"Help. the clown forcefed me Big Macs!"

The BBQ Pit
1

According to CNN, some greedhead lawyers have decided to pick Ronald McDonald’s baggy, oversized pockets. According to the story, some Manhattan ambulance chasers have filed a class action lawsuit against McDonald’s on behalf of overweight kids who apparently were tied to tables on and had hamburgers, fries, and thick, chocolatey shakes crammed down their unwilling throats.

Oh, no, that’s not it-their negligent parents allowed the kids to consume Mickey D’s fast food, and then decided to shift the blame for their kids’ resulting obesity onto the corporation that sold the food.

How the heck does a homeless kid get the money to eat at Mickey D’s every day? Couldn’t he have been fed vegetables and whole grains, which are a heck of a lot cheaper than eating crappy, fat-laden junk food? And the other junior whopper should get off his ass and start to play sports.

A. Lawyers who try to shake down coporations for doing business should be disbarred. If McD’s had been negligent and sold hamburgers that caused an E. coli outbreak, that’s one thiung. But to extort money from McD’s because they sell a legal product is wrong.

B. If you’re fat, turn off the TV, get off your ass, and go to the gym. And don’t give me “But what if I caaaannnnn’t!” Hey, if you’re crippled, diabetic, or have a serious organic problem, that’s different. But most obesity is caused by lack of exercise and poor diet, and a lot of excuses.

C. Parents, YOU are responsible for your kids’ welfare, not the schools, not the courts, not corporations. If your kids are obese, it is YOUR fault, so suck it up, take the blame, and fix the friggin’ problem.

2

I agree with you, gobear. How stupid can you be to keep feeding your child unhealthy food when you see they’re getting fat? A person like this is an unfit parent and needs help. Basic nutrition facts aren’t rocket science, for Pete’s sake!

Suing someone because you got fat eating at McDonald’s everyday? Maybe this lawsuit will reveal that McDonald’s laces their food with crack. Yeah, that’s got to be it.

3

Er, so this assumes that the homeless kid has a kitchen, and/or a friend who has a kitchen and is willing to devote 30-60 minutes per meal to cook said whole grains? I’m not saying the lawsuit isn’t pretty stupid, but it doesn’t take Julia Child to figure out why you usually see homeless people eating sandwiches out of greasy paper wrappers rather than digging into a steaming bowl of bulgur wheat and lentils.

Whole foods take time and effort to perpare, and most restaurants that serve them don’t offer meals whose prices are competitive with a Big Mac value meal.

4

Ever hear of making sandwiches with whole-grain bread? And McD’s “Value” meals are no value. You can get a much healthier meal for the same amount of cash at Subway, where you can get a 6" turkey and ham sub on whole grain bread with a variety of veggies, plus chips and (diet) soda for under $5, and this is in Washington, DC, which is an extremely pricey place to live.

Next excuse.

5

One word: Sanctions.

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Bolding is mine:

Amen to that! I thought it was common knowledge that eating excessive amounts of greasy hamburgers and greasy salty fries was unhealthy. Exactly how fat does someone have to get before they realize this? Exactly how can they blame the restaurant for making them fat? You’re the one who took your fat ass down to the restaurant to get the food. You’re the one who paid for the food so your fat ass could get fatter. You’re the one who ate the food of your own free will. You are to blame for being fat! There’s soooooo many other food options out there that are much more healthy than McDonalds… or any fast food place for that matter. Go to Subway and get a low-fat chicken teriyaki like Jared for goodness sake!

Lawsuits like this are frivilous and a complete waste of everyone’s time. I hope the judge is smart enough to throw this case out of court and laugh his ass off while doing it.

7

And unless the kids have receipts for every meal, how could they prove they even ate at McDonald’s even once in their lives? They could’ve gotten just as fat eating at Burger King, Wendy’s or the local Chinese buffet.

Also, a homeless person would be much, much healthier using the same money that you could buy one McD meal with and getting a loaf of bread and some PB&J (which is still healthier than a burger and fries). And doesn’t DC have a school lunch program, where underprivileged kids can have lunch (and sometimes breakfast) for free or very cheap? I remember when my school lunches were free or $0.40 because my parents were poor.

I agree with you, gobear, on all accounts including the disbarring of the lawyers.

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gobear, feeding your kids fatty foods, then suing someone else after the kids get fat isn’t a particularly good basis for a lawsuit, but sometimes the sellers of legal products need to get their asses kicked. For example, the makers of pondimin sold a government-approved, legal product, yet still, that corporation needs a continuing ass kicking.

9

That’s why god invented canned goods and Sterno. The price of a Value Meal gets a can of Sterno and many cans of beans, soups, tuna, stew, chicken and dumplings, etc.

10

**

Why not? McDonald’s specifically targets children to entice them to eat their fattening and unhealthy foods. If we can target tobacco companies for advertising why not target fast food companies? Ridiculous, sure, but we opened up that door years ago unfortunately.
Marc

11

To expand Minty’s comments a bit, the chances are good McDonald’s (et al) will come back at these lawyers with a Rule 11 motion.
This means that the court must decide if the lawyers for these plaintiffs are filing this lawsuit in good faith and not because
a) they wish to harass
b) they know it is frivilous and want to waste time and
c) their arguments are actually supported by law and/or evidence or will likely be supported by either of them at trial

If the court rules against the plaintiffs on this motion, the court may “impose an appropriate sanction upon the attorneys, law firms, or parties that have violated” the rules laid down above.

12

As an addendum, I completely DISAGREE with the notion that these lawyers should be disbarred. That would be so extreme a punishment it would frankly be absurd.
Yes, this case is an extreme example of why many are screaming “tort reform” in this country, but you don’t look to extreme examples when making policy.

If you set a precedent that lawyers can lose their license to practice because they’ve brought a case that one particular court found to be frivilous, you send a chilling effect throughout the entire legal community.
Who would want to take on any client cases knowing that they could potentially lose their license over it?
Who would ever file a Rule 11 motion knowing that if you won, you not only win the case but you also destroy someone else’s livelihood?

13

gobear,

I agree with everything you said.

Fat fucks. Let’s blame everyone else and everything else for our weight issues. Pllllleeeeeahhhhhhhhhssssse.

Fucking morons.

14

Big macs are not addictive.

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Everyone has a choice regarding what they put into their body whether it be tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or fatty unhealthy food. Side effects from something you have complete and total control over is not to be blamed on anyone or anything but your own lack of willpower and lack of judgement.

16

I think the key difference here between tobacco and McDonalds is that tobacco was intentionally misleading. They tried to conceal or deny the health damage that their product caused. McDonalds, on the other hand, has nutritional information available for the asking.

17

Every pack of cigarettes I’ve ever seen has explicit warnings on them about the dangers of smoking. How is that misleading? I’m a smoker. I know it’s bad for me and I know I’m addicted but I don’t blame the tobacco companies for my addiction. I don’t blame the people who offered me that first cigarette 12 years ago. I blame myself 100%. I wasn’t mislead by the tobacco companies and no one forced me to smoke that cigarette. I could’ve turned it down and never started but I didn’t. Any problems my smoking causes me are my own damn fault and no one elses. Same goes for fat people blaming McDonalds (or anyone or anything other than themselves) for their being fat. It’s just too easy to place the blame on others for problems we bring upon ourselves.

18

As a side note, has anyone seen the tragicomic commercial with the chubby kid doing things in as lazy a manner as poosible while a narrator talks about how kids have many easier ways of doing things these days so they need to get extra excercise.

Kid is shown being called to dinner by Mom, kids says offscreen “Just one more inning Mom”. Kid is shown playing a video game, not sandlot baseball.

Kid has to clear the lawn of leaves. He sets a chari out in the field and uses a leaf-blower from the chair.

Kid is playing a game on the computer. He picks up his cell-phone and makes a call. Grandma is show in her chair hearing the phone ring and gets up. We cut back to the kid with the grandma walking past his room, showing that they are in the same house. Grandman gets to the (rotary) phone and answers. Kid says “hey grandma, how about another grape soda?”

Its funny, yet tragic. And it hit the nail on the head.

Sorry, back to the pit-rants.

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I’m curious what they think McD’s should have done differently. Refuse to serve fat kids? Yeah, that would be a good way to avoid a lawsuit…

Ronald McDonald: “Get the fuck outta here Cartman, you’re over the weight limit!”

20

You perhaps missed the word was (referring to past practices of tobacco companies) in the previous post?

Additionally, as recent as 1994…seven tobacco execs denied before a congressional committe that nicotine was addicitve.

Big Macs don’t fit the current clinical definitions for addiction (which typically have somewhere between 5 and 9 criteria).