Re: The McDonald's incident

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

Rick Tarara wrote:

> If an employee at McDs spills hot coffee on you and you are seriously
> injured, then fine--sue.  But if you spill the coffee on yourself (stupidly
> trying to drink it in motion-- probably)

This is an assumption on your part do you have any evidence that this
is the way it happened?

>  then it is your fault!  It's
> something called 'personal responsibility', a concept that has been all but
> lost in our litigation crazed society.

And why do you think that our society has become so litigious?
Perhaps it is because too many people (or companies) who have
something to lose from their own stupidity, cupidity or greed have
been in the habit of denying their responsibility for what has
happened to other people. Not every bad thing that happens is a
direct result of improper actions by the victim. As I point out in my
response to Stuart, a system that makes it easier for people, who
otherwise couldn't, to gain access to the courts, will allow some
frivolous cases to slip through, maybe even too many, but we have to
be careful not to clamp down so hard that we again make it impossible
for legitimate cases to be heard. Personal responsibility is a two
way street. We should, of course, take responsibility for what
happens to us as a result of our own negligence, but it is important
that we also take responsibility for what happens to others as a
result of our negligence. The tort system is a way of enforcing that
responsibility and it is up to the court in each individual case to
decide what constitutes negligence and how much of it there was. And
also how hard we might have tried to cover up our responsibility.

> Our foolishness and stupidity must
> always be blamed on someone else.  For these reasons the McDs case is quite
> worthy of ridicule no matter how hot the coffee actually was.
>
> Rick

Not so! If she didn't expect the coffee to be hot (I don't know
that--it's conjecture on may part), then even if she spilled it due
to her own stupidity her injuries are not entirely her fault. As Doug
pointed out, we are complacent about these things because even if the
coffee is too hot to drink, spilling it rarely does more than sting a
bit and maybe cause us to drop the cup amid much commotion and
embarrassment. No damage is done. So if we don't expect the cup to be
too hot, we tend not to take the precautions that we would if we were
carrying a pot of boiling water from the stove to where we are going
to use it. But if, unbeknownst to us, the coffee is much hotter than
our experience has led us to expect, and it gets spilled (possibly
due to being jostled by someone else or sipping on a wet spot on the
floor, or bumping into the corner of a counter, or any of a number of
things that are not a result of our stupidity), and as a result we
get a serious burn, that we had every reason not to expect, then the
case is very definitely not as clear cut as you say.

Hugh

--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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