Re: Warnings concerning products {:-)

[Doug Craigen <dcc@ESCAPE.CA>]

There is a bit of physics in all this.  As much as people *think* they
love their coffee as hot as they can get it, the fact is that boiling
water scalds.  Our normal experience is with coffee poured into a cold
mug and further diluted with sugar and/or cream - plus the coffee was
not boiling to begin with (on a hotplate staying warm, or having just
dripped through some filter ...).  Hence there is not as big a safety
problem as there might be.  However, in a setting such as McD it is
possible to store the coffee at any temperature up to 100C and it is
poured into a paper cup (nowhere near the heat capacity of a mug, so it
doesn't cool as much).  Hence, it is possible to sell dangerously hot
coffee.  My recollection of that case was that the restaurant in
question had their coffee set to a higher temperature than McD's own
guidelines permitted.

Their have been some weird lawsuits, but a little inspection doesn't
make this look like one of them.

"Bernard G. Cleyet & Nancy Ann Seese" wrote:
> Just some history -- the hot coffee brouhaha was the result of a woman's buying, at a drive up McD.'s, and spilling the coffee.  She sued and won.  Much criticism resulted.  The facts, as I remember,
> -- the resulting burn was so extensive and high degree (3rd), and on her vulva (how'd you like a third degree burn on your penis?), that it required hospitalization and skin graft(s).  So don't
> ridicule the warnings -- not bonehead  and obviously not that obvious;  (my often complaint of high end drip coffee is that it's stored in Dewars and unpleasantly cool after adding milk).  It's also
> sue proofing.


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Doug Craigen
          http://www.dctech.com/physics/