I will have to write-off my rights, if my 20 bucks coffee machine kills me due to using a re-usable cartridge instead of the one blessed by the vendor /s
Consider if kuerig sells a commercial coffee maker to McDonald’s. McDonald’s modified the machine’s hold time to prolong the lifetime of coffee. McDonald’s serves scalding hot coffee to a customer, it spills, she sues.
From kuerig’s perspective it’s a better decision to build a machine that cannot be modified, as they may be at blame and will have to spend millions on lawyer fees proving McDonald’s modified and misused their product.
In that case Kuerig's legal argument would be straightforward:
- The injury due to the coffee burn was due entirely to the elevated temperature.
- The machine would not have served at the scalding temperature had McDonald's not made the modification.
- The modification was specifically made to raise the temperature to a level that turned out to be unsafe.
The question of whether a modification was made would almost certainly come out in court because a McDonald's employee would be unlikely to perjure themselves over it.
Therefore, all the liability would be on McDonald's.
Though I do see your point about legal costs being incurred even if the case of Kuering being completely innocent. It seems that having a culture instilled with a nebulous concept of "liability" encourages people to limit other's ability to take their own risks.
I’m not even sure the liability should be on McDonalds. In stupid America, everyone tries to blame someone. Sometimes it’s just you spilled your own coffee on you. If it was a McDonald’s employee that spilled it on you, different story.
There doesn’t need to be “walk don’t run” signs everywhere, and liability waivers for every activity.
Contemporaneous with the McD coffee case, there was a lady who sued Bunn-O-Matic as the deepest pockets in a similar coffee from a convenience store case. So there’s even settled case law WRT equipment manufacturer liability.
From kuerig’s perspective it’s a better decision to build a machine that cannot be modified, as they may be at blame and will have to spend millions on lawyer fees proving McDonald’s modified and misused their product.