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How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

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Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#151

Post by DanBC »

crusso wrote: post #148
chimeracoder wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. I'm not going to link to them directly because they're very gruesome (as well as slightly NSFW[0]), but if you Google "mcdonalds coffee burn", they're the first things that pop up. We're talking burns far beyond anything I assume (hope) you've ever experienced. This case in particular is one that irks me, because it's ve…

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. At least two people in this thread want me to stare at grisly pictures. Yes, they're awful. I sympathize with the lady for having to go through that pain. That said, I can point you to grisly pictures of car accidents, gun accidents, and animal attacks all day. What does that have to do with understanding the nature of r…

Good coffee does not come from McDonalds.

Other places were sucessfully selling coffee at a lower temperature than McDonalds. While burns are still possible at those lower temperature a few extra seconds would have given her time to remove her clothing which would have eeduced the severity of the burns.

People are not pushing personal responsibility onto McDonalds - McDonalds took responsibility when they admitted that they preferred to settle 700 cases (some including full thickness burns) out of court than adjust their procedures.

Your personal preference is for undrinkably hot coffee. McDonalds could have offered two temperatures - regular and extra hot. Someone asking for extra hot is taking personal responsibilty for that choice, and is declaring that they know the liquid is very hot.

(About those 700 burns, including full thickness burns: full thickness burns are a medical emergency. They can be fatal. They require specialist medical attention involving painful procedures that leave scarring and possibly loss of function. McDonalds made a careful conscious choice that allowing these burns to continue and then settling costs out of court was preferable to complying with national advice about beveridge temperature. You are asking people to take responsibility for their actions: the jury decided to make McDonalds responsible for that choice.

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#152

Post by stuki »

DanBC wrote: post #100
stuki wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as she didn't specifically ask for coffee served at a specific temperature, McDonald's had no way of knowing what temperature she preferred. What McDonald's did have, however, was a way to estimate what temperature it's customers in general prefer their coffee served at. Roadside Coffee is, after all, a pretty competitive market. If you're too far off temperature wise, people go elsewhere. Hence, by the standards…

> What McDonald's did have, however, was a way to estimate what temperature it's customers in general prefer their coffee served at. Roadside Coffee is, after all, a pretty competitive market. If you're too far off temperature wise, people go elsewhere. Yes. They had 700 previous burns cases that they settled out of court (including some very serious full thickness burns). They were serving coffee that they admitted…

And they did all this despite their paying customers not wanting their coffee that way? Simply because they wanted to, above else, be as nasty as they could to people, never mind lost sales, complaints, court fees and what have you?

In other words, the corporate culture of their coffee operation is not greedy, as often assumed, but specifically sadistic. Happy to suffer lost sales and revenue, higher legal fees, and a shattered reputation, just for the pleasure of burning people?

It would be interesting to see the kind of interview processes that managed to maintain that kind of a corporate culture despite all the churn inherent in minimum wage job environments.

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#153

Post by chimeracoder »

sumedh wrote: post #147
nemo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the actual trial history. Your analogies don't reflect what actually happened, which is why you can't understand it. Liebeck was hospitalized for 8 days with multiple skin grafts. She asked asked McDonalds for medical expenses from the injury from the coffee and lost wages ( At that point she got an attorney. They tried to settle. McDonalds refused. In the trial it came out that McDonalds had more than 700 repor…

> punitive damages of the profits of two day's sales of coffee (which the judge reduced) Why did the judge reduce the penalty and what is the point of the jury giving a penalty fee which the judge can reduce later?

I'm not sure of the judge's reasoning here, but in some cases there is a statutory limit on the damages that can be awarded[0]. So a jury can award any amount that they see fit, but that will be reduced to the maximum amount permissible by law.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7727175

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#154

Post by SilasX »

akira2501 wrote: post #39
crusso wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm still someone who doesn't get it. Coffee is brewed hot (195 - 205 degrees F), and I personally like it to be freshly brewed as I drink it. As I very carefully sipped my fresh Starbucks coffee today at the mall, I was very conscious of the fact that I had a hot beverage in my hand. If I had accidentally spilled the coffee on myself or others it could have caused some serious burns... who else's fault would…

The jury made a number of findings in the case, one of which was that the warning on the cup wasn't large enough nor sufficient enough to convey the dangers of the temperature of coffee that they serve. I'm sure they also took into consideration that Stella Liebeck originally asked for $20,000 for damages and had tried to negotiate several times before the case went to trial; she clearly went to some length to avoid…

>The jury made a number of findings in the case, one of which was that the warning on the cup wasn't large enough nor sufficient enough to convey the dangers of the temperature of coffee that they serve.

So what warning difference resulted from this case? And would Liebeck really have acted any differently had that been the warning all along?

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#155

Post by crusso »

DanBC wrote: post #151
crusso wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. At least two people in this thread want me to stare at grisly pictures. Yes, they're awful. I sympathize with the lady for having to go through that pain. That said, I can point you to grisly pictures of car accidents, gun accidents, and animal attacks all day. What does that have to do with understanding the nature of r…

Good coffee does not come from McDonalds. Other places were sucessfully selling coffee at a lower temperature than McDonalds. While burns are still possible at those lower temperature a few extra seconds would have given her time to remove her clothing which would have eeduced the severity of the burns. People are not pushing personal responsibility onto McDonalds - McDonalds took responsibility when they admitted th…

Good coffee does not come from McDonalds.

Well, okay, we can agree on that; but "safe temperature" McDonalds coffee is even worse than hot McDonalds coffee.

when they admitted that they preferred to settle 700 cases

There's no business on earth that does McDonald's level of product distribution that doesn't have hundreds or thousands of attempted baseless suits. It still says nothing about whether or not McDonalds was distributing a product that its customers wanted in the way they thought their customers wanted it - and whether or not they're responsible for resulting mishaps.

McDonalds could have offered two temperatures

As though the woman didn't have the choice to not order coffee at all? The woman could have made the decision to go into McDonalds and cool it herself by putting cream in the coffee or even a piece of ice. McDonalds did not force her to buy coffee on that day.

full thickness burns are a medical emergency. They can be fatal

A car accident over the speed of 50mph (for argument's sake) can be fatal too. Would you suggest that any auto manufacturer that offers an automobile that goes over 50mph is responsible for any accidents that occur at that speed?

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#156

Post by SilasX »

jemfinch wrote: post #113
stuki wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what kind of reputation, do you think an Amazon seller who makes potential customers sign "no review" contracts, will get? There's nothing magical about the medical field, that makes approaches developed elsewhere somewhat irrelevant there. It's just another fee for service arrangement. Although many Doctors do like to fancy themselves as special snowflakes.

> There's nothing magical about the medical field, that makes approaches developed elsewhere somewhat irrelevant there. There absolutely is something different about medicine: consumers' participation in the medical market is involuntary . We don't see doctors because we want to see doctors, we see doctors because if we don't, we will be maimed or killed by disease or dysfunction. By the time people are seeking a doc…

You could say the same thing about many goods. For example, "I'm purchasing food, not because I really want it, but because I need it to exist. Therefore, no one should be able to use review systems to decide which food to buy. [or make a profit, or be run by private corporations, or whatever other remedy is merited because of the human need for food]."

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#157

Post by rayiner »

stuki wrote: post #68
tzs wrote: post #36

"Tort reform" can seriously screw over people, because the parties that tend to favor tort reform (by which they mean greatly limiting the ability of people to sue and/or the amount they can win if they do sue) also tend to favor limiting government regulation and oversight. That can leave nothing to compensate for the removal of the deterrence factor that the threat of lawsuits provides against bad corporate or prof…

Reputation systems, reviews and properly skeptical consumers, are what to aim for, in determining who is good and who is not. Whether for restaurants or doctors. Not frightfully pricey lawyers and other coercive, after-the-fact institutions. And, in the most egregious of cases, say McDonald's spiked granny's coffee with a hand grenade, the criminal courts get involved as a last ditch anyway. Reliance on civil courts…

Mandatory no-fault insurance would be better than reputation systems for medical care. I think people hand-wave around whether reputation systems work for low-probability but catastrophic avoidable error.

Also, the whole "greedy lawyer" trope is a wonderful bit of social engineering. Companies figure out how to save or make money while creating risk for consumers and bystanders, and its the lawyers that are greedy. Ford saves billions making a less safe car, and its the plaintiffs' lawyers that are greedy because they make money seeking compensation for the people that get hurt by that decision.

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#158

Post by mirkules »

crusso wrote: post #148
chimeracoder wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. I'm not going to link to them directly because they're very gruesome (as well as slightly NSFW[0]), but if you Google "mcdonalds coffee burn", they're the first things that pop up. We're talking burns far beyond anything I assume (hope) you've ever experienced. This case in particular is one that irks me, because it's ve…

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. At least two people in this thread want me to stare at grisly pictures. Yes, they're awful. I sympathize with the lady for having to go through that pain. That said, I can point you to grisly pictures of car accidents, gun accidents, and animal attacks all day. What does that have to do with understanding the nature of r…

Thank you. I simply cannot fathom why people seem to believ that service providers can be held liable for their own stupid decisions. Putting hot coffee in your lap is a stupid decision.

When I was a kid, I got a pretty decent electric shock from a neighbor's improperly mounted doorbell. The doorbell did not work, so I flipped it over (it was dangling on some wires) and tried to fix it on the spot (as if I knew what I was doing...) and got shocked.

From that moment on, I knew not to touch exposed wires. I knew that it was my own damn fault for touching the wires and getting shocked. My parents got really angry at my neighbors for having exposed wires like that, but I was scolded too for doing something I had no business doing.

The point is if the coffee lady had any common sense she would not have put coffee between her legs (I feel bad for her injuries as any person would, but I still fail to see McDonalds' responsibility here). The worst thing to happen to our judicial system isn't the hot coffee case - it's shifting the onus of personal responsibility to the service or product providers.

edit: I'm speaking strictly about the hot coffee case and ones similar to it. The article goes on about medical cases which are obviously much more complex

Re: How A Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment

#159

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

mirkules wrote: post #158
crusso wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you jump to that conclusion, please take a look at the actual pictures of Liebeck's burns. At least two people in this thread want me to stare at grisly pictures. Yes, they're awful. I sympathize with the lady for having to go through that pain. That said, I can point you to grisly pictures of car accidents, gun accidents, and animal attacks all day. What does that have to do with understanding the nature of r…

Thank you. I simply cannot fathom why people seem to believ that service providers can be held liable for their own stupid decisions. Putting hot coffee in your lap is a stupid decision. When I was a kid, I got a pretty decent electric shock from a neighbor's improperly mounted doorbell. The doorbell did not work, so I flipped it over (it was dangling on some wires) and tried to fix it on the spot (as if I knew what…

People take risks. No-one is going to eliminate all risk from their life. People modify their behaviour according to the risk involved. Putting hot coffee in your lap is a risk, but the level of risk depends on exactly how hot that coffee is. No-one wants coffee of any temperature soaking their lap, but coffee that causes 3rd-degree burns is a lot different from coffee that hurts a bit. I would personally try to avoid spilling coffee in my lap, but I would treat coffee very differently if I knew it would cause 3rd-degree burns, and I would not expect any coffee served to me to ever be that hot. Maybe I'm partly to blame for my own ignorance, but it also seems reasonable that McDonald's either a) remove that risk by serving coffee at a lower temperature b) mitigate that risk by informing customers just how dangerous the coffee they're serving is when in contact with skin.
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