Re: The McDonald's incident

["Bernard G. Cleyet & Nancy Ann Seese" <georgeann@REDSHIFT.COM>]

Interleaved:

First, note how the drive for profits drove McD. to gross misbehavior.

I rest my case.  (Capitalism is inherently evil.  Corollary:  Democracy and capitalism are incompatible)

Doug Craigen wrote:

> > Even if McD was deemed to be at fault, to what degree are they liable?  I would
> > think that payment to cover medical expenses should be a maximum, but as I
> > recall there was A HUGE

I think this is what corporations want people to believe.  I'm a "right wing conspiracy" theorist,  and, therefore, believe they fund groups that spread this kind of gross falsehood.  They even funded
a Calif. proposition a few years back to limit awards.


> amount more money awarded in this case due to
> > (unjustified?) punitive  damages.
>
> The size of the damages was quite likely unreasonable -

unreasonable to us, is  "noise in the system" to corporations -- to be punitive they must be HUGE!

See the web site whose address I posted.  I believe it gives the "facts" of the case.  Example: The punitive damage asked was equal to one cent for each cup of coffee sold world wide in ONE day.  It
was reduced.

> but that does
> not make this case stand out - the reason people ridicule the case is
> they think of the last time they had coffee spilled on themself or saw
> it spilled on someone else.  People are careless in their handling of
> coffee precisely because years of experience has shown them it might
> sting a bit, but nobody gets seriously hurt.  The fact that so few
> people stop to even consider that she might have been seriously hurt
> shows how deeply ingrained this expectation is.

This is a principle tort law is based, i.e. is it reasonable.  Is there a reasonable expectation that one won't be injured by coffee spill?   If so, then a resulting burn is actionable.

common law makes illegal set guns -- surprises like overly hot coffee is a set gun  (bc's belief)


> The fact is that the
> restaurant knew that their coffee was hotter than normal - enough to
> cause serious injury - and "everybody knows" that coffee spills are
> commonplace.  It seems pretty straightforward then that they should have
> expected their temperature choice would eventually cause serious
> injury.  This is far from the worst thing a restaurant has ever done,
> but I think a lawsuit of some kind against them is not a cause for
> ridicule.

Right!

> > I'm sorry to run on off topic (Physics) but there has been light traffic
> > on the list lately
>
> Perhaps we could turn this into a discussion of how to avoid coffee
> spills (aside from a lid) while walking with a full mug of coffee...
>
> \_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/
>
> Doug Craigen
>           http://www.dctech.com/physics/