Yes, especially ever since that woman won her “whaaaaaa the coffee was hot” lawsuit.

There is a lot of power and money in class-action suits especially. Mass torte lawyers advertise and go after a lot of clients to sue, mainly based on assumption that corporations will cave and settle. Who benefits? Not the “victims”.

We’re tapping into a limited fund. It hurts all of us.

I had a client that had a customer go out into his garage work area. It was off limits to anyone but employees. The customer got his foot under the car lift and it crunched his foot. He got a ride to the emergency room, but he stopped on the way to see his lawyer

It’s a substitute for common sense. Everything is always someone else’s fault.

Who wouldn’t want a chance at getting an unreasonable of money?

@WillWorkForChocolate She got 3rd degree burns on her crotch. 3RD DEGREE BURNS and had to have skin grafting. That’s RIDICULOUSLY hot coffee, like thermonuclear hot.

If I were to offer to pay you to allow me to pour scalding hot liquid onto your crotch that would result in over 6% of your total skin surface receiving 3rd degree burns and you’d need skin grafts and have to be hospitalized for 8 days, how much would I have to pay you to sign up for that? Would you agree to that for a million dollars? Flesh-melting hot water, 3rd degree burns, on your crotch?

Here’s a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants.

…And to answer the OP’s question, yes I think people are too quick to sue.

I was just about to post what @gorillapaws said about the coffee lady. She’s used as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, but I think it’s MORE than reasonable to expect not to get third degree burns and skin grafts on your crotch from a cup of coffee.

I do think people are too quick to sue these days as well. That post you mention kind of made me mad. I mean, WTF? There was some other post a few days back where someone wanted to sue over something that was a shame – a tragedy, but really nobody’s fault. I wish I could remember the details.

Often people start law suits out of frustration, when what they really want is an acknowledgment of culpability and an apology.

It has been that way for a while now; we are a very litiginous (sp?) society.

@gorillapaws My issue with that lawsuit is that I expect coffee to be really hot, and I’m not stupid enough to hold it between my legs.

Attorneys gotta pay for their summer homes somehow.

@WillWorkForChocolate I spilled McDonalds coffee on my lap once. I “only” got second degree burns, but I wasn’t holding it between my legs. I tried to drink it and got startled at how hot it was and spilled it in surprise. It’s not QUITE as hot as it used to be, but still damn hot enough to get burns without sticking it between your legs.

I don’t know if these are true or not, but they’re still amusing to read. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/37088823/2005-Stella-Awards-(PowerPoint)

@keobooks That is exactly why I always add two ice cubes to my coffee before drinking it or driving off with it. Even at home. Coffee is always scalding hot. That’s just plain common sense to me.

I tried asking for a small coffee in a large cup, but the workers get baffled. They’d probably get baffled with ice cube requests. Now I always order and then pour out a bunch and put milk in it. Just to mention, it’s ONLY McDonald’s coffee that is this hot. I get it from several other places and it’s hot but not near boiling. I have no idea why they think it has to be hot enough to melt faces.

ANYWAY .. I think many Americans think of lawsuits as a form of winning the lottery. I do think it’s reasonable to demand that the people you sue pay for a portion of the medical bills and time missed from work and disability if you became too disabled to work anymore. But this nebulous “Pain and Suffering” is a bunch of hooey for the most part.

@WillWorkForChocolate I do the same thing with the ice cubes, because they serve coffee too hot everywhere (around 140F is pretty common and will still burn like hell). McDonalds was requiring their franchises to serve it between 180F and 190F—which is a fucking insane temperature. She was in the process of trying to pry off the lid to add cream (which would have cooled it down) when the coffee spilled.

Don’t forget that she originally wanted a very reasonable settlement price (the cost of medical expenses), and it was only after McDonalds tried to bully her legally that the suit ramped up. She was paid less than $600K in the end.

Read the article; it’s eye-opening.

Absolutely. We all pay the price with higher rates, for their greed.

Myself, I think the McDonalds lawsuit is one that we all have opinions on, and for myself, it is the womans lack of being careful with very hot coffee that caused the incident.

Yes it sucked, but if you buy a banana at the grocery store and you throw it down then fall on it, is it the grocery store’s fault? Do they need to peel it for you?

Yes – my ex and I are partners in an insurance agency. You should see some of the frivolous suits we hear about.

I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to do the coffee in the lap intentionally, unless they are really desperate or stupid. I dumped a cup of boiling water on my chest and stomach right off the stove while it was still boiling. (No smartasses I wasn’t desperate, although the stupid is up for grabs. I had the spoon in the cup and I hit that with my hand by accident). It was not good.

@KNOWITALL – I remember when this suit was happening. People did argue about her not being careful. The judge decided in her favor because there are some expectations of risk involved. It’s reasonable to expect to get burned acting “stupid” with coffee. It’s NOT reasonable to expect to get third degree burns and skin grafts with coffee.

It’s not just a matter of who is “at fault” but how much damage the product could reasonably be expected to cause. If the product causes a lot more damage than is reasonably expected, then they CAN be held liable for damages because the person would have been a lot more careful if they had any idea that the product could do that sort of damage.

The thing that really stands out is that McDonalds was charged above and beyond what the woman was asking for because they were given punitive damage fines. This is because the judge really wanted to make sure the coffee was never again that hot—ANYWHERE—not just at that McDonalds. McDonalds is a huge corporation that could easily afford a few thousand dollars in medical bills. The judge wanted them to pay something that would HURT them, so charged millions. Should the woman have gotten that money? I don’t think so. I think in cases like this, punitive damage should be paid in charity to a burn unit or something.

@keobooks Psst – I think you mean “money” and not “coffee” in the third sentence from the end.

THanks @janbb – Nobody at all would want 27 million dollars worth of coffee.

@keobooks Logically I understand the argument to a degree, but I cook, I’ve been scalded & burned several times, on the face even and the breasts (don’t judge me-lol!) by water and oil, etc… There is a reasonable expectation that hot things will cause damage to skin, it’s called common sense. So now McDonalds puts a little blurb on the coffee cups, wow.

I do agree with you that using it for a burn unit would have been more appropriate.

Don’t make assumptions about us coffee drinkers, especially in rural areas, it’s an all day thing for a lot of us!! HA!

@KNOWITALL Have you ever suffered 3rd degree burns over a significant area of skin such that it required skin grafts? It takes a lot for that to happen. I know I don’t expect a cup of coffee to be that dangerous (first and second degree burns, sure, but not 3rd degree and surgery).

@keobooks‘s last post nailed it imo. I think if the coffee had a label with a picture of a 3rd degree burn on it (google it- it’s not pretty), and a warning along the lines of *CAUTION: THIS COFFEE IS MUCH HOTTER THAN THE ALREADY-TOO-HOT-COFFEE SERVED ELSEWHERE. IF YOU BURN YOURSELF IT’S EQUIVALENT TO HOLDING A BLOWTORCH ON YOUR EXPOSED SKIN FOR 3 SECONDS, then it’s easier to say they’re completely blameless. I don’t understand why they just can’t serve coffee at a reasonable and safe temperature.

Cooking is different than drinking a cup of coffee. I hope I don’t have to explain why. Also remember that the decision was made by a judge with a law degree and probably at least a decade or two of experience in this sort of thing. I think I may trust his judgement a little more than that of us, the peanut gallery.

‘Now’? Are you kidding? This has been a disease in the USA that has no other equal! The system LOVES stupidity. When the system stops loving stupidity and gets a proper dose of common sense, (and a proper PURGE of upir lawyers) I will think it worthy of conversation. and thanks @ETpro for the reference to upir. What a great meme.
Also… when the USA gets a clue and works out that accidents and serious health issues should not be a reason for a family to lose their home or financial security, let me know, because, until then, I can’t be bothered even discussing the issue.

What is upir?

@keobooks LMGTFU…... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=upir

It is a vampire that operates during daylight hours.

The McDonald’s case ties into one of my pet peeves in movies and television shows.
Why?

They use coffee cups as props and punctuation. There’s nothing in the damned cups! You can hear the empty sound when it’s slammed down… no right-minded person tucks 3 fresh lattes under their arms and dashes across traffic!

When I get a coffee at the cafeteria, I navigate the halls and stairs like I am wearing a hair-trigger suicide bomb! Coffee is HOT, ffs.

The McDonalds Hot Coffee case is actually not about a little old lady looking to get rich, it’s about tort reform. HBO did a documentary about it called “Hot Coffee.”

I did a quick search and don’t want to use Wikipedia, so I am using this one as a quick guide to what the issues were. The little old lady, who required skin grafts, just wanted McDonalds to pay her medical bills, and her family wanted McDonalds to, in the future, lower the temperature of their coffee, which they achieved in their tort reform.

http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/hot-coffee-review-tort-reform-is-a-sham.php