HOT COFFEE!

My issue is a little different. All you "get government out of my life" types want to take out a jury of my peers and set government caps to protect corps? Seems contradictory. If you believe in "markets" why not let the corps and their customers pay? Just don't get it.

jmc wrote: My issue is a little different. All you "get government out of my life" types want to take out a jury of my peers and set government caps to protect corps? Seems contradictory. If you believe in "markets" why not let the corps and their customers pay? Just don't get it.

They don't get it either- They are told what to say, and they repeat it...And as long they wave thier little flags while giving away our rights- in thier minds, they are the real freedom lovers..

Something the Dog Said wrote: It is also a known factor that liquids above 180 degrees will cause significant skin damage, and that no but a complete fool would drink coffee at 212 degrees F or expect it to be served at that temperature. McDonald's own expert testified that of course liquid above 180 degrees would cause severe injuries, but McDonalds as a corporate policy insisted on serving it at 190 degrees, even while receiving hundreds of complaints of injuries from this practice. Experts sampled coffee at all neighboring resteraunts found that no other company served coffee within 20 degrees of McDonalds.

Hundreds of complaints on over a billion cups of coffee sold and served. Significant numbers indeed. That has already been addressed. A 7 in 10 million chance of being injured is certainly a statistical certainty sufficient for a jackpot jury award.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Do you really believe that a reasonable person would expect that coffee served to them is at a temperature that can cause third degree burns on 16% of your body requiring extensive skin grafts and reconstructive surgery? I don't. But go ahead and continue to be a corporate tool relying upon speculation and conjecture while ignoring the actual facts. McDonalds served a highly dangerous product at a temperature well above normal while aware that it could cause serious danger. I expect that when I spill coffee on myself that it will scald, with minor burning, not serious life threatening harm.

And I would expect your expectation would apply only in an instance of momentary contact such as spilling it on your hand. Prolonged contact with a hot liquid such as saturated cotton clothing clinging to the skin, would be expected to do much more than scald. The "highly dangerous" product that McDonald's sold was statistically safer than the automobile you drive each and every day. Shall we allow each and every person injured as a result of their own recklessness behind the wheel to sue the manufacturer of the automobile because their product poses a much more significant danger to the consumer than a cup of hot coffee? Should an injured driver be eligible for a jackpot jury award because their expectations of their safety turned out to be in error either through ignorance or presumption of a reality that doesn't exist as well?

I'm gonna lose my right to my day in court because Mcdonalds had to pay someone 50k for severely burning them? ...You ask soldiers to die for our rights but we can't ask Mcdonals to be subjected to the decision of 12 jurors?

FU

Vice Lord wrote: I posted the Truth about the Mcdonalds Coffeee case about 10 years ago on one of the local boards and its been revisited numerous times since then so I did'nt care to read this thread and cover this ground again, but...Just leave it to a jury of our peers!.. And watch the show. You don't hand someone in a car a cup of boiling fluid in a paper cup and not expect at least some of them to get severely injured, and a real American trusts the jury system and doesn't volentarily give up our right to have our day in court. If its a frivolous lawsuit you can be sure some people hating, corporate puppets like yourselves will be on the jury to shoot it down.. You right wing lemmings act like "we the people can't be trusted", but Corporate America can?

Where'd you Morons get that idea?

AM radio?

PrintSmith wrote:

Something the Dog Said wrote: It is also a known factor that liquids above 180 degrees will cause significant skin damage, and that no but a complete fool would drink coffee at 212 degrees F or expect it to be served at that temperature. McDonald's own expert testified that of course liquid above 180 degrees would cause severe injuries, but McDonalds as a corporate policy insisted on serving it at 190 degrees, even while receiving hundreds of complaints of injuries from this practice. Experts sampled coffee at all neighboring resteraunts found that no other company served coffee within 20 degrees of McDonalds.

Hundreds of complaints on over a billion cups of coffee sold and served. Significant numbers indeed. That has already been addressed. A 7 in 10 million chance of being injured is certainly a statistical certainty sufficient for a jackpot jury award.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Do you really believe that a reasonable person would expect that coffee served to them is at a temperature that can cause third degree burns on 16% of your body requiring extensive skin grafts and reconstructive surgery? I don't. But go ahead and continue to be a corporate tool relying upon speculation and conjecture while ignoring the actual facts. McDonalds served a highly dangerous product at a temperature well above normal while aware that it could cause serious danger. I expect that when I spill coffee on myself that it will scald, with minor burning, not serious life threatening harm.

And I would expect your expectation would apply only in an instance of momentary contact such as spilling it on your hand. Prolonged contact with a hot liquid such as saturated cotton clothing clinging to the skin, would be expected to do much more than scald. The "highly dangerous" product that McDonald's sold was statistically safer than the automobile you drive each and every day. Shall we allow each and every person injured as a result of their own recklessness behind the wheel to sue the manufacturer of the automobile because their product poses a much more significant danger to the consumer than a cup of hot coffee? Should an injured driver be eligible for a jackpot jury award because their expectations of their safety turned out to be in error either through ignorance or presumption of a reality that doesn't exist as well?

So it is ok to sell a product that performs dangerously if the statics are small enough? As the jury stated, each one of those 700 individuals that were severely burned were persons who had a story to tell. And once again you only conjecture and speculate while ignoring the facts. The facts are according to the experts who testified in front of the jury, is that contact with a liquid at 190 degrees poses a much greater risk of injury than contact with a liquid below 160 degrees, which is the industry standard (135 - 160) and which is the temperature at which a person would reasonably expect their coffee to be served. As to your statement about the clothing, do you really expect that most individuals only handle coffee while completely nude? Any spill of a liquid can be expected to saturate the clothing of the individual.

The Pinto case was a landmark case in that a corporation can not use a statistical sample to disregard their duty in regard to harm to their customers. That is why punitive damages are allowed in cases where the wrongdoer willfully disregards the harm their wrongdoing can inflict, regardless of the statistical sample.

The fact is that McDonalds served a product that was dangerously hot relative to the industry standard, and that could be expected to inflict severe life threatening injuries. You failed to answer my question on whether a reasonable person would consider a liquid served at a temperature that can create life threatening third degree burns on 16% of their body if accidentally spilled on their body to be safe when the normal expectation of such a liquid is twenty degrees less which would cause much less injury. Can you realistically answer that question to be yes? Of course not.

To claim that this poor woman who had life threatening injuries, requiring multiple skin grafts and reconstructive surgery over months of recuperation is only after a "jackpot" is hideously callous.

Something the Dog Said wrote: To claim that this poor woman who had life threatening injuries, requiring multiple skin grafts and reconstructive surgery over months of recuperation is only after a "jackpot" is hideously callous.

But sooooo predictable....

Go, ahead PS... Use "regressive" in a sentence... It makes me hot when you do!...(It works better than "federated government", which I guess you got tired of... ) New word-of-the-week?

jmc wrote: My issue is a little different. All you "get government out of my life" types want to take out a jury of my peers and set government caps to protect corps? Seems contradictory. If you believe in "markets" why not let the corps and their customers pay? Just don't get it.

Are you willing to do the same in every other area of government jmc? Are you willing to let markets decide the cost of health care without government mandates? Are you willing to support taking from the government the power that it has interpreted into existence to prohibit a state within the union from establishing a religion? I'm perfectly happy to return to the states their sovereign power over the welfare of their citizens in all instances - are you willing to do the same? Are you willing to take Social Security and Medicare away from federal control? Willing to allow a farmer to grow whatever crops for his own use that he decides to grow? Willing to allow a state to sell M-16's that were manufactured after 1986 to their citizens?

The reason the federal government gets to put its hands into the issue at all is that it has been allowed to interpret itself into holding virtually unlimited powers over the last 100 years. Are you willing to give all of that up to take away their power in this one area? I am.

I'm not... And since it's a false choice, I wish you well in your tilt at the windmills.

PrintSmith wrote:

jmc wrote: My issue is a little different. All you "get government out of my life" types want to take out a jury of my peers and set government caps to protect corps? Seems contradictory. If you believe in "markets" why not let the corps and their customers pay? Just don't get it.

Are you willing to do the same in every other area of government jmc? Are you willing to let markets decide the cost of health care without government mandates? Are you willing to support taking from the government the power that it has interpreted into existence to prohibit a state within the union from establishing a religion? I'm perfectly happy to return to the states their sovereign power over the welfare of their citizens in all instances - are you willing to do the same? Are you willing to take Social Security and Medicare away from federal control? Willing to allow a farmer to grow whatever crops for his own use that he decides to grow? Willing to allow a state to sell M-16's that were manufactured after 1986 to their citizens?

The reason the federal government gets to put its hands into the issue at all is that it has been allowed to interpret itself into holding virtually unlimited powers over the last 100 years. Are you willing to give all of that up to take away their power in this one area? I am.

yes I am, if given only your ridiculous limited and straw man choice.