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>> With non-health insurance, you probably have a choice, and I don't hear near as many bad comments about them as I hear about health insurance.

Tell that to Katrina Victims .. and yes, I know the Flood Policy deal. But, there were people that loss whole houses to WIND ONLY and I am sorry, floods don't blow roofs away. Oh.. there was water in the wind so it doesn't count? WTF?

http://www.centerjd.org/air/pr/KATRINAREPORT.pdf

Actually, its about a 1% reduction in costs.

http://www.centerjd.org/air/issues/MedMalSystemCostsFactSheet2009F.html

...and on top of it, the TMA likes to trot out that tort reform lowered malpractice insurance in TExas but always seem to forget that it was going down before the reform happened, and it was going down in other places that didn't/haven't done any kind of tort reform. I've gone north for the foreseeable future. I really don't miss Texas.

Read about it here

Offtopic, but that "old-lady vs McDonalds" lawsuit was actually valid, though it was taken by the tort-reform people and manipulated to seem like a silly lawsuit.

McDonalds had been warned several times by the FDA to lower the temperature of their coffee, as several people each year were severely burned by it. The woman was in the passenger seat, her son was driving, and they had pulled off to the side of the drive-thru so she could put sugar in the coffee. When opening the lid, the cup slipped and spilled on to her lap.

The woman suffered third degree burns over her thigh and groin area, totaling to be about 20% of her body, and second degree burns in her groin area.

She then contacted McDonalds, explaining the situation to them, and asked them to reimburse part of her medical bills (for burn treatment and skin grafts). They offered her $500. Since her bills were quickly climbing into the high tens of thousands of dollars, she sued for the cost of her medical expenses.

It was the jury that decided medical expenses were not enough, and awarded her punitive damages (to punish McDonalds) totaling one day's revenue in coffee sales. McDonalds appealed the decision, and an appellate judge overturned the punitive damages. She ended up getting somewhere around $200,000, which barely covered her medical expenses up to that point.

Sorry, that was very off topic, but that case is misused as an example for tort reform so often I felt it needed to be stated. There are other ridiculous cases, sure, but that really isn't one of them. More info here.

Suggest you seek more facts on the McDonalds case. Like for instance the fact that the coffee served by that establishment was significantly hotter than that served by all of the surrounding establishments by a significant amount and that McDonalds had received more than 700 complaints of injuries across their chain. The temperature was some 50 degrees hotter than a normal home coffee pot would serve it at. You might also learn that the woman simply wanted her medical costs attended to (that's $15K) and that the large settlement was awarded by the jury that was outraged at McDonald's behavior and attitude. While it's true she should have been more careful and focused the spill occurred while the car was stopped and she was *NOT* driving. I think that most any sane person would expect a spill to be merely painful and not require medical personnel to remove the clothing that had MELTED into her skin. Nor would a normal prudent person expect that a spill might require skin grafts to repair the damage. Would you have felt better about this settlement if it had been a child carrying a cup of coffee for their parent and gotten scalded? Oh wait, kids *had* been burned in the past and still McDonalds insisted on the temp being kept excessively high.

Here are some starter links for you, Google can provide more.

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_mcdonalds.htm

Warning labels exist not because a woman was stupid and burned her lap with hot coffee. She was stupid. Everyone knows that. They exist because she decided to sue and wasn't laughed out of court. She wasn't laughed out of court because everyone likes to attack the big companies. Because if yer on a jury with this poor burned woman on one side, and a megacorporation on the other, yer going to make the coorporation pay just because it's the liberal-ish thing to do. And so now companies have to protect themselves. I would too, if some person could sue me for a hundred billion gajillion USD. I'd put warning labels on every single thing I made.

I see people post this same misinformation over and over. Frivolous lawsuits and stupid warning labels have been around much longer than the McDonald's coffee case.

To save you future embarrassment, I'd suggest reading into a little into it. Here are some starting points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_coffee_case
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_mcdonalds.htm

And more:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mcdonalds+coffee+case&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

This case is not the poster child of frivolous lawsuits that many people think it is.

That sounds like an urban legend. Considering the amount of misinformation floating around about this case, unless you have a source, I am going to assume your statement is bunk.

McDonalds had been sued many times for their hot coffee; the famous time was a little old lady who was a passenger in a parked car who burned her lap so badly that her doctor said it was the worst burn he'd ever seen. See http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

Again, the whole reason that case succeeded (remember, this was a jury trial) was that McDonalds was producing a product that was abnormally dangerous for a product of its type. We expect coffee to be hot, not lethal. If you can't grasp that distinction, then imagine the following little play - your mother stops to order coffee from Starbucks - on the way out of the store (after adding milk and sugar, all that) she sips her coffee.. the heat of the liquid sears her lips, causing them to bubble and begin to fill with puss immediately. Her tounge and the back of her throat are also burned. Her airway is closed off and she has trouble speaking with her tounge which hurts to move. As she tries to ask for help the coffee slips and splashes over the person next to her - this coffee is so hot that through his clothes this man is burned baddly enough to be hospitalized.

McDonald's settled several suits involving injuries to the mouth and stomach out of court. This particular suit caught so much attention because the woman was hospitalized.

Here's a quick summary:

Forgot the link http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

Seriously. I'm getting a little sick of the uninformed intellectuals springing onto the attack every time someone feeds them a controversial line.

A lot of our current problems stem from the belief that people are stupid. We get a certain satisfaction from seeing people put down below us. The news media and the government feed on that and deliver one-line characterizations of people, factions, countries, whatever. "The terrorists" are, to a man, religious fanatics that want to see our way of life destroyed. They wake up every morning with nothing but killing America on their minds. Christian fundies are stupid sheeple. Frenchmen are arrogant bastards. Americans as a whole are fat, lazy, imperialist cowboys. The president is a completely evil ignoramus. We should point and laugh at every lawsuit you can spin into something ludicrous, like the McDonald's coffee case. Ann Coulter and Michael Moore are 100% politically honest and represent the majority of conservatives and liberals.

So PhDs are stupid ivory tower academics -- especially the women, who probably slept their way to the top. If you see the words "study," and god forbid it's from a PhD, you don't have to go beyond the short mischaracterization of their research provided by all the popular media outlets. Next thing you know, everyone's walking around laughing about the same mischaracterization, and spin becomes reality. We instantly assume the stupidest motives of everyone, except when we've decided they're evil, when we assume the most insidious motive.

"Think for yourself" doesn't mean to root against authority, it means to understand the facts fully before you start spewing out verbal diharreha. How many of you believe that anti-evolutionists deserve nothing but contempt, yet don't actually know the scientific studies and principles that led to the adoption of evolution? How many people that constantly bring up the example of the heliocentric theory will tell me what makes it physically superior to choosing any other fixed point vis-a-vis relativity? And speaking of relativity, who among you can tell me what Einstein actually did?

Read about what really happened before drawing parallels.

It's amazing how often the facts of the McDonald's coffee case get misrepresented.

I knew someone would bring up the McDonald's Coffee case.

The knee-jerk reaction to any seemingly stupid/frivolous litigation (or patent) is to assume that the summary = the case, when in fact things tend to be more complex.

There are a lot of details to the McDonald's case that the unwashed masses tend to not know:

Some important points:
"McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was
scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh
and muscle."
"[she] suffered full
thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body,
including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin
areas."
"During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700
claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims
involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks."
"it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to
maintain optimum taste. .. Other establishments sell
coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is
generally 135 to 140 degrees."

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm
http://www.atla.org/pressroom/FACTS/frivolous/Mcdo naldsCoffeecase.aspx

hot cups of coffee not withstanding.

Dude.

McDonalds was selling 180-190F coffee. That's 3rd-degree burns in 2-7 seconds if you spill it on yourself. She was the passenger, in a parked vehicle, and had difficulty removing the lid. Whoops, splash, AAAIEIEIE!! Reconstructive surgery to her genital areas; 3rd degree burns over 16% of her body. Worst scald burns the doctor had ever seen.

She was 79.

McDonalds had known of 700 cases of 2nd and 3rd degree burns like this caused by their coffee, over the prior 10 years, but refused to turn down the temperature. $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages.

In their favor, she was found to be 20% responsible for the accident.

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

McDonald's coffee isn't necessarily sold to cause 3rd degree burns, but when it is company policy to sell coffee at 180-190 degrees Farenheit, as it was at the time of the lawsuit i assume you're referring to, a temperature that can easily cause 3rd degree burns, it can be criminally negligent (or something to that effect, IANAL), especially when it had been brought to their attention numerous times before
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

For the 80 gazillionthe time...

There had been many previous complaints that mcdonalds had settled so they knew it was an issue.

The burns were very bad burns- not just "oh I spilled hot coffee" burns.

The coffee was an insane temperature (like 175 degrees).

The key fact is that it was a known problem mcdonalds had not fixed. It's like having a 3' fence around your pool. You may not be liable the first time some kid drowns but after that you know it is a problem and you are liable the second time one drowns if you ignored the problem.

Facts here

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

Seeing as this is slashdot, I'm surprised you can't come up with a more effective example of legal abuse. Perhaps one involving SCO.

Sorry, but it always bugs me that this is brought up implicitly or explictly as an example of 'public stupidity' and 'bad lawsuits'.

Read this and note particularly point 12:-

McDonald's admitted that its coffee is "not fit for consumption" when sold because it causes severe scalds if spilled or drunk.

McDonalds admitted its coffee was 40 to 50 degrees hotter than is fit for human consumption (Google cache; article is gone from original website).

...no lawsuits before that lady spilled coffee on her lap at McDonalds...

Just a reminder, the case is much more complex than typically summarized. It's a terrible example of "lawsuits gone wild."

I do not believe in petty lawsuits over cigarettes that kill or McDonald's coffee that was too hot when spilt into the lap while driving. What I do believe in is accountability for one's action and that is where the issue truly lies.

I'm glad you think Third Degree burns are petty.

Stella Liebeck, 79 years old, was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson's car having purchased a cup of McDonald's coffee. After the car stopped, she tried to hold the cup securely between her knees while removing the lid. However, the cup tipped over, pouring scalding hot coffee onto her. She received third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, necessitating hospitalization for eight days, whirlpool treatment for debridement of her wounds, skin grafting, scarring, and disability for more than two years. Morgan, The Recorder, September 30, 1994. Despite these extensive injuries, she offered to settle with McDonald's for $20,000. However, McDonald's refused to settle. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages -- reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20 percent at fault -- and $2.7 million in punitive damages for McDonald's callous conduct. (To put this in perspective, McDonald's revenue from coffee sales alone is in excess of $1.3 million a day.) The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. Subsequently, the parties entered a post-verdict settlement. According to Stella Liebeck's attorney, S. Reed Morgan, the jury heard the following evidence in the case:

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

You know, I hear that claptrap about the hot coffee and McDonalds business, and it's mind numbing.

There may or may not be a situation with tort problems in the US. But, just so you know some facts about the coffee case:

1. McDonalds was aware before the incident in question that it's coffee was beyond drinkabily hot.

2. McDonalds actively choose to brew it's coffee as hot as it did because you can get more coffee per pound of beans.

3. McDonalds sold its coffee at about 40 to 45 degrees hotter than most other competitors.

4. McDonalds knew of the problem: they'd be made aware of 700 cases of burining in the previous 10 years.

5. McDonalds admitted during trial that the coffee was too hot for consumption.

For more information:

Check this page out

The individual's responsibility begins where the corporation's ends. Now, I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but I know that hot coffee probably shouldn't be in my lap. While I'm driving. And I know I shouldn't fuck with the lid on the cup full of hot coffee..in my lap...while I'm driving. This lady was stupid and it was partially her fault.

Minor problem: She wasn't driving . Not only wasn't she the driver, the car wasn't even moving.

99% of these lawsuits that people file against doctors that supposedly caused 'brain damage' to children when they were born are completly bogus.

The really sad part is the doctor lost the lawsuit and is now repsonsible for paying millions of dollars of damages to the family.

Insurance costs and lawsuits have gotten totaly out of hand in this country. it has driven medical costs through the roof and something has to give.

McDonald's knew their coffee was hot enough to cause third-degree burns within a few seconds' contact, but said they did not intend on lowering the temperature, because as one juror put it "[McDonald's has a] callous disregard for the safety of the people."

Oh, and by the way, the lady initially asked for compensation for her medical bills but was offered a minuscule amount that wouldn't cover the bills. The jury awarded $2.7 punitive and $160,000 in compensatory damages (the latter reduced from $200,000 because she was partially responsible), but the judge reduced the punitive to $480,000. McDonald's then settled for something much less (sealed to prevent curious eyes from seeing).

Obligatory links to TRUTH about McDonald's case whenever a person speaks of it based on IGNORANCE:

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_m cdonalds.htm

Before you talk about the McDonald's coffee case, go learn the facts of the case. It was a perfect example of the tort system FINALLY bringing relief to a corporation that was knowingly engaging in dangerous behaviour.

Who are you to judge what is a valid case and what isn't? If you read anything about the McDonald's case you would know that the coffee was actually at 180-190 degrees and she received 3rd degree burns over 16% of her body! Over 700 people were burned by McDonald's coffee over a ten year period and McDonald's was well aware of the risk of heating the coffee to that temperature. I recommend you check this site out.

As for this case - the domain was stolen and Network Solutions would not give back the site without a court order so it had to go to court. The decision on the case awarded the site back to the original owner along with $65MM in damages with $25MM of those being punitive. Now if you lost a case for $65MM would you not try to appeal it? I know I would. It is up to the appeals court to determine whether the case has merit or not. If they decided it does then they hear it and the public pays the cost. If they don't hear it then that's it.

I think perhaps you don't understand what you are talking about and instead like to throw around kneejerk Anti-American sentiments.

Some facts about the McDonald's case.

According to that page, the corporate specified temperature for McDonald's coffee at the time of the incident was between 180 and 190 degrees. I believe the home-brewed coffee is generally around 140 degrees.

I just checked google (mcdonald's coffee scalding) and saw lots more written about this case and others like it. Here is a sober analysis of the case. Very important is McDonald's detailed knowledge of the hazard -- versus consumer unawareness -- and its lack of intention to do anything about it after 700 unnecessary injuries.

Note also that these were really nasty burns, sometimes with no culpability of the victim.

Beware the words "tort reform" accompanied by deliberately distorted stories, as has happened here. The reform proponents have to be able to come up with at least a few good anecdotes without corrupting stories that actually contradict their position. And even if they do come up with worthwhile anecdotes, remember that anecdotes are unreliable (!) and that statistics or a broad sampling is a better foundation for changing the law.

Will you learn about the McDonald's coffee incident please?

Yeah, we all remember her. Too bad nobody ever remembers the facts of the case.

Let's see: Mickey D's coffee regularly inflicts 3rd-degree burns? Mickey D's can't explain why they don't warn their customers about this risk?

You may want to use a different example to support your future arguments.