Habving read the argumnets about the bad health effects of fast food, I’m wondering if I can start the wheels of jsutice turning! Suppose my cardiologist determines that I am showing signs of heart diseas (cause by eating too many “Big Macs” and fries)…do I have a good case for a lawsuit here? That guy in NYC had sued Mickey Ds because of his obesity (caused by 25 years of eating french fries). Can a lawsuit be initiated on a “pre need” basis? After all, heart disease takes years to develop…why not get all the necessary papers filed IN ADVANCE?
Will this work?:rolleyes:
IANAL but to bring a successful suit you have to show damages. You don’t have any (“signs of heart disease” in a of itself is not damages, unless you incur costs to be treated for them, or if they impair your enjoyment of life or ability to work, IMH non-legal O). And you would have to prove a causal link between the fast food and your heart disease. And you would have to show that McDonald’s was negligent or malicious.
This is often compared to the tobacco industry suits, but the tobacco industry manipulated their product to make it more addictive, lied about dangers that they knew about, etc., etc.
IMHO you don’t have a case.
Now we’re cooking with gas. You sure you haven’t been to law school?
If he’d been to law school, he’d know enough to never venture an opinion! 
ralph, as the plaintiff you’d also need to show you’ve mitigated your damages – the law says that people who cause harm need to pay for the harm they cause, but the victim doesn’t deserve a windfall. If you’re illegally fired, you can’t sit around and collect your salary – you need to get another job and, if it isn’t as good, you can get the guy who fired you illegally to make up the difference. In this case, even assuming that Cooking’s cogent analysis were incorrect and you did have a case, if you keep eating those Big Macs McD’s will be able to say you know about the problem but continued to engage in dangerous behavior and didn’t get the problems fixed and therefore the damage is your fault, not theirs.
–Cliffy
Sounds like I should start a “class action” lawsuit! How about my emotional pain and suffering (i.e. learning that my life will most likely be cut short by heart disease?).
How do I find a good law firm? This could be worth millions!
weren’t all of these lawsuits thrown out of court?
besides, the tobacco company used to advertise that smoking was GOOD for you, and intentionally misled consumers as to the dangers of their product.
I don’t think McDonalds has ever said that eating fast food is good for you health, or part of a healthy diet.
NOW, if McDonalds had placed an ingredient in a Big Mac that you were allergic to, and failed to list that as part of the sandwich, then I could see a negligence issue.
Seriously, who the fuck believes french fries and a Big Mac is a healthy lifestyle choice?
**
Well, it’s certainly *implied * in the commercials at least. An uninformed consumer might assume that one of their salad’s would be healthy, not knowing it has almost as much caloric content as a Big Mac sandwich.
“It’s food, ain’t it?” a mother once said to me. She would stop in the morning on the drive to her children’s school, and get them breakfast from McDonald’s. On the way home, she’d get them their dinner at the same place. This woman fed her kids fast food twice a day, yet marvelled that they were fat.
Big difference between caloric content and calories from fat.
In any case, any fast food restaurant you walk into will have nutritional information available to you if you ask for it. If you don’t read it, c’est la vie. If you’re more passive than that, it’s in the media all the damn time. Are there people that are really that isolated that don’t know fat’s bad?
Earlier this month, the obesity class action suit against McDonald’s was dismissed by Federal Judge Robert Sweet. Judge Sweet had previously dismissed the suit in January, but gave the plaintiffs the opportunity to revise their pleadings to address the deficiencies he had identified in the initial pleading. In his latest ruling, he found that the plaintiffs had failed to do so, and dismissed the action with the opportunity to replead.
At the core of the dismissals were the finding that McDonald’s food was not “dangerous in any way other than that which was open and obvious to a reasonable consumer.” In other words, there was no hidden danger in McDonald’s food, but rather any reasonable consumer would know that it could be unhealthy.
So, it is extremely unlikely that you would succeed in any suit against McDonald’s unless you could prove that McDonald’s food had some hidden danger.