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College Threatens Students Over Email Addresses
superdave98 writes "As a sign that a CIO has way too much time on his hands, Santa Rosa Junior College is sending emails threatening lawsuits to staff and students who have the letters 'SRJC' in their private email addresses. They contend that people could be confused and think these are official email addresses. Sure, I suppose people who fall for 419 scams probably could be fooled, but not any reasonable humans. I can't believe they found a lawyer who thought this was a good idea."
"For 150 dollars an hour, a lawyer will never tell you any idea of yours is bad, even if it's suing McDonalds because your hot coffee is (gasp!) HOT, and should not have been poured all over your crotch."
For free, any number of internet denizens will propagate distortions and urban legends.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm
"Third Degree Burns
Here's what the talk show pundits and columnists neglected to mention about the McDonalds coffee burn case:
79 year old Stella Liebeck suffered third degree burns on her groin and inner thighs while trying to add sugar to her coffee at a McDonalds drive through. Third degree burns are the most serious kind of burn. McDonalds knew it had a problem. There were at least 700 previous cases of scalding coffee incidents at McDonalds before Liebeck's case. McDonalds had settled many claim before but refused Liebeck's request for $20,000 compensation, forcing the case into court. Lawyers found that McDonalds makes its coffee 30-50 degrees hotter than other restaurants, about 190 degrees. Doctors testified that it only takes 2-7 seconds to cause a third degree burn at 190 degrees. McDonalds knew its coffee was exceptionally hot but testified that they had never consulted with burn specialist. The Shriner Burn Institute had previously warned McDonalds not to serve coffee above 130 degrees. And so the jury came back with a decision- $160,000 for compensatory damages. But because McDonalds was guilty of "willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct" punitive damages were also applied. The jury set the award at $2.7 million. The judge then reduced the fine to less than half a million. Ms. Liebeck then settled with McDonalds for a sum reported to be much less than a half million dollars. McDonald's coffee is now sold at the same temperature as most other restaurants. "
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
For 150 dollars an hour, a lawyer will never tell you any idea of yours is bad, even if it's suing McDonalds because your hot coffee is (gasp!) HOT, and should not have been poured all over your crotch.
Lawyers have an obligation to advise their clients of the good and bad of the client's case. In addition to duties under their respective governing society and regulations, the practical reason is rather simple: Where a lawyer is negligent in failing to properly advise their client of the risks in a litigation, that lawyer could be liable to their client in negligence.
Why don't you read about what happened before you guess about it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants seems to be a good summary of the case. Basically, a 79-year-old woman suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed. The issue was that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190 F, which (it was claimed) is much hotter than coffee from other places.
Not that I can understand why anybody would want to drink McDonald's coffee anyway -- it's HORRIBLE! But that's just my opinion.
And she did not want to sue McDonalds for punitive damages, only to have them pay for the costs of her medical treatments. McD's refused to pay her medical bills (they offered $800), and so she was left with the choice of suing or being on the hook for the costs. Moreover, there were something like 700 previous cases of serious burns relating to McD's coffee, and McD's was aware of the safety issues. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Nov/1/129862.html
Except that you're in the minority. McDs own research showed that 1) the majority of thier customers wanted to drink the coffee immdediately and 2) the temp. they served it at would cause 3rd degree burns and 3) didn't care. That's why they lost the lawsuit.. that the woman shouldn't have had an open cup of coffee between her legs to begin with was why the award was halved.