My brother’s daughter suffered second degree burns when she pulled a cup of hot chocolate onto herself. Luckily it had been sitting out for a couple of minutes or it very well may have been third degree burns. After it happened, he rushed her to the tub and poured cold water on her shoulders. Her skin started peeling off and that’s when he called the ambulance.
She spent a couple hours at the Burns Institute and is fine.
While you can definitely argue that he was negligent for leaving a cup of hot chocolate where a toddler could reach it, it didn’t dawn on any of us to chastise him for making his drink so HOT. How many of you use boiling water when you make tea or instant coffee? That’s pretty damn hot, people.
We don’t make coffee with boiling water so that we can drink it at that temperature. We make it that hot in part because it COOLS so quickly. Incidentally, that’s why it’s served in insulated cups.
You don’t eat a bowl of soup the second it comes out of the microwave, do you? You’d never take that bowl and put it between your legs would you? No, because it’s too hot. Why do we heat it to be so hot? Because we want it to be warm when we eat it. It’s a necessary evil.
You don’t expect third degree burns when you spill coffee on yourself? Boiling water is 212 degrees.
Of course, most of us will never know because we realize that boiling water is dangerous, and are therefore very,very careful with it.
And for those who are frustrated by the rest of us who just don’t “get” it, let me assure you that I understand the facts just fine. And I STILL think it was a poor verdict.
I am a full believer in the idea that our culture has abandoned the concept of personal responsibility, especially when it comes to ‘self’. Too many people are willing to condemn selfishness until something bad happens to them, then, amazingly, there is a lawsuit. I’ve seen it happen in person.
Nevertheless, the facts of the case under discussion, as presented to the jury, support the determination of liability. The jury did not say McDonald’s was totally at fault, they did assign fault to the woman. But, carefully consider the following:
The restaurant in question, by the evidence, served its coffee hotter than ‘normal’ (ignore the figures, they aren’t relevant).
The restaurant in question had been advised not to make the coffee that hot by the Health Department.
The restaurant had received complaints from other consumers about the temperature, including, if I have understood the evidence correctly, consumers who had injured themselves with that coffee.
Now, what would a reasonable restaurant do? Continue to sell the coffee at a temperature that they knew was unsafe? Or see to it that either: A) the temperature was safer, or B) WARN the consumer that the temperature was hotter than they might expect?
This isn’t a good case for attacking the lack of personal responsibility in our culture, folks. McDonald’s was found liable because McDonald’s failed to take responsibility for its OWN actions (they were negligent (hell, ANY first-year law student would figure THAT one out from duty, proximate cause, etc.), and they screwed up in taking care of the woman after the accident (Melin is right, bad facts make bad results)).
If you want to attack tort law covering up for the fact ‘shit happens’, look elsewhere. Trust me, there are plenty of examples; as a defense attorney I am sure Melin can offer a few horror stories of her own.
As for those of you who can’t quite understand where McDonald’s was at fault, I think you would probably piss in your pants at basic American tort law! We don’t just hold people liable for their overt actions; we expect you to behave reasonably when you do ANYTHING that increases risk for others!
You wanna talk about personal responsibility, let’s talk about the lady who set her purse down between two slot machines at a Vegas casino, paid no attention to it, then sued the casino when it was stolen. It had her “pills” in it, so she got “all swoll up” and had to go to the doctors. When she first reported it stolen to the casino security it had $250 in it; when I took her deposition it was at $1000 and when she testified at trial it was $2500.
Or one of my personal favorites for “stupid cases” (yes we keep lists) was the guy who had been ejected from the L.A. Coliseum during a football game for having gotten into a fight with the guy behind him, who had spit on him over some comment made in response to a play on the field. Both men were ejected (at different exits), and the Coliseum took no names or other identifying information. The guy sued the Coliseum – for failing to get the name of the guy who had spit upon him so that he could sue THAT guy for assault and battery.
Then there was the one about – nah, never mind, you’d never believe it.
-Melin
(One of my co-workers is writing a book about “silly, funny, and amusing lawsuits.”)
Yes, that was me, but it was meant as a smart-ass remark… sarcasm is hard to put into words without the benefit of the inflection when speaking. Basically, I would have sued also, I sure would not stand for having those kinds of injuries and bills without some restitution. But I am also honest, and I would not need $600,000 for my “accident”. If it was within the courts mind to teach McD a lesson for their negligence, I would have opted to make them pay say… $3 million+ to some charity or medical technology development as long as it was related to burn type injuries. I would have felt a lot better knowing others that have or will have burn injuries can benefit from my (hypothetical) case and subsequently the other cases filed against McDs.
“Wow! Spider-Man! Are you really friends with the X-men?” "Not since Cyclops tried to use my viewmaster."
(Marvel Team Up #1)
This sort of idea has been discussed manny times with reference to what to do about punitive damages. There is the school of thought which says, as you do, that the money should be given to some charity or fund appropriate in light of the harm caused by the defendant (only think of how to determine WHICH charity should get the money! Perhaps one selected by the plaintiff?).
The other school of thought notes that so often these cases do not have “big bucks” appeal in compensatory damages – by “big bucks” I mean sufficient potential monetary awards to cover the time and cost of pursuing the kind of a case where a large corporation has the resources to drag out a case in hopes of deterring other cases and lowering the value of the instant case. It is thought that there is social utility in using punitive damage awards to punish bad (not just negligent, but bad behavior; taking a case all the way to the imposition of those damages is time consuming and expensive. Thus, the reward must be to the plaintiff (and let’s not forget those deserving attorneys ;)) who has run the race and stayed the course; otherwise there would be no incentive to do so.
Cheez – they’re gonna take away my defense counsel card if they read this thread!
AHHHHHHH now we have some good discussion of a weakness in the law the McDonald’s coffee spill case really DOES do a good job of exemplifying: Tort Damages, especially punitive damamges.
Let’s divide this one up into the two types of damages that can cause blood to boil:
A) “Pain and Suffering”
B) “Punitive Damamges”
I don’t think anyone has any trouble with the concept that medical costs, lost wages, and other such “special damages” should be re-imbursed by a party at ‘fault’ in a tort case. After all, those are pretty easily measurable damages (hush!, Melin, yes, I know future damages are a pain to agree on! ). But letting people recoup in money the ‘cost’ of their “pain and suffering” is something that gets pretty hard to keep a handle on. If anything about tort cases offers a jury a chance for abuse, it is letting them place a value on such nebulous concepts.
Punitive damages are different all together. Under the concept, the unlucky tort sufferer is rewarded with money that doesn’t even attempt to compensate him or her for an actual loss. Instead, the tortfeasor is being punished (and let’s skip for now the propriety of ‘punishing’ someone in a civil suit) by being forced to pay extra money for extra-bad behaviour. But because we don’t have any mechanism for making that money go anywhere else, the tort victim scoops it up in a ‘windfall’. In the case in question, the original damage award was in excess of $2.5 million. Mind you, I don’t think the poor lady should have had to experience what she did, but paying her $2.5 million because she was the last straw and it was time to really get the attention of McDonald’s seems a bit unfair. I’ve always thought: if you are gonna punish companies for bad acts, put the money to use.
You have to have the ability to claim for pain and suffering, because that’s a real loss. And you need to have punitive damages, otherwise companies could run amok in situations where the damage they cause to an individual is slight. For example, let’s say I make a finger-exerciser which, one time in 10,000, lops off one of your fingers. Now, I find this out after I’ve spent $1,000,000 in engineering, packaging, marketing, etc. So I go to my lawyers and say, “Boys, how much are these severed fingers going to cost me?” Well, actual damages for a lost finger will probably never amount to more than a few thousand dollars. So I figure I can leave the product the way it is as long as it only severs a few hundred fingers.
Now, how about giving the money to charity? That won’t work either. I’ve just lost a finger, and my medical bills are $2,000. Do you really think I’m going to waste a year of my life going after FingerCorp just to get my measly 2K back? How can I get a lawyer to represent me if all he can make is a percentage of $2,000? Legal fees in cases like this can be extraordinary. Okay, so let’s pay the lawyers out of punitive damages, and give the rest to charity. Where’s the incentive for the injured party to spend all this time and effort for the lousy 2K?
Then there’s the whole other issue of who decides which charities get what, and do we really want the legal system to become a social redistribution network?
I really disagree. I’m all for holding McD’s accountable for their actions, but their actions in this case caused no harm. Here’s how I see it:
Action 1: McD’s makes a cup of very hot coffee. This harmed no one.
Action 2: McD’s hands the cup to this lady. Again, no one was harmed. This is the last point at which McD’s was involved.
Action 3: The lady dumps it on her lap. Serious harm done.
Only action 3 caused harm, and it did not involve McD’s. Neither actions 1 or 2 caused action 3 to happen. They made the results more serious, I will grant, but that doesn’t make them responsible.
I also guess by reading other responses that my idea of “reasonable” is out of whack with most folks’. I still think a reasonable adult, or even a child, should know the risks here, but maybe I’m expecting too much of the general public :-|.
1.) I link a hose from my car’s exhaust pipe into your room. This harms no one.
2.) I turn my car on and let it idle. This harms no one.
3.) You go to your room and fall asleep. You die from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Only action 3 caused harm, and it didn’t involve me. I was three states away at the time.
Okay, that’s reducing your argument to absurdity, and I’m denying your idea that actions 1 and 2 don’t necessarily lead to action 3.
But our point is this: The lady who bought the coffee had a certain expectation of what would happen had she accidentally spilled coffee upon herself. This expectation included burns. In did not include third-degree burns.
I have spilled coffee on myself. It hurts like hell. But I have never had to go to the hospital for skin grafts because I spilled coffee on myself. I have a reasonable expectation that coffee spilled on me will hurt like hell, but the damage done will be minor and inconvenient at worst.
By serving a cup of coffee outside the range of normal tolerance, McDonald’s defied this woman’s reasonable expectations, as well as mine. If you think she was unreasonable, fine, but I’d like to know how you handle your coffee- with tongs and an abestos suit?
You make a good point John, but I don’t think the situations are remotely comparible, because:
o In your example, the person has no knowledge that 1 and 2 took place - it was done maliciously and without their knowledge. In the McD’s case, the lady specifically requested the coffee, so she was hardly unaware of the situation. If somebody had snuck up and put a cup of coffee in her hand without her being aware of it, then these cases would be similar.
o Going to sleep does not actually cause the harm here. It’s the breathing of the CO. Breathing is required activity, while spilling coffee is not required nor even recommended. If in your case the person had to take some specific and poorly considered action (such as running the hose from the car themselves), then I think the comparison would be more apt.
I do see what you’re saying, but I don’t think the analogy really works.
Agreed (you’ll notice I pointed out some other specific errors in the paragraph immediately following the analogy).
But I think the more important part is my semi-rant about ‘reasonable expectations.’ If the woman had just gotten a boo-boo on her thighs, I’d be frothing at the mouth over the obvious injustice. It’s the third-degree burns that changes my opinion 180 degrees (intention of said pun left up to reader’s discretion).
Yeah. I guess I will bow to the general concensus here, on the wrong side of which I seem to find myself. Perhaps my opinion of reasonable expectations really is out of kilter.
I can see the point. I don’t like it. But I can see it :-).
Okay, it has been pointed out that the lady who spilled the coffee was not driving the car, and the car was not moving. Fine. What was she doing when she spilled the coffee? Did she try to take the no-spill lid off while the coffee was between her legs? Did some coffee squirt out of the opening? In other words, what was the the action that led to the coffee spill?
Perhaps there is a flaw with the design of the no-spill lids. I know that I have spilled some coffee whilst trying to remove them. Perhaps there is room for a lawsuit against the manufacturer. Perhaps McDonalds should stop serving coffee.
I still have trouble believing that McDonalds was found to be 80% responsible. Their menu offers hot coffee, the lady ordered hot coffee and then blames them when she spills it on herself. McDonalds is damned no matter what they do. If I was served coffee that was 140 degrees, I would assume that it was not fresh and ask for a new cup, if they serve hot coffee they get sued. I guess that they should stop selling the product, or at least stop selling it through the drive through.
If I was discussing Lucy Lawless but I wrote Lucy Topless, would that be a Freudian typo?
I think customer expectations are even more important in this case than they would be against some other restaurant because a large part of the appeal (if that’s the right word) of McDonald’s is standardization. Nobody except a four-year-old will claim that McD’s has great food; it’s mediocre food. People patronize McD’s because it’s easy, you know exactly what you’re getting and what it will cost.
Joe’s Burger Shack may have the best food in town, but maybe not. When you go to Joe’s for the first time, you’re taking a risk. This may be a small risk (the food is terrible) or a large one (you contract food poisoning). If you’re halfway across the country on a road trip, you’re more likely to pass up Joe’s Burger Shack and head for the Golden Arches; at least your expectations will be met there. The fries may be a little colder than the average McD’s fries or maybe the restroom is a little filthier than usual, but a McD’s is a McD’s is a McD’s.
McDonald’s stresses conformity to its standards. If you buy a McDonald’s franchise, you are expected to prepare your food by the book. You cannot, for example, start putting pastrami on your Big Macs and serve them on rye bread. No; you must put exactly so many pickle slices on the hamburger, you must use the standard McDonald’s napkins and straws, etc. You must fill the cups 2/3 full of ice. You must clean the shake machine in exactly this certain way. Your coffee must be served at a certain temperature.
Say I own a McDonald’s franchise and I decide it’s not so important to watch what temperature my employees use to cook the burgers. I serve burgers that aren’t quite done in the middle. This is clearly against the rules in my handbook. Furthermore, the health inspector notices my burgers are underdone and cites me on it. Furthermore, several of my customers complain and a few of them say they’ve become sick from the undercooked meat.
Still, I don’t change my ways. Eventually, inevitably, a person is seriously harmed: a woman contracts a nasty case of E coli and nearly dies. I may defend myself by pointing out that it was negligent on her part to eat a burger that was pink in the middle, because everyone knows undercooked ground beef is dangerous.
I have spilled coffee (McDonald’s coffee and otherwise) on myself a hundred times, at least. I expect it to hurt. I’m not surprised if I get a first degree or even a second degree burn. I would not expect a splash of coffee to liquify my genitals.
As I am typing this, I have a cup of caffiene free herbal coffee substitute warming in the microwave. I expect it to be hot when the little bell goes ding. I will not expect it to be so hot that it will cause third degree burns if I spill it on myself.
Coffee is supposed to be hot. That’s a given. People spill coffee on themselves. That’s also a given. Given number three- coffee that is consumed in a moving vehicle is more likely to be spilled on the consumer than coffee that is served in a more stationary manner.
OK, here’s a hypothetical. The lady in question purchases her coffee at the counter inside McD’s. Through no fault of her own, she is jostled by another customer as she removes the lid to add her cream and sugar, and as a result she spills said coffee on herself and suffers third-degree burns. Who is at fault- the person who jostled her, or the restauraunt that served the coffee at such a temperature. Mind you, we are talking about a liquid that is meant to be taken internally. If I spill hot coffee on myself, I expect, at worst, for my skin to be a bit pink and sore. If something is served as a beverage at a temperature that is such that spilling it on oneself causes third-degree burns, then the restauraunt that served it that hot is clearly responsible. (OK, say you spilled it as you were removing the lid to add ice to cool it down- now, you knew there was a potential for harm to be caused by the coffee, and were in the process of taking steps to prevent that harm. Now, who is negligent? Food for thought…)
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
