implications" very well, I see.
If you mean I like to take words at face value, then call me the CEO of Chick-fil-A: Guilty as Charged!


:P

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:45 am

cogwheel wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:You don't read my "implications" very well, I see.
If you mean I like to take words at face value, then call me the CEO of Chick-fil-A: Guilty as Charged!


:P
And which of my words lead to your statement above?
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:10 am

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:And which of my words lead to your statement above?
I quote the thing i'm responding to when i respond to it. :shrug:
Boiled kootch should have been the only thing she got out of this.
As I just explained, that statement implies she deserved nothing for her injuries.
A reasonable person will keep themselves out of trouble when they can.
The implication here is that if someone fails to keep themselves out of trouble, they get what's coming to them.

So do you feel 3rd degree burns are an appropriate way to teach someone better coffee management skills?
And she was the only one in that car.
I don't really know what you're saying here, but it looks like you're trying to reiterate the fact that you don't believe any external influences could have caused her to spill the coffee.
A reasonable person wouldn't have put the coffee next to her money maker.
Implying that any lapse in judgement deserves whatever consequences come.
And people have a duty to not do stupid.
From the words that you've written, the message I'm getting is:

If someone does something stupid they are entirely responsible for the consequences, regardless of how much those consequences were exacerbated by others. Furthermore, the degree of stupid relative to the severity of the consequences doesn't mean anything. Stupid is as stupid does.

Having a duty to not do stupid and being expected to never do stupid are two VERY different things. Any company that deals with the public has a duty to protect against stupid, unless you want to hold humanity to a ridiculously high standard that you certainly don't hold yourself to.

I don't say these things intending to paint you as holding these views, only trying to give you the reasons I am responding to you the way I am. :flowers:

EDITED extra "is" removed

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Svartalf » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:12 am

cogwheel wrote:
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:
When 99.999% of people manage quite well, and the statistical anomaly happens due to sheer accident, or patently stupid behavior, the coffee vendor should not be held responsible anymore than the supermarket selling bleach is held responsible if somebody suddenly decides to drink the product rather than put it to intended use.
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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:15 am

Svartalf wrote:
cogwheel wrote:
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:
When 99.999% of people manage quite well, and the statistical anomaly happens due to sheer accident, or patently stupid behavior, the coffee vendor should not be held responsible anymore than the supermarket selling bleach is held responsible if somebody suddenly decides to drink the product rather than put it to intended use.
"Caution: Hot"

doesn't have the same oomph as

big red box that says DANGER OF DEATH! DO NOT CONSUME!


"Hot" simply doesn't tell this story:

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by cogwheel » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:16 am

Nor should anyone expect that from a cup of coffee...

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Re: Is American law insane?

Post by Svartalf » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:23 am

Coffee is boiled water... Classic Merkin joe is drip brewed and kept hot... but you can't ever assume it's not freshly boiled in the first place, so any reasonable person would treat a cup of coffee that he has not personally seen cooled/waited an appropriate time for it to cool (given that many modern cups are made so they retard cooling, if only because the insulation put there to prevent you burning your hand keeps the heat in the coffee) as he would boiling water.

When I get tea from my pot, I sure drink it more gingerly than lemonade made from room temperature tap water.
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