Reposting this to the Pit as requested by Saint Zero.
First the old lady with coffee… then the pickle… now this.
(She had borrowed her mother’s car, and she thinks that her mother should have gotten a better cup holder at Walmart).
Uh-oh… now I’m in the spotlight again. 
We had a case like this in Mississippi, in Brandon, to be exact. Lady ordered a bowl of chili from a Wendy’s and tried to eat it while driving. Naturally, it didn’t last more than 1 hour in court. The jury’s comment was, to paraphrase “Well DUH! You should have known better!”
This was at the same time that woman won the 2.5 million case in Arizona against a Micky D’s for serving hot coffee.
Hey! I’ve got it. We can make everyone sign a release form before selling them anything served hot! Yeah! Or refuse to serve anything hot to someone in a car.
Now, as to the OP. What are these shitheads thinking? Or are they? Coffee is served HOT!, morons! I’m not sure wether or not I feel sorry for her mother, for raising such an anal-retentive for an offspring. Typically, you can spank them for that when their kids.
Damn… words fail me. You’d think someone who is a otherwise normal adult would know better?
[sub]And I lost the inspiration for a more inspiring hate-filled post. Oh well.[/sub]
Let’s keep some facts involved in the argument.
In the first case, the award was eventually reduced to an undisclosed amount. The issue was not that the coffee is hot, but that it is served hotter than a reasonable person would expect. McDonald’s superheats their water to get more coffee out of each ounce, thereby producing a product that can cause 3rd degree burns with permanent tissue destruction and scarring, as opposed to traditionally made coffee, which at worst causes second degree burns which generally have no lasting sequellae.
In addition, internal reports at McDonalds show that the danger inherent in serving the hi temp coffee to consumers had been pointed out, but the decision to not make changes was based on the bottom dollar.
I’m unfamiliar with the facts of the second cited case, but I’m tired of people glossing over the facts of the first, where the woman got such scarring from the coffee that her vagina fused together, and she needed reconstructive surgery. All because Mickey D’s was using a process atypical for the industry, which they knew had the potential to do this type of damage.
<Homer Simpson>MMMMMMM! Cake!</Homer Simpson>
Glossing over the facts of the first case? The coffee was really really hot. Nobody poured it on her, the cup didn’t explode, she spilled it on herself. I feel bad that she got burnt so badly, but IMO, she is the only one at fault. Personally, I assume that whenever I buy coffee to go, that it might be hotter than I like, and possibly hot enough to burn me. So I carefully open it, not over my lap, and check to see how hot it is. Then I put it in my own spillproof cup because I assume that the cheap lids on to-go cups will fall off or leak. When I buy a burger to go, I don’t just cram it into my mouth right away for the same reason. I thought it was just general common sense. Even my 3 year old daughter carefully eats her food in case it’s too hot.
Since the first incident, here’s what the Nevada Supreme Court has to say about warning labels on coffee cups.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archives/2000/jul/11/510491397.html
Here is a discussion of the facts of the first McD’s hot coffee case. There have also been a few board discussions about the case.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=30871&pagenumber=2
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=22459
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=42575
It wasn’t simply a matter of the coffee being really really hot.
Yeah, not just hot, atypically hot. Say, if you pour coffee on your arm and it bursts into flames.
However whats so sad about the case in the OP is that they are suing the cup maker and cup holder maker:)
Agggh, dilema and paradox: I dislike blantantly stupid lawsuits, because shit happens and often to dumb peopls, but I also hate McDonalds for their whole horrible tacky image and the damage they do to the planet. I’m in a hate-panic, there are so many potential targets around this issue.
IANAL, but can someone sue four different parties at the same time, for the same incident?
Long ago, I was told by a teacher (not sure where she got her info) that you can’t sue more than once for the same grievance. She gave, as an example, someone who got food poisoning from contaminated chicken and sued the market where he’d bought it. The suit was dismissed (or he lost) because the chicken wasn’t store brand, and the manufacturers were at fault…but not having realized that, he was SOL.
In this instance, wouldn’t she have to choose one party immediately responsible for the mishap? Moot point, of course, because anyone who would sue a family member over something like this is someone who lives to make trouble.
Rilch, I’m 99.44% sure that you can sue multiple parties for the same incident.
I’m sure one of the lawyers will come along and correct us, either way.
I highly recommend reading the links headshok posted about the coffee suit- the woman wasn’t completely at fault. That McDonalds had been cited more than once before for keeping the coffee too hot, yet never lowered the temperature. How many times have you spilled hot coffee on yourself? Did you require reconstructive surgery from 3rd degree burns?
There’s a huge amount of ridiculous lawsuits (just look at all the warnings on a ladder - each one was most likely the result of lawsuit), but the McDonalds coffee suit wasn’t one of them.
Arjuna34
So what I wanna know is: can I sue Astrofiancee?
We were in a coffee shop 2 days ago, and I had a freshly-made mocha. Astrofiancee, for some reason, stuck a straw into it. I, not thinking (as usual), went to take a sip of it, knowing full well that it was hot. Well, guess what? You can’t sip through a straw!! I got a mouthful of surface-of-the-sun temperature coffee! Burned the hell out of my tongue…
2 days later, my tongue still hurts!:mad:
So, can I sue her? Huh? Can I?
She doesn’t have a lot of money, but she could work it off in sexual favors! 
Rilchiam, your teacher was giving you bad or incomplete information.
Without getting into a long-winded discussion of proximate causation or the sort of brain-twisters tossed out in first-year torts classes, the general rule in US product liability law is that the responsiblilty for injury lies seperately and collectively with every party that manufactures and/or places into commerce a product which is defective or unreasonably dangerous when used in a reasonably forseeable manner. That’s the Reader’s Digest Condensed version of the strict liability rule; your state’s interpretation may vary slightly.
This means that manufacturers, middlemen, wholesalers, and retailers who handled the unreasonably dangerous or defective product between the time the raw material entered the factory to the time it hit the consumer’s hands is liable. For example, if the Brand X toaster you bought at Wal-Mart explodes when you plug it in and burns your house down, both Brand X, Inc. and Wal-Mart are liable. Brand X is liable because it produced a defective product unreasonably dangerous for its intended use, and Wal-Mart is liable because it sold you that defective and unreasonably dangerous product. If Wal-Mart bought the toasters from a wholesaler, the wholesaler’s on the hook too.
(Aside to head off inevetiable smart-alecks: No, this does not mean that the trucking company that hauled the toasters to Wal-Mart is liable. The strict liability rule embraces only those parties who control the manufacture and sale of the product.)
What happens in this situation is that if the product is found to be defective, all of the defendants found to be liable are on the hook for the full amount. So if the hypothetical toaster suit against Wal-Mart and Brand X went to court and you won, both Wal-Mart and Brand X would be liable to you for the full amount of the damages.
That doesn’t mean you get double the moolah, though. The way it works is that both Wal-Mart and Brand X would chip in (usually through their insurers) to pay the total amount due to you. The flip side of that coin is that if one defendant pays the full amount (say Brand X is broke or only has $1 million in insurance and assets against a $20 million jury award) you get your money from whoever has it. Then, Wal-Mart is entitled to get $10 million out of Brand X’s hide, assuming Brand X still has a hide to get something out of.
The above scenario usually plays out in situations where smaller retailers get caught up in cases involving products from large companies. Generally the manufacturer and/or distributor have deeper pockets (more assets and better insurance) than the mom-and-pop retailer, so the manufacturer and/or distributor usually pay the damages with the retailer chipping in what they can. However, if the other defendants can’t chip in, the defendant with the deepest pocket is on the hook for the whole megilla.
Before I left private practice for a gummint job, part of my work involved representing people injured by defective products. Part of the discovery process before trial is tracking down the chain of distribution to see who made and handled the product between the manufacturer and retailer so that everyone in the chain of distribution can be named as a defendant. That way, even if one of the defendants is insolvent or out of business or tries to hide behind a bankruptcy, there is someone in the suit with insurance or assets sufficient to cover the client’s losses.
Not knowing all the facts, I can’t really comment on the example your teacher gave you, but it seems like the guy there might have run up against another problem. For example, the statute of limitations might have run, leaving him unable to file suit against the true tortfeasor. As a general rule though, the store would be on the hook for the tainted chicken they sold in your example.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I hope it helps to clear things up.
Yer pal,
Zappo
Ahhhhh, fun with res judicata and collateral estoppel (sometimes known as claim preclusion and issue preclusion), that blisteringly exciting chapter in law school civil procedure class.
In Anglo-American jurisprudence you can sue as many parties as you believe may be at fault, in whole or in part, with regard to a particular transaction or occurrance. In fact, the most effective legal strategy is usually to try to bring as many parties as reasonably possible into a suit so that if fault is distributed among them, you will have everyone responsible. This is sometimes known as the shotgun approach on the theory that you’re more likely to get a hit by firing a large number of pellets out of a shotgun than a single bullet from a rifle.
The reason for this this is in some cases, if you bring a suit against one party for a particular transaction or occurrance and you lose, in many cases any later suit on the same matter will be disallowed based on the the judicial doctrine of res judicata (“a matter adjudged”). This doctrine holds that once a particular matter has come before a court once and was properly decided on its merits, the matter cannot be raised in another court. If a plaintiff sued once and neglected to include the actual party at fault, the plaintiff will generally not be permitted to start another suit (though this is a really tricky doctrine with some ugly twists and turns).
So, in short, you can sue as many people as you can reasonably drag in in a single suit, but you cannot commence multiple successive suits to try to get the right party.
In addition, suing family members for accidents is quite common, particularly where insurance is involved. In the case discussed, it is likely that the plainitff’s mother would be covered by her auto insurance, so any recovery against her mother would be paid by the insurance company.
Thank y’all for the info.
My god. That was the gifted class. And they gave us misinformation. That school district was a pit.
According to the links given in here, the coffee was at 180-190 F - much too hot, but not superheated.
And isn’t it pretty well known that the hotter water produces a much better tasting coffee? In fact, isn’t somewhere around 200 F the “ideal” temperature? Isn’t it at all possible that that might have had some influence?
True, they should not serve it at that hot of a temperature at all. But I don’t think you can fault the production process that much, can you?
From Turbo Dog:
What method do you use to see how hot it is? I am sure you do not carry a pocket thermometer! Do you stick your finger in it?? What if you stuck your finger in it and your finger received third degree burns. What then? Probably time to sue, don’t you think?
Do you people undertand what a third degree burns is??? This is not a spilled coffee on my lap burn (or at least, it shouldn’t be). It is charred flesh and nerve damage with permanent scarring. If it was hot enough to fuse her vagina, what do you think it would do to your finger? If you stuck your finger in there and all the skin melted off, would you simply say, "Damn that’s vagina fusing hot! Better let it set a while while I put a bandaid on what’s left of my finger…
When a person takes a cup of coffee, they handle it with a certain degree of carefulness. They expect that if there is an accident and they spill, they might receive a burn that would last a day or two, maybe a week tops. The coffee served to the lady in the first case was at a much higher danger level. Honestly, if she would have known that spilling said coffee would have done so much damage, she would have been a lot more careful.
She owed a duty of care to you. She intentionally decieved you by placing a straw in a hot beverage. I’m sure you have endured unimaginable suffering, both physical and emotional.
I think we can collect a huge judgement. I will take the case for a modest retainer.
[sub]I think we have an excellent case against the straw manufacturer, as well.[/sub]
Am I the only here who read that and heard the Monty Python “Crunchy Frog” routine run through my head? You know the line, “When people pop a nice chocky in their mouth, they don’t want their cheeks pierced!” As has been stated, you expect a cup of coffee to be hot, not vagina fusing hot! There’s a difference. (Its a matter of degree. Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.)
Thanks, Spooje! You’re right, I HAVE suffered intensly! The physical pain has disabled me from performing oral sex (or even aural, as you-know-who has very sensitive earlobes!). Therefore I am now unable to fulfill my manly duties. 
And the emotional pain and suffering! Indescribable! I may never recover… I may need extensive therapy; preferably of the oral kind, I you know what I mean (wink, wink…nudge, nudge).
As for your retainer, I will broach the subject with her… but I suspect she’s gonna smack me upside the head. [sup]perhaps another suit??[/sup]