[coolsunglasses]

I read an overview of the facts of the case a few years back, so I'm recalling from a possibly faulty memory.

This coffee was being over-brewed at higher-than-normal temperatures because the McDonalds franchise was being greedy and attempting to extract more coffee out of the grounds.

This exact same franchise had gotten past customer complaints about the dangerously hot coffee burning people.

I and my father have spilled decent amounts of normal temperature coffee on our laps in the car, it barely caused any burns at all, let alone third degree.

The coffee was excessively hot and the franchise was negligent.

[Karunamon]

Likewise with the memory thing, but I think they were brewing it at the National Coffee Association recommended temperature.

Anyways, I don't think the 'greedy' angle has any merit to it. One pack (mcdonalds coffee comes in these premeasured packets) is good for exactly one urn of coffee, and you (and the customer..) will instantly know if you reused it because the result is terrifically light and unpleasant to drink (but this implies McDonalds coffee is pleasant to drink in the first place...)

As far as customer complaints go, McDonalds themselves had hundreds of complaints about hot coffee and burns for many years before this case ever saw the light of day. Those hundreds are a statistical rounding error when you consider how many cups of coffee the restaurant does in a single day that don't result in any problems, let alone years.

[aaronem]

Well, you know, you can get away with poor trigger discipline for years on end without hurting anyone, and then one particularly careless day you negligently discharge your firearm into someone's head. In what way does the former make up for the latter?

[Karunamon]

The fact that 700ish burns in a few years compared against 10ish million cups of coffee a day is a statistical anomaly that doesn't require the intervention of the legal system?

I still disagree with the ruling in that case. They still brew the coffee at the same temperature but now with lawyer safe "Caution: Hot stuff is hot!" markings on the cups. As if anyone with functioning brain cells wasn't aware of this.

Yes, 700 people manage to burn themselves in a few years and meanwhile 3.5 billion in a single year don't have any problem and the problem is obviously with the company selling the coffee instead of the 700 people who mis-handled a cup of scalding hot liquid. Give me a damn break.

[aaronem]

I've argued the substance of the issue elsewhere in this thread, and don't feel a need to restate points which you so evidently have no interest in considering. From a purely pragmatic stance, though, may I suggest you hang your argument for tort reform off some case other than one in which someone's genitals had to be rebuilt more or less from scratch?

[Karunamon]

That tends to happen when you dump hot things where hot things shouldn't go. The same kind of idiocy that leads to the absurd list of obvious warnings on products that we all like to make fun of. Irons warning you not to use them on clothes you're wearing. Baby strollers telling you to remove the baby before collapsing it. Coffee cups telling you the contents may, indeed, be hot.

Is the severity of the self-inflicted injury the rubric by which we judge frivolous lawsuits now?

What cements the case as being meaningless in my mind is the fact that they were not ordered to strengthen their cups or to brew at a lower temperature. That alone tells me that the "danger" here is only encountered by people doing otherwise stupid things. Such as sticking crushable cups of scalding hot liquid between your legs in a situation where your legs will not remain static.

The fact that 12 people could be convinced that a faceless corporation was doing something negligent (which isn't exactly hard on a good day) due to a horrific, but ultimately self-inflicted injury that 99.99999% of people manage to avoid holds precisely nil value in my mind because of the sheer statistics in play.

[DanBC]

> Such as sticking crushable cups of scalding hot liquid between your legs in a situation where your legs will not remain static

You know the car was not moving at the time, right? And that McDonalds changed the warning on the cups and changed the style of cups?

[aaronem]

> What cements the case as being meaningless in my mind is the fact that they were not ordered to strengthen their cups or to brew at a lower temperature.

And if such sanctions had been within the ambit of the jury empaneled, in a civil case, to consider the damages specifically due Stella Liebeck as remedy for her injuries, this statement might actually mean something.

You know, you've got this hilarious sort of completely unintentional doublethink going on that I just can't get enough of. I mean, on the one hand, you're tossing off all the slippery-slope-to-the-nanny-state clichés which are so depressingly common in arguments over this very case -- and on the other hand, you're blithely implying that the very same jury, which you hold in such thinly veiled contempt for having found differently from how you believe you would have in their position, should have had the power not merely to award monetary damages to Ms. Liebeck as they did, but should also have had nigh-untrammeled power to regulate the operations of a world-spanning corporation in whatever fashion they saw fit.

There's a certain essential irreconcilability in these opinions which I think you haven't yet noticed. Did the jury have too much power, or too little? Is the state too nanny, or not nanny enough? It can't be both. Make up your mind!

[mertd]

Coffee is brewed at ~200F. Water boils at 212F. There is not much room there. Most likely, their containers were too hot, not the brewers.