McDonald's coffee lawsuit revisited

Great Debates
41

I don’t care if I’m going to be flamed, I think this case is ridiculous.

You would have to be totally stupid to hold any liquid in a cup between your legs, unless you weren’t too worried about it spilling. Especially in a car! It’s irrelevant how hot it is, it’s a stupid thing to do.

It was 100% her fault she was burnt. Even if it was a bit cooler, she still would have been burnt.

These kinds of cases are the ones that are causing our societies to be too safe to have fun. In Brisbane there is no longer any kids club rugby union because the insurance was too high. We had to raise the fees in the sport I coach too, and I’m sure that made it to high for a few parents. Our bush bashing car race had to be cancelled.

What is this world coming to?

And so many of you people agree with this decision!

42

…but I see everyone is up my wazoo, so I will do what I can do. (with thanks to Peter Gabriel)

Jodi, you can vouch for the case as much as you want - it is still a pile of steaming crap. (don’t touch it)

Silly me, I DO NOT have the expectation that I will be able to drink a steaming hot beverage, soup, or food product the minute it is served to me. I guess that is how I have avoided self-inflicted scalding injuries most of my entire life.

The sealed cup of secrecy Think about it for one second, are you really suggesting that you cannot detect the temperature of a liquid through the thin McDonalds cups we are all so familiar with?

Just to rile up the lawyers: contributory or comparative negligence is clearly in play here. A recent insurance study revealed that the “food” which causes the most car accidents is coffee - I think for obvious reasons. Coffee requires significant dexterity to mix with cream and sugar and to prevent spills while driving. Distracted driving is a leading cause of death in vehicles. An octogenarian should know better. Or, more specifically, a reasonable person should know better.

Personally I do not drink (anything) in traffic or talk on a cell phone while driving. Of course, I have not caused any accidents or injured myself.

Maeglin “Your comprehension is obstructed.” “You are missing the point.” (annoying, isn’t it?)

You do not understand the assumption of risk doctrine. I cannot imagine it applying to drugs. How can a drug present an obvious risk a reasonable person could avoid?

Moreover, in some cases, the assumption of risk doctrine can wash away any previous negligence by the defendant if the plaintiff knowingly assumes the risk. Here, where any negligence is de minimis and any danger familiar to virtually anyone, it would seem to be very applicable. Your other points I think I already addressed.

We disagree, deal with it. Please quit addressing my level of comprehension personally, fair enough?

“The timorous may stay at home.” – Justice Cardozo

43

I cannot imagine the implied assumption of risk doctrine applying to drugs. Someone could expressly assume the risk, of course.

44

Toys aren’t mean to be eaten, either. If a child choked on a happy meal toy, wouldn’t McDonalds be held responsible?

There are cases of hamburgers being not fully cooked, and people getting sick as a result.

The restaurant is liable for under-cooking something, why not over-heating something? What’s the difference?

Best,

TGD

45

Beagle If you posted it before, please forgive the question.

Do you have any legal training that leads you to your opinions?

46

Irrelevant straw man. The octogenarian was not driving and the driver had specifically stopped with the intention of allowing her to stir the drink while not in traffic or even moving.

47

I misread your point on scalding. You conceded the apparent dangers of drinking a hot beverage, yet claim that the risk is unreasonable. The juxtapostion threw me. Spilling is forseeable, yes. That is why the plaintiff should have taken reasonable precautions to prevent it, as opposed to taking actions guaranteed to maximize injury.

We live in a culture where hot coffee is used in movies as a weapon and sometimes a humorous device. Not to mention our familiarity with hot water generally. To suggest that hot coffee is an unreasonable risk is to suggest that the plaintiff was somehow isolated from all reality, and unreality.

Even in the best case scenarios (175 degrees?) presented above burns would occur before most people could properly react - assuming they are driving in traffic. Cold coffee here we come!

The plaintiff burned herself with her own negligence. Call it assumption, contributory, comparative, failure to mitigate, whatever. Nobody should collect when they do not follow the most rudimentary precautions that any reasonable person would.

They just keep writing: tomndebb She spilled the drink on herself knowing it was hot, does she bear any responsibility? Is the lap an appropriate place for hot coffee? Is a car a good place to attempt to drink coffee? Jumping up is sort of out of the question. Drink holders: know them, use them, live them. Speaking of which, as I am too tired to read the case right now, did she ask for one of those McDs drink holders? I still think that is more critical than any other fact in the case.

samclem Yes, I have all the legal training. I passed the bar (first try) and the brutal ethics exam. :rolleyes: Then I slipped through the character and fitness investigation and got my card. That and a dollar will get me lukewarm coffee.

Don’t expect lawyers to agree - especially on a gray area case like this one. I am simply taking a position which seemed to need defending. Since the other sharks seemed to want to defend the ambulance chaser in this case, I opted not to. I could switch sides if you would like.

Somebody shoot me with an animal tranquilizer. I need to sleep.

48

I don’t believe judges are allowed to question findings of fact by juries, unless there was a procedural error. Even if a judge disagrees with the jury’s interpretation of the facts, it is rare for them to be able to overturn the verdict. That’s just how our legal system works - the judge decides matters of law, and the jury decides matters of fact.

But the punitive award was the one that was out of control, wasn’t it? I believe it was something arbitrary like 2 days worth of coffee sales. Makes sense to me that that was the one that was reduced.

49

The facts here are things like the temperature of the coffee, the injuries caused, and the previous injuries known to McDonalds - none of which address the issues of duty, proximate cause, etc., which determine McDonalds’ liability. The questions you raise are all questions of law.

Punitive damages are meant to have a deterrent effect. For a huge corporation like McDonalds, a huge award is needed to have any effect. An award of $480,000 is clearly inadequate for this purpose.

50

Beagle, let me present a couple of (fictional) cases that I believe to be similar:

  1. You purchase a snake from a pet store. You know the snake has fangs, but are led to believe it is not venomous. You take the snake home and handle it. You know there is a very slight chance that the snake will bite you. If you get bitten, you may suffer a little pain, but nothing more. A minor inconvenience, right? The next day you get a call from the pet shop. The proprietor was wrong! It is actually an extremely poisonous snake. Would you still handle it?

  2. You purchase a vase from an antique store for $50 and display it on the coffee table in your living room. Since you have kids in the house, you know that there is a very slight chance that the kids may knock the vase down and break it. If they do, you’re out $50. A minor inconvenience, right? A week later, a friend, an expert in antiquities, is at your house, has a look at the vase, and tells you that it is actually a priceless Ming vase. Would you continue to display it on your coffee table?

  3. You buy a cup of coffee at McDonalds. You sit down in your non-moving car, put the cup between your legs, and open it. You know that there is a very slight risk of spilling it, and you might be uncomfortable and have a mess in the car if that happens. A minor inconvenience, right? Now, before you open it, someone from the counter runs out and tells you that the coffee is hot enough to cause third-degree burns. Would you continue to hold it between your legs?

51

Beagle, you’re making this too easy.

and…

I am not supposed to address your level of comprehension and consequent failure of imagination personally? How? It is clearly material to your position.

This argument relies on two assumptions, both of which have been resoundingly attacked. Rather than restating your position over and over, perhaps you should deal with our criticisms.

Assumption A:

Negligence is de minimis. McDonalds’ quality control personnel testified that the coffee was served dangerously hot, that McD had no intention of moderating its service temperature, and that burn specialists were not consulted despite 700 legal settlements.

De minimis? Really?

Assumption B:

The danger is familiar to everyone.

Yeah, I’ve spilled hot coffee on myself. It hurts, my hand turns a little red, no big deal. It’s a minor irritation, less so even than acidentally brushing my hand against a cooling toaster oven coil.

The results of the spilled McD coffee overwhelmingly surpass the reasonable results that most individuals expect.

Furthermore, you claim that:

When was the last time you saw a tossed pot of coffee used as anything more than a momentary distraction in film? Are there any movies in which airborne coffee actually melts someone’s face? The fact that the trope of thrown coffee is generally used only as a distraction strengthens my contention that the results of the McD spilled coffee are wildly out of proportion to what people generally expect.

Hence the volenti non fit injuria argument is thoroughly unconvincing: plaintiffs can not recover for injuries received when they voluntarily expose themselves to known and appreciated dangers. Just ask half a dozen people in your office what they think would happen if they spilled an ounce of coffee on their legs. Let me know how many of them say that they would expect mutilated genitals and skin grafts.

Likewise with prescription drugs. The documentation on the pill bottle claims that the drug might cause drowsiness or constipation. According to the doctrine of assumption of risk, you cannot recover for injuries sustained while driving under the influence of a drowsiness-inducing drug. That’s fair. Just like you can’t recover for sub-first degree burn injuries when you spill a normal cup of coffee in your lap.

But what if a drug that should only inhibit your excretion stops your heart? You can fill in the rest.

52

Not to question your comprehension skills, beagle, but you should be aware that the plaintiff was deemed 30% liable for her own injuries, and the award was accordingly reduced.

I swear I mentioned that … hey! I did! :smiley:

Sua

53

I am wondering… third degree burns are really severe. How hot would a liquid have to be in general to cause that? Pure science question… some doctor out there has to have the relevant info sotred in their highly-paid brains!

Secondly, straw man? A woman places a flimsy cup (styrofoam is not known for its structural strength) of a known hot liquid inbetween her legs. Apart from that, she does so while operating a motor vehicle; which is to say, while doing something that requires the use of leg movement. She wasn’t asking for third degree burns. She was asking for spilled coffee, and she was asking herself. You do not sue Ford for falling out of a car when you leave the door open while driving. Sure, you shouldn’t really fall out of the car, but if you do, it wasn’t Ford’s fault. At some point we have to assume that people aren’t complete idiots.

McD’s should have paid her medical bills if, indeed, hot water can cause those kinds of burns. Which I do not know, but it seems incredible. What temperature does styrofoam melt at?

McDonald’s is at fault, in my mind, if they threw the cup of coffee on her.

54

Nitpick: she wasn’t driving, and the car was parked.

(And has anyone yet mentioned the faulty design of the coffee cup lid?)

55

Were you not paying attention eris? The scalding time for various temprature coffees was mentioned earlier in the thread, I believe it was 2-3 seconds at 185 degrees, 18-20 at 160.

Uh, no she wasn’t. That too has been said repeatedly throughout this thread. As tomndeb said

56

Hey Blowero,

I don’t know if you’ve been following the San Francisco Dog Mauling trial, but a judge in that case dismissed a jury verdict of second degree murder.

As for the OP, I know the whole ‘McDonald’s Coffee’ thing doesn’t seem right to you. But thanks to lawyers pursuing cases like that we now have directions on the side of toothpick boxes!!!

Another thing I find interesting in people that decry the ‘McDonalds Coffee’ thing, and currently the ‘Fast Food Caused My Obesity’ suit is that the defendents always cry ‘Personal Responsiblity.’

Defendent: “Sure the plaintiff is 150 pounds overweight, but he had choices. People need to take some personal responsibility…”

You: “Sure the women got burned, but it was hot coffee! People need to take some personal responsibility…”

Rush L: “Sure there are homeless people out there, but they want to be homeless. They need to get jobs and take on some personal responsibility for their situation.”

Enron Employees: “Sure they lost all their 401k money, but they had other investment options including not investing at all and opening their own IRA’s. They need to take some personal responsibility for their investments.”

You wouldn’t be a republican by any chance would you?
-Sandwriter

57

Go ahead and do this. Then ask them what they think would happen if they poured 10 ounces of freshly brewed/poured coffee into their crotch where their polyester pants were going to absorb the coffee and hold it against their flesh, while in a car and completely incapable of standing up and/or otherwise getting the clothing soaked with hot coffee away from their skin.

I guarantee you that every single person will respond with something along the lines of “I would expect to be severely burned.”

And that is the crux of the argument of most people who think that this lawsuit is nonsense. It was even referenced earlier that even had the coffee been served at a more generally accepted temperature, it would still have caused burns. The problem wasn’t so much the temperature of the coffee, it was that the woman dumped it on herself in a manner pretty much assured of causing severe burns, even at the marginally lower temperature that the lawyers claims it should have been.

Everyone who’s claiming that the coffee would have burned the woman’s lips off if she’d tried to drink it are being hysterical, because if she’d tried to drink it, she’s have realized it needed to cool off and would have put it aside. This is a normal occurrence when handed a hot beverage. There’s a huge difference between testing the temperature of a hot liquid by allowing a drop of it to touch a sensitive surface and making a judgement about whether it needs to cool off before drinking and pouring said hot liquid onto a body part with clothes that are going to trap the liquid against your skin while in a position where you can’t make reasonable recovery action.

I’m sorry that McDonald’s appeared to have put on such a piss-poor defense, because if they’d done a better job, perhaps this case would have floated off into the land of “please take responsibility for your actions” like all of the others.

58

I quoted extensively on this very topic earlier in the thread.

Yes, straw man, of the worst kind. To wit:

No, she did not. She was holding the cup in her hand.

No, she did not; she was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by her nephew.

No she was not; not only was she not driving, the car was not moving.

Really, eris, I mean, if you aren’t even going to read the thread, and are instead simply going to make things up, why even post in it?

59

I’m big on personal responsibility, and I’m unaffiliated with any party.

Works here.

Works here, although I’ll concede some blame to McDonald’s. Without going over a complete transcript, I’d probably flip the liability percentages from what the judge determined.

This is just done to get a rise. People don’t decide to become homeless. I’d like to say that everyone has the choice of education from a young age, but that’s putting too much responsibility on a still maturing mind. Many homeless would work and support themselves if they could.

Yes and no. Many public companies will mandate that a portion of your 401(k) go into company stock and lock up the selling of the stock. Enron seemed to be especially bad about this, but they’re not the worst case I’ve heard. However, companies have shifted the onus of retirement planning onto the employee, and my opinion is that if you aren’t smart in that area, get smart. Then you would know to keep as little as possible in any single company. 4-5 years ago, people at my firm were clamoring for a Tech Fund in our 401(k) options. When the company caved, I know of two who moved much of their retirement savings into the fund (mind you, I worked for an asset management firm - advice was free and readily available). They crowed for a year or two of their returns and wondered why no one else was following their trail blazing investment plan. They, however, tried to pass the blame after April 2000. It was their good idea when it worked and someone else’s fault when it failed.

Yes, people need to be personally responsible for their own actions and for their own money. This does not advocate making fraud legal; it does advocate not expecting to be bailed out just because you were defrauded.

60

Jadis, any way you rehash the scenario, you are still mistaken.

Cite for the volume of coffee?

Cite for the polyester pants?

Is your car so small that you cannot unbutton or unzip your pants when sitting unaccompanied in any of the passenger seats?

After twenty seconds rather than after five seconds, and burns of considerably lesser severity.

Your interpretation of the causation does not appear to be consistent with any of the facts. Perhaps in my world, a temperature difference of fifteen to twenty degrees is not “marginal.” Furthermore, by what criteria do you prioritize these causes? Why do you suggest that it is the “manner” rather than the temperature?

McDonald’s should be sorry, too. All Ms. Liebeck was asking for was her medical expenses, a measly $11,000. She was harmed beyond all level of reasonable expectation, and McD balked. I, for one, am not sorry that the jury taught McD a half million dollar lesson.