Thank you.
McDonalds was in violation of public health regulations. They were serving the coffee too hot, and they were also serving it in cups that were not rated for that high of a temperature. One of the problems in the Blitz case (according to them) is that some US regulatory agency refused to establish any code for gas cans. Until I have more facts about the Blitz case, and from sources other than Blitz and pro-business political associations, or plaintiffs attorneys ambulance chasing web sites, I wouldn’t make a call on that.
Now take that to it’s logical end. You are now left with no manufacture of anything (well, except maybe bubble gum) What exactly is a low cost in this regard or the next?
50,000,000 gas cans (Does $.50/can still look “low” to you?)
Another cite stating the ways Blitz screwed up:
And, according to my cite, the fact Blitz is shutting down will apparently affect the amount of compensation the victims receive, not to mention foreclosing on any further lawsuits relating to these faulty containers. The people who owned Blitz are certainly cutting their losses.
If these things are true (as opposed to being the rantings of disgruntled employee now employed by plaintiffs attorneys), then I would agree that the lawsuits and their outcome was valid.
His post was of no value to your argument.
The irony is, if no manufacturers of gas cans remain, more people will die in accidents when they carry gas in even more dangerous containers, like 2 liter soda bottles, or glass cider jugs.
I think we’ll have plenty of imported gas cans and no means of recovering damages as a result.
Has anyone actually checked to see how hard it would be to find a gas can if this company dropped off the face of the earth?
If they’re defective, there can be a lawsuit
I suppose the upshot is, Blitz lost the court case, and lost badly enough the owners felt it was no longer worthwhile to continue the operation and potentially risk future lawsuits. That seems pretty damn probative right there when it comes to evaluating how bad Blitz’s operations likely were.
And if you’re imputing untruthfulness based on likely bias, the WSJ isn’t known for looking on the bad side of American free enterprise. I’m not accusing it of running a hatchet job, but every story comes from a perspective, especially if it’s an editorial.
Sure. Against a US importer with no assets, or in another country where you may have no chance of prevailing no matter how much evidence you have, or you prevail and are awarded the value of the gas can after spending a million dollars in legal fees.
That’s not a good argument for your case. If there was a defect in the cans that could have been corrected then Blitz would continue doing business with that correction. I think they are shutting down because there is no way for a company to protect themself from these type of lawsuits. However, the previous information you provided, if true, would make this similar to the MacDonalds case where regulations were not followed, and then this particular lawsuit was won on the facts. Though had I been on the jury I would have argued that the plaintiff was at least 99% responsible for the damages. However, I would consider destruction of evidence to play into punitive damages if that could be done under the law. Unlike the MacDonalds case where a reasonable person would not assume they could be horribly disfigured from a cup of coffee, in this case a reasonable person would expect that pouring gasoline onto an open flame would result in a deadly and disfiguring fire. If you don’t know the difference between coffee and gasoline I suggest you not use either.
And if you’re imputing untruthfulness based on likely bias, the WSJ isn’t known for looking on the bad side of American free enterprise. I’m not accusing it of running a hatchet job, but every story comes from a perspective, especially if it’s an editorial.
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The sources I’ve seen so far are biased, on both sides of this issue.
He can’t be “employed by plaintiffs’ attorneys”. He’s a fact witness, not an expert. I suppose the plaintiffs’ attorneys might have paid him to talk to the WSJ, but I can’t imagine why.
Can anyone find the stupid freaking gas can thread where Blitz proved incapable of making a spill proof gas can that didn’t spill gas everywhere?
I could certainly see people suffering serious injury after using one of those cans. Use a spill proof can, get coated with gas, get expolded, blame the gas can.
I’m getting kinda tired of people trying to use the McDonalds case as an example of tort hell. When you actually look at the facts the women receiving compensation equal to one day of coffee sales is rather reasonable.
My experience with Blitz gas cans have been them doing everything they possibly could to cut cost, even though they had no real competition. Maybe they should have focused more on quality.
IIRC, Blitz was incapable of making a non-spilly can that complied with recently updated federal regulations. They apparently didn’t have a problem making them before 2010.
Stella Liebeck didn’t even get one day of McDonald’s coffee revenues; the award was reduced on remittatur to $640,000 including punitive damages.
If they are selling gas cans in the US they have assets in the US.
If their gas cans are unsafe the Consumer Product Safety Commission is going to catch on quickly and prevent them from being imported or sold.
They didn’t stop Blitz.
that’s simply not true. A merchant places an order for them and they get shipped from a holding company in Chindia. Zero assets.
Using that logic then 100% of all products fail.
In this case, the product was used in a manner that even a retarded monkey would know to be dangerous. People take stupid risks all the time and should be held responsible for it and not the product.