The death of common sense

[bosk1]

They knew their coffee was dangerous

  This is the part that makes me weep for society.  Seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you should be careful with hot liquids.  That includes checking how how they are before sipping, and then sipping slowly.  And definitely should include not putting it in your lap.

[ZeppelinDT]

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.   

On what planet are you not allowed to defend yourself from a burglar in your own home?

[73109]

There have been a few instances of burglars suing a dude after falling on some knives in the house he was trying to steal from.

[ZeppelinDT]

They knew their coffee was dangerous

  This is the part that makes me weep for society.  Seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you should be careful with hot liquids.  That includes checking how how they are before sipping, and then sipping slowly.  And definitely should include not putting it in your lap.

I guess, but I mean, realistically if you bought coffee would you expect it to be SO hot that it could give you third degree burns through your clothing?

[ZeppelinDT]

There have been a few instances of burglars suing a dude after falling on some knives in the house he was trying to steal from.

That doesn't mean they won.  Find me one case where this actually happened and the burglar won.

[73109]

I think they have...I'm too lazy to check. I don't agree with the OP, so whatever.

[hefdaddy42]

Some key points from the article I read which I no longer have:

- The coffee wasn't just hot. It was 185 degrees and it was supposed to be between 120 and 130 (I'm pretty sure this was violating a law).

- The lady spilled it on her lap. If it was 155 degrees, it would have done nothing, but because it was 185 degrees, it gave her permanent physical damage.

- At 185 degrees, the coffee was actually burning people's throats who drank it straight away. So, between 1982 and 1991, there were 700 cases of McDonald's coffee burning people in some way or another.

I don't think this information will sway that many people, but I think some important points to take away from this are:

1) McDonald's was not innocent in all this. They knew their coffee was dangerous for nine years and did nothing about it.

2) The media way oversimplifies things, and over time those oversimplifications stick.

I don't know that the temperature violated law, but it definitely violated internal policy and industry standards that had been set for this very reason.  And another point is that she didn't initially want to take this to court.  She asked to settle the case solely for the amount of money necessary to cover her medical fees.  But because this had happened so many times before (i.e., people burning themselves on McDonalds' unnecessarily hot coffee), McDonald's basically said "screw you, we're sick of having to pay people for this.  If you want your money, sue us".  So she did.  And she won.  As she should have.  And yeah, the jury rewarded her an absurdly high reward, as juries usually do.  And as is usually the case, the reward actually paid out was reduced significantly.  But people prefer to quote the initial amount rather than the actual amount, as that makes it seem more shocking.

This case is the perfect example of a straw man argument - people love to just distort and simplify the facts in order to argue against it so that they can get their point across without having to actually think.

edit:  Note also that it was a lot more than "a woman spilled a little coffee in her lap".  She was like a 70-year woman and the coffee was so scalding hot that, even through her pants, it gave her serious burns (3rd degree maybe?) across her entire inner thigh/groin area.

Cool, thanks for the info.

[ZeppelinDT]

I think they have...I'm too lazy to check. I don't agree with the OP, so whatever.

I'm fairly confident it never happened.  These things always get ridiculously distorted.  You're 100% allowed to defend yourself in your own home.  What you AREN'T allowed to do is to use excessive force to defend your property when you yourself aren't in danger.  For example, you wake up in the middle of the night, you find some stranger coming at you in the dark, so you shoot him.  Probably ok.  However, you wake up, you see some stranger, they see you, they grab your wallet and start running away.  You shoot him in the back.  Not ok.

But the way that the media tends to interpret these things is that scenario 2 is what ACTUALLY happened but scenario 1 is what they SAY happened.  Hence these silly assumptions and misconceptions are created.

[TheOutlawXanadu]

They knew their coffee was dangerous

  This is the part that makes me weep for society.  Seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you should be careful with hot liquids.  That includes checking how how they are before sipping, and then sipping slowly.  And definitely should include not putting it in your lap.

I agree, but I also think that McDonald's has a responsibility to their customers to say, "On the rare occasion someone screws up and sips our coffee too fast or puts our coffee on their lap and spills it, we need to make sure it won't seriously harm them!"