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Archiver > BronxRoots > 1998-04 > 0892493140


From: Karen Shaw <>
Subject: Re: I think that I shall never see.....
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:45:40 -0500


ok....so in legalese...if the company was put on notice that a problem
existed and i think 700 people having an issue is sufficient
notice....and the company did nothing to address the issue, then it is
forseeable that what happened would happen again, which is why the
jury was so willing to give the woman a substantial punitive
settlement....the message to mickey d's was "hey, wake up and smell
the coffee!"...for that woman, i am sure it was a not a large enough
award...she probably still has problems with the areas where she was
burned.....and i take a cab to the baby sitter's every morning and i
cannot tell you how many cab drivers (albeit in 15 mph traffic) drive
and drink coffee...the same accident could happen to them if someone
rear ends them, even at that slow speed...my daughter, who is just 2
years old, when she sees the coffee cup says, "coffee!....hot, hot"
Obviously Hattie knows something that those cab drivers do not know!

>>> David S Chesler <> 04/13 2:33 PM >>>
Dominick writes:
> Your're correct in that "dumb" things do not absolve people
from
> liability in all cases. However, I don't think the acid scenario
applies
> because the results would have been more severe if you were to drink
the acid.

More severe than what? We can poke around hypotheticals, but the
key fact is that something MacDonald's did, that it should not have
done, made the injuries worse (arguably five times worse) than they
would have bee had it not done that thing. Further, the plaintiff
was willing to settle for a lot less.

> The point is, placing a hot cup of coffee in that area of the
body would
> have disasterous results even at a cooler temperature.

The point is, the results would not have been nearly so disasterous
if MacDonald's coffee were served at a temperature closer to the
temperature that other commercial coffee is served -- and a lot fewer
than 700 other people would have been burned in the past.
Coffee requires a certain level of diligence. More than that
required for a glass of milk, less than that required for a crucible
of molten lead. The jury found that to a large degree the woman
exercised the degree of diligence appropriate to normal coffee, and
that 20% of her $200,000 in damages, pain, and suffereing was due
to her error, and 80% due to MacDonald's.

Winning punitives is like winning the lottery, but like the lottery,
if there weren't that big jackpot you get to keep if you win, nobody
would play. Punitives put companies on notice; that plaintiffs get
to keep punitives encourages plaintiffs to bring lawsuits against
companies that are doing wrong.

> The topic of
> discussion is the increase of frivilous lawsuits. It also seems
that there is
> no personal responsibility in anything anymore. There is an
apparent attitute
> that it always has to be someone else's fault.

Agreed, but this case (the one I was thinking about where the
plaintiff
was a passenger in a parked car, wearing sweatpants, not the one where
the plaintiff was wearing a skirt) is a bad example of a frivolous
lawsuit.

} Hey Bob,
} Let me tell you something. Everthing I said about the coffee
suit was
} 100% accurate and factual. There was not one word in my story that
was false.
} If you are familiar with the story, and have something to add to it
- why not
} just do so? Apparently, you read something that I did not.
}
} I challenge you to name one thing that I stated that is not
factual. You
} had something to ADD to the story, you did not change anything I
said because
} of any inaccuracies.

Obviously Dominick is thinking about a _different_ case than the
Liebeck
case. Some names and dates could be helpful here. The facts Dominick
mentioned are not true of the Liebeck case.

- David Chesler (, etc.
http://world.std.com/~chesler)

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