Tuesday, January 12, 2016

We talked about the Hot Coffee case in my Legal Issues class last spring, I admit I was once one of those people who scoffed at it as an example of frivolous law suits. Yes, it was hot coffee, yes she spilled it on herself - but turns out there was far more to it.

For example, if the coffee being served is hot enough to cause third degree burns (that's when you need skin grafts folks), is 'caution, hot' really helpful (safe 'hot' coffee would be 60°C, which I would still find too hot - while McDonalds kept theirs at 82-88°C, enough to cause serious burns in 2 seconds)?

Also, when all she wanted was enough to cover expenses (medical expenses plus short-term loss of income) of $20k and McDonalds only offered $800, it becomes a totally different story. And they were sitting on another 700 reports of people being burned and had previously settled cases for more than $500k.

She was already pretty old when it happened, afterward she needed a live-in nurse and went through eight days of skin grafting and a further two years of medical treatment.

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