Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

priceonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 196 posts

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

#71

Post by aaronem »

Karunamon wrote: post #52
aaronem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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,…

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?

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

#72

Post by PhasmaFelis »

everyone wrote: post #45

I regard that as a frivolous lawsuit. As unfortunate as the outcome was, simply put it was her own damn fault. If McDonalds provided her with the coffee with no defects (to the cup for instance) then there was no negligence on their part. Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself. What is the difference between that and selling someone a hammer and then they crush their hand with it?…

> Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself.

If I sell you shampoo with hydrochloric acid in it, and some gets in your eyes and you're permanently blinded, should I be held blameless because "obviously getting soap in your eyes hurts?"

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

#73

Post by karmajunkie »

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…

The problem with that theory is that many doctors require patients to sign documents that prohibit online reviews, and many "bad reviews" from patients are somewhat frivolous. So reputation management is largely worthless in the medical field.

Additionally, in Texas for example, tort reform has done nothing to limit costs of healthcare (though it has made malpractice insurance much cheaper, which makes life nice for doctors and their insurers.)

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

#74

Post by Karunamon »

aaronem wrote: post #71
Karunamon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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?

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.

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

#75

Post by aaronem »

travisp wrote: post #33
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…

>Starbucks coffee is not served anywhere near that hot. True, it's usually not, although it's considered a "hack" to get better coffee to ask for hotter coffee from Starbucks (so that your drink stays warm in the cold and when you are taking your coffee with you): http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-drink-extra-hot-201... The National Coffee Association recommends brewing between 195 and 205 and holding around 1…

Have you ever had McDonalds coffee? It's not as though we're talking about the stuff you get after it's been through a civet cat's digestive system, where it's scarce and expensive and you really want to extract it at the recommended 200 degrees Fahrenheit to get every last molecule you can of the volatiles out of the beans, so that you aren't wasting your investment.

McDonalds coffee, conversely, is just plain old shit. It's the worst coffee I've ever had, and that is saying quite a lot. If you've ever tasted it, you know that they could brew it at 200, 180, or 140, and it's still going to taste just as godawful. There is absolutely no reason they need to be passing it out the drive-through window at temperatures high enough to peel skin and poach flesh if the half-awake minimum-wage worker who poured it didn't pop the lid on quite right -- or if, while taking the cup and getting it settled into the console, you fail to pay the sort of attention commensurate to a potentially life-threatening process which you probably didn't realize was potentially life-threatening.

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

#76

Post by andrewguenther »

mindslight wrote: post #54
andrewguenther wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we wouldn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Different people enjoy their coffee at different temperatures. Those who enjoy drinking steam should be able to make that choice without being "protected" from themselves. I'd love it if the serving temperature of the coffee became more of a prominent option - I personally have to let freshly brewed coffee sit for ~20 minutes to be drinkable, and I even go so far as to delay adding cream (if I am going to) so that it…

Did you miss the part where the coffee was hot enough to melt skin and incur third degree burns? If you want that, then yes, I would say you need to be protected from yourself.

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

#77

Post by dthal »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #7

The only part of the bill of rights that hasn't been under relentless attack in the last few decades has been the 3rd Amendment. I'm sure if we give it time that'll happen soon enough too.

Well...there is this case: http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/05/nevada-family-says-police-... EDIT: erased one of two links

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

#78

Post by stuki »

DanBC wrote: post #66
everyone wrote: post #45

I regard that as a frivolous lawsuit. As unfortunate as the outcome was, simply put it was her own damn fault. If McDonalds provided her with the coffee with no defects (to the cup for instance) then there was no negligence on their part. Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself. What is the difference between that and selling someone a hammer and then they crush their hand with it?…

People might expect coffee to be hot, but they do not expect the coffee to be hot enough to kill. She suffered full thickness burns. This is a significant wound. The burns were on her legs and genitals. That turns it into a medical emergency - rush to nearest hospital, let them stabilize you and send you to a different hospital that specializes in burns. Also, the car was not moving at the time of the accident.

Any coffee heated to the point where it is still drinkable at the end of a 20 minute commute, will be hot enough to kill if poured straight down your throat in one gulp. It is up to the customer to have some sort of clue.

I am pretty sure that when granny makes coffee herself at home, she makes it at least as hot as McDonalds serves it. Whistling kettles and all.

In a country of millions of people doing stuff, sometimes the stars align wrong for someone, and they get hurt. It doesn't have to, and in fact rarely is, someones "fault." It wasn't granny's "fault" that this one time she fumbled the lid and spilled coffee. Given enough tries, sooner or later anyone would, as it is a positive probability outcome. But neither is the probability of it happening large enough to say McDonald's was "at fault" of something. Stuff happens. Sometimes nice stuff, sometime less so. No need to feed a lawyer army either way.

It's the same silly obsession with finding who's "at fault" that underpins the enormously inefficient (except for, again, for lawyers) "at fault" car accident insurance schemes in place in most states. Despite most accidents and other mishaps being the result of all manners of complicated, best modeled as random, factors. None of which are a specific party's "fault."

But of course, there's the old adage about most people ending up in law school, do so because they couldn't hack math well enough to ever get into the complex systems classes....:)

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

#79

Post by aaronem »

mindslight wrote: post #63
malandrew wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, establishments shouldn't even serve liquids in inadequate containers. Either the customer should provide their own travel mug (such as a zojirushi or thermos nissan mug) or they should provide much safer disposable mugs. The crap cups that McDonalds offers are simply not up to the task. If necessary, they can do the same thing as SF does with the bag fee: -- coffee in your own mug costs like 69 to 99 cents. -- c…

As much as I'd like to see less general waste, it's important to keep in mind that any large disposable hot coffee cup is a flimsy piece junk with the lid removed, millions are sold per day, those lids even sometimes pop off, and yet we're talking about a 22 year old case for its remarkability .

Is it remarkable because of how rare it is for admittedly insufficient disposable coffee cups to negligently discharge their contents all over their users, or because of how rare it is that such discharge results in life-threatening injuries and years of reconstructive treatment to try to repair destroyed genitals?

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

#80

Post by DanBC »

ensignavenger wrote: post #67
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…

Thats an interesting perspective- any studies that show that Texas doctors are significantly worse than doctors in other states?

The Guardian has an article that walks through the changes. It's pretty shocking. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/texas-legal-doc...

I too am interested to know if this means that there are more bad doctors in Texas. Having a colleague try to take the surgical instruments from you during a surgery because you are so incompetent sounds like an extreme yet the hospital did nothin after that incident.

Post reply on HN