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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

#21

Post by Zigurd »

jqm wrote: post #3

I would say police abuse does appear to be a serious problem and lawsuits are probably the main thing that keep it in check. The departments themselves don't seem to deal with offending officers properly very often. It always pains me to see settlements and the offending officers returning to duty with little repercussion. Interesting article.

Bonding seems like a reasonable solution. If each individual's bonding risk showed up as cost to a PD, there would probably be a sudden interest in body cams and training on how to deescalate situations.

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

#22

Post by crusso »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16
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…

> 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, Starbucks coffee is not served anywhere near that hot. By their corporate guidance, the normal acceptable range of temperature for coffee served to customers is 145-165F. If you poured that in your lap, it would be very unlikely for you to r…

Okay, so let's say it's 165F and I spill a cup on someone. There's still going to be an injury. Scalding burns can occur at temperatures down to 125F or so.

Whose fault is it?

Does Starbucks have to lower the temperature of the coffee they're serving to maybe 115F in order to avoid responsibility? If I spill it in someone's eye, that may still cause an injury. Does Starbucks need to serve their hot coffee at 98.6F?

I don't know. It just starts to sound ridiculous on how sellers are supposed to completely protect us from ourselves when we misuse the products we buy.

WalMart sells guns, and those can be horribly misused quite easily.

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

#23

Post by crusso »

rayiner wrote: post #14
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…

I think one fact that goes ignored is that McD's whole MO is selling coffee to people in cars, a higher risk situation. I think the reasonable temperature to serve coffee in that situation isn't the same as for when you're in a cafe.

I dare say that if you spilled even 130F coffee in your lap while driving down the freeway, you could easily cause a fatal accident.

As a society, do we expect McDonalds to make that decision for us and just not sell coffee in the drive-thru?

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

#24

Post by tbrake »

crusso wrote: post #22
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, Starbucks coffee is not served anywhere near that hot. By their corporate guidance, the normal acceptable range of temperature for coffee served to customers is 145-165F. If you poured that in your lap, it would be very unlikely for you to r…

Okay, so let's say it's 165F and I spill a cup on someone. There's still going to be an injury. Scalding burns can occur at temperatures down to 125F or so. Whose fault is it? Does Starbucks have to lower the temperature of the coffee they're serving to maybe 115F in order to avoid responsibility? If I spill it in someone's eye, that may still cause an injury. Does Starbucks need to serve their hot coffee at 98.6F? I…

I think it should be made clear that someone sympathetic to Liebeck's case is not necessarily in favor of treating all coffee spills the same nor in favor of this transparently constructed slippery slope towards nanny-statism you're building. Nor are they under any compulsion to defend it.

The details of the case are there for all to see and in no way do they paint a picture of common coffee incidents, despite the gratuitously oversimplified and cliched versions pandered to us by a generation of comics.

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

#26

Post by sitkack »

crusso wrote: post #22
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, Starbucks coffee is not served anywhere near that hot. By their corporate guidance, the normal acceptable range of temperature for coffee served to customers is 145-165F. If you poured that in your lap, it would be very unlikely for you to r…

Okay, so let's say it's 165F and I spill a cup on someone. There's still going to be an injury. Scalding burns can occur at temperatures down to 125F or so. Whose fault is it? Does Starbucks have to lower the temperature of the coffee they're serving to maybe 115F in order to avoid responsibility? If I spill it in someone's eye, that may still cause an injury. Does Starbucks need to serve their hot coffee at 98.6F? I…

Why don't you go look at the pictures.

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

#28

Post by mertd »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #9
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…

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 sp…

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.

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

#29

Post by andrewguenther »

crusso wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one fact that goes ignored is that McD's whole MO is selling coffee to people in cars, a higher risk situation. I think the reasonable temperature to serve coffee in that situation isn't the same as for when you're in a cafe.

I dare say that if you spilled even 130F coffee in your lap while driving down the freeway, you could easily cause a fatal accident. As a society, do we expect McDonalds to make that decision for us and just not sell coffee in the drive-thru?

But you're posing a theoretical situation completely different than the one actually involved in the case. McDonalds was grossly negligent in serving their coffee at a temperature well above necessary, hotter than anyone in the industry. Starbucks won't even brew your coffee that hot (if you ask for anything over 180 degrees they may say yes, but won't actually do it).

Much of these cases is based on reasonable expectation. Would you ever expect your coffee to be so hot that it could melt your skin? No.

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

#30

Post by yew »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16
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…

> 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, Starbucks coffee is not served anywhere near that hot. By their corporate guidance, the normal acceptable range of temperature for coffee served to customers is 145-165F. If you poured that in your lap, it would be very unlikely for you to r…

I've found various sources claiming that Starbucks serves coffee at temperatures ranging from ~140 degrees F to ~190 degrees F. Most of these sources claim that their temperature is 'industry-standard'. I haven't been able to find an origin for any of these claims beyond the Specialty Coffee Association of America [0], who claim a standard 'cupping temperature' of 200+-2 degrees F.

Can anyone provide a reliable source for whether or not there is a standard temperature for coffee (and what that temperature is, if it exists)? Obviously, a certain degree of variance is expected based on the time between brewing and serving - if the variance really is ~50 degrees F, I don't see anything wrong with that answer if it's sourced.

[0] http://www.scaa.org/?page=resources&d=cupping-standards

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