I did read and follow this case back when it was happening. My opinion was, and still is, that this case was ridiculous. Obviously the courts felt differently but IMO it is reasonable for a person to expect coffee to be hot…hot enough to burn you. I think it is reasonable for a company to expect you to use care to avoid spilling hot liquids on yourself. Had McD’s served the coffee in defective cups that leaked or designed a cup that was inherently unstable would be one thing but that wasn’t the case.
Imagine a kid who drinks Super Strength Drano. Should the manufacturer be sued because you can prove that Super Strength Drano is stronger than necessary and thus caused unecessary damage? Again, how about that Fajita plate that is served to you on a beyond boiling hot skillet at your table in a restaurant? If it gets knocked in your lap by your spouse should the restaurant be sued because it is unecessary to serve that on hot skillets?
Taxpayer money to maintain a larger than might be necessary court system.
Higher insurance premiums across the board
Higher product prices
Yes (or stupid). If someone bumps you and spill you’re not a klutz. If you’re walking down the hall and trip on a piece of lint you’re a klutz. If you run with a hot cup of coffee you’re stupid.
Klutzes have no right to sue for being a klutz. 99.9% of non-handicapped people can negotiate a staircase just fine. If you trip and fall through klutziness I don’t see how you should be able to sue. If I tied a trip wire across the stairs then that’s another issue…now I’m negligent.
Huh? I don’t follow you here but for what it’s worth no I don’t.
You need to check your civil law. Punitive damages can be applied to any civil action…not just corporations but person vs. person as well. You can bet punitive damages will be asked for regardless of the chances of actually collecting. Maybe the Jaguar driver has a history of accidents (he’s a menace on the road ya know) or perhaps he/she was yapping on a cell phone (negligence).
Simple, if the damages (in this case) weren’t given to smokers they wouldn’t tie up the courts for 70 years trying to get money. Have the tobacco companies write a check to the American Heart Association or something…probably do more good there anyway.
This is absurd. By that thinking criminals should spend extra time in jail to make up for the criminals we don’t catch.
Nurlman
You have some very good points there. Perhaps the plaintiff should get 10% of punitive damages. That seems enough to encourage them to push for keeping the damage award high ($100,000 per $1,000,000 in judgement). The plaintiff’s attorney is earning 33% of the take up to a capped $1,000,000/year. A nice salary by most people’s standards so why not keep pushing it. As long as he/she is working he/she is making money as well. (Feel free to adjust those numbers…I’m just using those as an example).
Punitive damages should be assessed where appropriate and paid by the losing party.
But no portion of them should go to the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s attorney.
The problem would disappear overnight.
Why should lawyers (or anyone else) benefit from somebody else’s wrongdoing?
Put it into a government-administered fund and use it for the victims of related problems. Punitive damages for medical malpractice should go into a fund to buy health care for the indigent. The McDonald’s settlement can go to food shelves or hospital burn units.
And the lady who spilled coffee on herself did buy it to take away. She was holding the cup between her legs to steady it while she added cream and sugar. Coffee is hot. Duh.
If coffee is normally served at about 145 degrees–which will not give you third degree burns in about 3.5 seconds–then people consuming said coffee wouldn’t be acting stupidly to * try and put their sugar into it. * They are unaware of the risk being posed to them, because McD’s has made a grossly negligent choice.
If you spill a cup-o-Starbucks coffee (or some other type) on yourself, you’ll most likely end up with second-degree burns (blistering and such). This is standard, and well labeled, and it’s your own durn fault. It’s a risk everybody who sweetens their coffee runs. If one place is serving coffee at 45 degrees higher, the consumer has no way to know this and modify their behavior accordingly. Moreover, they were shown to have known about this danger for a long time, and failed to make obvious changes to improve safety. This constitutes negligent/willfully negligent behavior.
And as mentioned, the damages were reduced because it was partly her fault for being a klutz, but largely McD’s fault for giving her an excessively dangerous product.
Obviously, when dealing with something like like a rifle, the consumer should be making sure they know the dangers involved–maybe checking up on consumer reports to make sure it doesn’t backfire all the time. But this is coffee, fercryinoutloud. Do you really expect everybody to carry a thermometer around with them and take the temperature of each cup of coffee they buy to make sure it’s safe to put their sugar into it? Of course not–the purveyor of said coffee has an obligation to keep the coffee at a safe temperature, and failure to do so creates a danger to the consumer of which they have no reasonable means of being aware.
But unless you’re seeking punitive damages, there is no difference.
Rather silly logic, isn’t that? Corps have been convicted of crimes, therfore they are capable of committing crimes? Airplanes have been convicted of crimes. Does that mean airplanes are capable of committing crimes? Does the fact that the government says that something (and make no mistake, corps are things, not people) committed a crime mean that it actually did so? If the government declares pi to be equal to 3, does that make it so?
Yet again, you are using a non-sequitor as if it were logical argument. Agents are able to premeditate… so what? Some agents are able to run a mile in less than five minutes. Does that mean corporations are able to run a mile in less than five minutes?
If you’re still referring to me, you clearly completely missed my point. If you wish to punish someone (which is the intent of punitive damages), criminal court is the appropiate venue. Punishments have no place in civil court.
So he was just doing his job? Gee, those guys at Nuremburg should have tried that one. “We were just agents of Third Reich Incorporated. You can’t prosecute us; all you can do is seek punitive damages against the German people.” You aren’t suddenly not guilty of a crime just because you were being paid to do it.
I think they should be limited… to zero.
So do summary executions. That doesn’t mean either has any place in a democracy.
And just how effective have punitive damages been in this regard? If we stopped relying on punitive damages, and actually prosecuted people for their wrongdoing, there would a lot less corporate misdoings.
The Ryan, prosecuting everyone who acts willfully would be enormously expensive. Plus, there’s little incentive to report such incidents to prosecutors. Instead, we use this quasi-private prosecution system called punitive damages. If you can figure out how to put in place the infrastructure to actually prosecute corporations that are willfully/criminally negligent for less cost than the current system, I’m sure that many of us would like to hear about it.
Governments declaring things to be crimes is not the same as governments declaring pi to be equal to three. The definition of crime is pretty much, “actions which the state has declared to be criminal.” There’s no extrinsic definition of crime the way there is of pi. I have never heard of an airplane being convicted of a crime, although it is certainly possible to “sue” an airplane in an in rem action. If you have a citation, I’d love to see it.
There is a legal doctrine of Respondeat Superior that says that the corporation is liable for certain actions of its employees. This is particularly important for places like McDonalds, since the person who handed that woman her coffee is almost certainly judgment-proof (i.e., has no money for the woman to collect as damages). It’s particularly difficult to imagine that some poor high school kid should be deemed a criminal because he pours the coffee out of the damn urn whose temperature has been set by “company policy.” It’s a trifle different from the Third Reich. (Although the comparison does remind me of the truism that any flame war will escalate until someone mentions Hitler).
You seem to be missing the whole point. It is reasonable to assume that drinking Drano wo8uld cause serious damage. It is no reasonable to assume that spilling coffee will cause third degree burns.
Every time I have seen one of those served, the wait staff is careful to made the customer well aware of the danger.
The issue is not whether people can sue for beings “klutzes”. The issue is whether thay can sue for being subjected to unreasonable danger due to being a “klutz”. Suppose a drop a thermometer on the floor and it brakes. And suppose the makers of this thermometer, for some reason, had used a toxic gas inside it, figuring that the only way that the gas would be released is if someone is a klutz, in which case they deserve what they get. Do I have no right to sue over my damaged lungs?
Seeing has how your points have been supported by nothing but isolated ancedotes, it is reasonable to conclude that you think that you have been given a complete understanding of the situation by the media.
Did I ever say otherwise?
And you claim that I need to check civil law? A history of accidents is not enough to warrant punitive damages, nor is simple negilgence. No one in their right mind would expect punitive damages in this situation.
Well, duh. If someone is caught stealing $100, can he just give it back, and not expect any further punishment? Of course not! Is it absurd to expect criminals to do more than simple restitution?
Oh, well then. Let’s just give up on the whole crminal justice system, 'cause it’s “too expensive”.
Well, then, set up a reward system for whistle-blowers if you really want to.
You haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve been saying. Corporations are incapable of criminal negligence.
I’m not talking about government declaring certain things to be crimes. I’m talking about government declaring certain things to be guilty of a crime.
It depends on the situation. If company policy was to include a joint with a $10 cup of coffee, I think that it would be very easy to deem the kid a criminal. In the boiling coffee example, it was probably only be the higher ups that were responsible.
So the doctrine of Respondeat Superior would not apply to the Third Reich? Why not?
The Ryan
Good points. I’ll print out the thread and give it some more thought tonite.
I have been mildly bothered by this topic for some time now, but have not reached any resolution. I am not comfortable with punitive damages being paid to the named plaintiff, the first one to receive a judgment against the responsible party, but have not been able to come up with a better system.
Would it be possible to set up some type of system where, should a private party prevail in a tort action, and be awarded compensation accompanied by a finding of some willful, grossly negligent, etc. action by the defendant, that the state is required to initiate some type of civil action against that defendant.
I’m not comfortable with the government being the beneficiary of private parties’ lawsuits. What mechanism can be devised to force the tortfeasor to correct their actions and atone to whatever extent possible?
For the folks who suggest punitive damages should go to a third party, does the named plaintiff’s attorney still get a cut of those? I haven’t come up with a way to limit attorney fees while maintaining incentive to go to bat for injured plaintiffs in contingency cases.
A related, but seperate, issue involves caps on damages of all types. How much is a life worth? Does it depend on the victim or the perpetrator?
The Ryan, in the McDonald’s case, what would you see as the optimal outcome. The Plaintiff gets some amount (how much?) to compensate (generously) for her injury. Anything else? Should McDonald’s be punished? By what mechanism, and how should they be punished. Payment of money? How much and to who?
I think that attempting to set up a prosecution system that works as effectively as the current system of punitive damages would be more expensive to taxpayers, while conveying no additional benefits. Further, I doubt that it would be possible to set up such a system in a way that would be less prone to abuses. For example, you suggest rewarding whistle-blowers. Won’t this encourage the same kind of frivolous prosecution that you’re complaining about?
You’re the one proposing revamping the whole legal system, so the onus is on you to explain why your system would work better. I still don’t really understand what your system is. Who do you propose to prosecute in the McDonald’s case? How about the Bridgestone tire case? I’ve got that it isn’t the corporations, but some individuals within the corporation. Who, and how do you decide? Does the criminal suit proceed in parallel with the civil suit, or after? Can corporations avoid having any of their officers or employees prosecuted by settling all civil suits? If not, how does the prosecutor find out about the problem? If so, how does your system differ from punitive damages? If the corporate policymakers can escape prosecution by paying off the damaged individuals, those individuals have additional bargaining power that may well end up translating into payments of about the same amount as punitive damages.
Can you explain in any more detail the reasoning behind your statement that, “if we stopped relying on punitive damages, and actually prosecuted people for their wrongdoing, there would a lot less corporate misdoings”?
Finally, please give me a citation for an airplane being convicted of a crime.
Please note the highlighted areas in the quote below. I admit it may not be easy to obtain punitive damages but that doesn’t mean a plaintiff won’t try for them. BTW–This is the law as it stands in the state of California (where I believe The Ryan lives).
Highlighting done by me
*Source: http://consumerlawpage.com/article/personal-injury-damages-faq.shtml *
However, there is another aspect to assessing damages beyond actual damages that can be problematical as well (actually I guess this is considered a part of actual damages). While not labelled as punitive damages they are terribly arbitrary not the least of which is the defendant’s ability to cough-up some money. This is what the poor people were most likely going after in my hypothetical Jaguar incident and they would stand an excellent chance on collecting on this aspect.
‘Anecdotal evidence’ suggests that a few flashy examples are thrown out the skew the reality of the bigger picture. To some extent what I and others have done here is exactly that. Here are a few beauties…
Still, it seems that punitive damages don’t account for all that much really…
If that is indeed a ‘bankruptcy’ number (which it almost certainly would be if it stands) you not only send the offending business out of work but thousands of farmers, truckers, distributers and so on. This one ‘anecdotal’ case could be staggering in its implications all by itself.
I disagree. However, I suppose that it’s mainly a matter of opinion.
Now you’re just being silly. Earlier you complained that there would be no incentive to bring attention to crimes. Now you complain that there would be an incentive to bring attention to crime. Also note that in a crminal court, the more stringent rules of evidence and standards of proof would make it much more difficult to convict someone of a frivolous prosecution. Finally, you seem to be confused. I am not complaining about frivolous prosecution. I’m complaining about what is in essence criminal prosecution that is occurring in a civil court.
I don’t consider it a revamping of the legal system; we already have a concept of the separtaion of civil and criminal matters, it’s just that we’re not enforcing that separation.
That would probably be up to the DA. I am not familiar enough with the inner working of McDonald’s to know who was responsible for the incident.
I’m not familiar with that case.
Whoever made the decision to inflict harm.
I’m not familiar enough with law to know how this is handled, but it surely has already been dealt with and settled.
It certainly would be a factor in the decision to prosecute, but settling civil suits would not give immunity, any more than settling a civil suit with the guy whose car you hit would make you immune to drunk driving charges.
I don’t understand the question. You mean, if the victims agree to not tell anyone about it in exchange for a quick settlement? In that case, the prosecutor probably wouldn’t find out about it. Unfornately, that’s the way the world works. For instance, Michael Jackson was able to avoid criminal charges by giving out a bunch of money in a settlement. This might not seem like justice, but I don’t see how him paying out even more money would have been justice.
The difference would be that we wouldn’t have to go through the cost of a trial. And they will usually only settle if they’re guilty (yes, there will be some that will be intimidated into paying anyway, but they will probably be a smaller proportion). And finally, while people may still get away with doing bad things by paying a lot of money, at least the government won’t be condoning the practice.
Suppose you’re an executive. Which is going to be more of a deterrent; knowing that your company could lose a few million dollars, or knowing that you could spend several years in jail?
I saw nothing in that quote about repeated accidents or negligence.
I believe that, for the most part, my argument stands on its own.
Seeing as how the people cited did not seem to be expecting large punitive damage awards, and there is no evidence that these cases inspired others to seek punitive damages, I don’t see how they support your contention that punitive damages encourage suits.
O-kay…this looks like another one-poster. Lucky me.
Let me just say that I haven’t a shred of sympathy for McDonalds; if anything, they got LESS than what they deserved. One thing that needs to be pointed out here is that everyone has a certain level of responsibility, and there is no excuse for not living up to it. Here, allow me to cite an example from my old law book: Suppose you own a movie theater that does not have a fire escape (and you know it and continue to use the theater anyway). One day some lunatic wanders in and firebombs it. Dozens perish. You could argue that the lunatic was an extremely unusual case, that you can’t keep track of each and every person who walks in. Fine and good, but that’s not an excuse for not having a fire escape! All citizens are expected to bear a reasonable amount of responsibility no matter what anyone else does.
McDonalds could have taken a hint from the more than seven hundred complaints they received and stopped serving scalding hot coffee. They didn’t, someone got seriously hurt, and McDonalds paid up. Given the circumstances, I think it was completely fair.
And let’s not forget the unforgivable demonization of this woman and the free ride McDonalds got from mainstream media. Not ONE print newspaper I read was the least bit sympathetic to the injured party (except for Honolulu Weekly, and it was in This Modern World, of all places). Any mom-and-pop diner that was involved in this kind of case would have been drummed out of business within a month. But McDonalds is so deeply ingrained into our culture that it’s next to impossible to speak ill of it. The sycophantic response was one of mainstream media’s more disgraceful moments in recent history.
Now then, as for the actual subject of the post (;)): I believe the plaintiff is entitled to something. Taking a stand and fighting for what’s right should be rewarded, and although a cash award can’t totally ease the pain, it’s the best the court can do. However, there should be a cap on these awards…say, 150% of compensatory damages…with the remainder going to a public fund. This should clear up a good chunk of the greed-driven lawsuits. I’m not too concerned about completely frivolous suits (because they invariably get thrown out), but the WINNABLE cases with obscene amounts of money at stake need to go.
Let’s see…how about the part I highlighted in bold letters? …a willful and conscious disregard for the rights or safety of others.
This would be a form of extreme (indicated by the word ‘willful’) negligence.
‘Large’ is a relative term. If you read the link I provided to the attorney explaining California Tort law you’d see that the damages (beyond compensatory) are made relative to the amount of money the person or corporation has. This means the damages are large to whoever is paying them whether it’s for $1,000 or $1,000,000,000.
Besides, with judgments of $145 billion you are seeing people chasing down the big guys. Have you noticed the suits being filed against gun manufacturers lately? The fact that these suits were filed can almost certainly be laid at the door of the successful suits against tobacco companies.
Ok…
The Ryan has written:
“Do you have a cite showing that they were looking for punitive damages?”
and then…
“I believe that, for the most part, my argument stands on its own.”
and earlier in response to, “Finally, please give me a citation for an airplane being convicted of a crime.”
The Ryan responded, “Sorry, I don’t have a cite.”
A) Apparently your arguments don’t stand up on their own.
B) This labels you as a hypocrite (you expect others to backup their assertions but won’t or can’t do the same).
Ahhh the tyranny of numbers. 700 people you say? Ok…let’s do a little math. I’ll make some assumptions here but I’ll try to give DKW a LARGE benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that all 700 complaints happened over the course of 1 year (I bet it was more). Let’s also assume that only 1 in 1,000 people actually bother writing/calling in a complaint (again generous). That means that 700,000 people were actually burned by McDonalds coffee in one year.
Now, McDonalds serves more than 43 million people a day or over 15 billion people per year (*source: http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/investor/about/factsheet/index.html *). Let’s also assume that only 1 in 100 visitors actually order coffee on a visit to McDonalds. That’d make for 150 million cups of coffee in one year.
If I’ve done my math correctly that is a 0.005% burn rate and that is using MORE than generous numbers to support DKW’s case. Not too bad I’d say on McDonalds part.
She was demonized, and rightfully so, as a money grabbing person who felt that she has no responsibility and ought to get money for her own stupid mistakes. Nearly every person over the age of 5 knows that coffee is hot. Most of us watched a parent or someone else boiling water to make coffee. If you stick it between your legs, drive away and hit a bump or slam on the brakes causing the coffee to spill it’s your OWN fault.
The Ryan said in response to my asking about a hot skillet Fajita being served to you that, “Every time I have seen one of those served, the wait staff is careful to made the customer well aware of the danger.” By this thinking as long as the McD’s kid in the window said, “Careful, this is hot,” when handing the coffee over she’d have had no case.
This is a misleading example. By throwing an insane fire bomber into the example it makes it sound as if people need to prepare for extremely unlikely events happening as part of their day-to-day responsibility. This throws you off because there are hundreds of far more likely scenarios where a fire will start. A careless smoker, a lightning strike, an out of control car crashing, faulty electrical wire, the building next door catching on fire and spreading.
Given that fires DO happen and given the potential damage a fire can do to life and property (ala The Great Chicago Fire) certain measures are appropriate and not considered onerous (including sprinklers, fire escapes and fire extinguishers).
Society is a balance in trade offs. Somewhere a cost/benefit calculation needs to be done to decide where the line is drawn. We could mandate that all door jambs be raised to eight feet to accomodate the small percentage of people who are really tall and might hit their heads. We could mandate that every building (including homes) in the US be equipped with handicapped access so a handicapped person never need worry that they can get to where they want to be. We could mandate that cars be made from titanium to protect all of us better in case of an accident. Obviously these measures, while good, are too expensive and produce too little benefit to be worth the trouble. Our resources are better spent elsewhere.
When people win frivolous lawsuits it drains the country of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. The courts are tied-up and prices rise in general. The more these people are successful the more others will seek to emulate their success. As an attorney you really only need one big hit to set you up for life. 10 years of bogus cases and then you hit the one $100 million settlement. You can now retire with a cozy $33 million in your bank at the age of 40 or so.
I’d say that’s very attractive to a lot of people. So attractive, in fact, that I believe congress passed a law a while back forbidding lawyers from approaching the families of accident victims for two or three days. Prior to that the family would be inundated with calls from attorneys hours after learning their loved ones had just died (assuming a BIG deal like an airplane crash).
Do you know, this is exactly what McD’s lawyer said (well, wit more accurate stats, obviously)? This really pissed off the jury, as well it should. One member of the jury was quoted afterwards as saying something along the lines of “yeah, but that 1 in _________ (I don’t have the number at hand at the moment) was a person horribly burned by their negligence”. Duh. If I go and shoot 1 out of every 2 million people in America, heck, it’s only a .00005% shooting rate, not too bad on my part, eh?
Of course this seems hideous to a jury but it’s a knee-jerk reaction and not well thought out. The jury probably thought something along the lines of your example but to make your example compare apples to apples McDonald’s employees would have to walk around throwing coffee on people (like you went out and shot people).
Take your example from the other side but again adjust to compare apples to apples. Say 1 out of every 2 million people in America shoot themselves with a gun. That’s roughly 250 people. From a jury’s perspective, “My GOD! 250 people dead! That’s horrible!”
From your your argument it is now time to sue the gun manufacturersvfor making the gun. OOPS! Guess what! People are already doing that now (wonder why). So far those cases don’t seem to be going too well for the plaintiffs but then again tobacco won evey court case brought against them for years and look at the position they’re in now.
Just because there is a form of negligence that warrants punitive damages doesn’t mean that all forms of negligence warrant punitive damages. People who waer a green shirt while shooting someone in the head are guilty of murder. However, wearing a green shirt is not grounds for a murder charge, just as negligence is not grounds for punitive damages.
I’m not talking about they received; I’m talking about what they expected.
Huh? The fact that I don’t have cites means that my arguments don’t stand up on their own?
Gee, resorting to ad hominem attacks already? I’ve got news for you. The term “hypocrite” does not mean “anyone who disagrees with you”. I have never said that you must provide cites; I have simply stated that I have come to certain conclusion from the absence of cites supporting your position. And the only time I have been asked for a cite is in the airplane case, which I mentioned in passing and is really not important to my argument. Do I have to back up every single statement? You said (of the McD case) “I did read and follow this case back when it was happening”. Do you have a cite for that, proving that you indeed did follow it? The airplane case would have served exactly the same purpose had it been worded as a hypothetical, and you are really so bothered by the absence of a cite, feel free to think of it as such.
I agree with both sides to this argument, and I think it’s possible to come up with a solution amenable to both sides.
My posits:
Punitive damages per se are necessary and desirable. Were only compensatory damages available, the danger of the tortfeasor doing a cost/benefit analysis and deciding it was cheaper not to fix the problem exists. Futhermore, punitive damages are intended to deter others from committing the same tort.
Punitive damages have to be proportionate to (a) the injury done, and (b) the ability to pay of the tortfeasor. IOW, you have to be able to get the tortfeasor’s attention. On the face, it seems unfair to collect $1,000,000 from Citibank for failing to fix the sidewalk in front of their building, and only $1,000 from the neighborhood deli owner, but the deterrence point is that you want to get the tortfeasor’s attention.
At least some of the punitive damage awards should/has to go to the plaintiff. Slightly out of context, the plaintiff is acting as a “private attorney general”, and is suing to uphold more than their right to be free from injury, but the public’s as well. They should be rewarded for their efforts on behalf of the public, and should have an incentive to act on behalf of the public.
That being said, not all of the award should go to the plaintiff (more later).
Some posters are commingling punitive damages and pain and suffering. The two are not the same. Pain and suffering is considered a straight compensatory damage, and therefore does not have the higher standards (willfullness, etc.) needed before punitive damages can be awarded. (In the interests of full disclosure, pain and suffering can only be awarded in certain types of cases). Because you cannot put an economic price on pain and suffering, the danger is that pain and suffering becomes a way to award punitive-type damages without needing to meet the higher standards.
My solution - keep punitive damages the way they are, but split the awards between the plaintiff/government/charity/whathaveyou. Guarantee plaintiffs 100% of anything they are awarded, up to a limit, than X% above that. That way, punitive damages are kept high enough to act as deterrents, plaintiffs still have the incentive to keep pushing for punitive damages, but it is no longer a lottery. As for who should receive the rest, I actually recommend the government, because this will act to lower punitve damage awards - no one really wants to give money to the government. If it were to go to a charity, then the jury would be biased in favor of higher awards.
Well put Sua Sponte. I think you have the most reasonable ideas as to punitive damages. I have one suggestion, tho. Instead of giving the X% above what the plaintiff gets (say the plaintiff gets 150% of the compensatory damages, which seems reasonable) to a government, give it to me.
Sorry to inflict the block quote, but I felt it neccessary given the divergent tracks…
You see, my point was not that it was equivalent to me shooting people, but that statistics are pretty mcuh useless here. These a * human beings * being horribly burned, not some statistic.
But if you really want to be accurate, your gun example is dead wrong anyway. If you want it to be accurate, here’s a better example:
1 out of every 2 million uses the gun * within normal operation parameters, * and it backfires because of a defect that the manufacturer knew was in there, but didn’t feel like taking out. That’s the comparison you’re looking for there, and certainly one deserving of a lawsuit.
