"Was McDonalds morally or legally liable for the poor lady's injury? "
Yes.
Ah... The well considered reasoning of the tort lobby.
Despite the fact it was not McDonald's that placed coffee between the womans legs, McDonald's is responsible. Despite the fact it was not McDonald's that subsequently opened that cup in a moving car, McDonald's is responsible. Despite the fact coffee is a beverage which is universally understood to be served hot, McDonald's is responsible.
In fact, McDonalds is not only liable for the event, apparently there must have been no proportion of negligence on the part of the purchaser, (Full reimbursement of medical expenses) otherwise, there would be no need for punitive damages. (reduced to a paltry $480,000 on appeal)
Your reasoning is what is wrong with the US legal system. Clearly, the purchaser engaged in risky behavior and was injured. The plaintiff argued that a 20F degree difference in temperature between McDonald's coffee and that of its competitors was all that was necessary to "prove" complete liability and absolve the plaintiff of all responsibility. Considered reason is thrown to the wind and replaced by emotional hysteria.
Were her injuries horrific? Certainly they were, but that should have no bearing on personal liability for her own risky behavior. McDonald's or any other company should not be held liable for the stupidity of their own customers. And, apparently the jurors on this particular case were no brighter than the plaintiff.
#1
No one, NO ONE else in that town or the surrounding area sold coffee anywhere NEAR that hot.
Non-sequitur. I can only buy a Ferrari at a Ferrari dealership. I am easily able to injure myself in a Ferrarri. Does that make is Ferrari's fault if I do something stupid with their product? Just because a Saturn is unable to hit a tree at 200mph doesn't obviate me of my own responsibilty of using the product in a safe manner.
#2
If you spilt coffee on you from a restraunt or that you made yourself you would probably not even manage FIRST DEGREE burns These were THIRD degree burns, the kind your more used to seeing from actual fires and not boiling water.
Again, immaterial. Spilling coffee on your lap is not the natural state. I do not manage risk by permitting first degree burns as acceptable.
#4
The lady inquestion only sued after McDonalds refused to cover her health expenses. (Which they HAD done in the previous two instances in this state.)
I have a scar on my leg from a chainsaw muffler. I momentarily rested the chainsaw on my leg as I shifted positions in the tree. Should I have sued McCullough or did I do something stupid? McDonald's generosity on the two prior incidents does not necessarily set a legal precedent.
#5
A company memo existed that flat out said that it would be cheaper and better marketing slogun to be able to say they had the "Hottest Coffee"
Hmmmm... McDonald's markets their coffee as the "hottest" and a buyer is shocked when their coffee is hotter than their competitors???? What is wrong with this picture?
#6
And finally it was not the defendant who sued for millions, it was the jury who awarded it becuase it was "unspecified" and the jury specifically said 3million was picked because it was the sales for one days worth of coffee at McDonalds and the jury thought that they needed to prove the company memo wrong.
Precisely the problem. Juries apparently cannot distinguish the difference between moral responsibility and legal liability. The lady was involved in an unfortunate accident, but is that the fault of the company? The company did not place the cup between her legs. The company did not open the cup in a moving car. Was the coffee defective? Aparently, not. They were marketing the temperature as a benefit.
What it boils down to (pun not intended but enjoyed) is that the McDonalds in question was serving coffee at temps well above established standards and recommended industry guidelines.
This was 20 degrees above the norm for hot coffee from a restaurant.
I have read many accounts of the often cited, infamous McDonald's case. The question always comes down to this:
Was McDonalds morally or legally liable for the poor lady's injury?
The trouble with juries is that they have a hard time distinguishing the differences. Many people think simplistically just as you do that because a "relatively" impoverished person sustains an injury and a "relatively" wealthy corporation provided the product, legal liability inevitably must flow from the corporation.
In point of fact, the lady did a stupid thing. Since water boils at 212F, I would expect coffee could be served anywhere up to that temperature and therefore I would never place a flimsy foam cup near my balls in a car. Likewise, I would never place a loaded gun in the waistband of my pants. Any reasonable person would act likewise.
The jury wanted to punish McDonald's, plain and simply. They weren't "nice" to the woman. She could have easily prevented the injury by acting responsibly. Because of the publicity of this particular lawsuit and others like it, everybody believes they are just one small injury or slight away from winning the lawsuit lottery. Tort is out of control.
I was at the ass end of a personal injury lawsuit from a auto accident which I was involved. The plaintiff wanted the face value of my insurance policy plus $25,000. He perjured himself under deposition and at an arbitration hearing. My lawyer exposed it and tore him a new one under questioning. After the hearing, he agreed to settle for exactly what the insurance company offered right after the accident. He could have gotten all of the entire settlement up front if he hadn't chosen to hire an ambulance chasing lawyer.
Everybody thinks the civil tort system is a get rich quick scheme.
Disney, like Apple in the mid-nineties, has lost its way. For the past 30 years, it's not really had any significant direction
Actually, the Disney brand under Eisner has had an all to obvious direction:
Capitalize on past glory and acomplishments.
Bribe congress to protect monopoly on said past accomplishments.
Churn out crap directly to video.
Use the Disney brand to push it.
My kids do not feel the same about Disney that my sisters and I felt when we were growing up. My older kids all cringe when we rent Disney direct to video crap for the younger ones.
And by the way, Miramax is effectively dead after Disney jettisoned the Weinsteins. I expect Pixar to decline into irrelevance as well.
Furthermore, my personal space extends beyond my skin; the second your fist entered that region of space, you violated my claim to it.
Very well... My personal space by my own definition now extends for one square mile. The second you enter that region of space, you violate my claim to it. If you drive your vehicle within my personal space, I may be injured by it, therefore the government must ban all motor traffic within a one square mile area around me. Since I cannot be sure of your intentions as to whether you are travelling innocently or attempting to run me over, this is a sound policy decision to prevent aggression toward me. Endangering the lives of others is most certainly a violation of their rights.
Any time you cede a right, privilege, or freedom to the government, you can guarantee you will never receive it back. And I have noticed that those without an "obsession" over property usually have none.
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." -- Thomas Jefferson
Why shouldn't we strive not to offend or inconvenience our neighbors? It shouldn't be mandated by the government, but since people won't take it upon themselves not to be a hassle to everyone else, then somebody has to make people behave as they ought to in a civilised society.
It seems we agree. It should NOT be mandated by the government.
Society should have rules and codes of conduct for behavior, but those rules should not be policed by government. Society itself should enforce those rules. If I think you are a dick, it should be my right not to associate nor do business with you. It should also be my right to associate with like-minded individuals and ostracize you until your behavior improves.
As soon as you decide that the little girl with Down's syndrome is "less equal" than the little boy genius, you're on a slippery slope. Should we "waste" precious resources on someone less equal? Does it mean that we provide less educational help for the girl, because it won't benefit her as much? If they both need a kidney transplant and there's only one available, who gets it?
The question deliberately seeks to incite an emotional reply. I am curious. How do you choose to allocate your own financial resources? Do you choose based upon return-on-investment, or social concience?
If you want true equality, consider this: Doesn't equality demand the boy genius receive his "equal share" of finite educational resources despite the fact that the girl with Down's Syndrome necessarily consumes more resources? (i.e. money and labor)
Egalitarians often confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. I don't understand how they can reconcile things like how Dave Thomas, who started with nothing, built a fast food empire, but Rodney King, after winning the lawsuit lottery, is now bankrupt.
None of your statements has anything to do with creation at all. That we're all created equal is pretty much correct, as any given clump of cells resulting from a fusion of male and female genetic material is roughly identical to any other such clump so far as practical abilities go.
Sorry, but no. Just because you cannot see the differences in those clumps of cells does not mean that there are none. If you would like to change the statement to "all men are created similarly", I would accept it. I would even accept all identical twins are created equal, but that still doesn't imply that they will remain equal.
Face facts, the great egalitarian society is the great lie. No amount of socialism, communism, political correctness, wealth redistribution, or social experiments will ever change it. As another poster has already pointed out, the best we can ever hope for is equal opportunity.
The Libertarians have it wrong. Swinging your fists around within inches of my nose is an act of agression. I have no way of telling whether you are just posturing or whether you intend to hurt me until after you have hurt me. Therefore, as soon as you start swinging fists close to my face my rights are violated because I have to drop everything I am doing and pay full attention in order to make certain that I don't get hurt in case I move unexpectedly or you decide to go from posturing to fighting.
No, the Libertarians have it right. Swinging my fist, although it may be construed as an act of agression, by your definition, doesn't acutally harm you, therefore it does not violate your rights. It may inconvenience you, as you may feel the need to "pay full attention" to your agressor, but that is no more a violation of your rights than the actions of the asshole who cut me off this morning.
Thinking like yours is what has earned us our current nanny-state which seeks to regulate our behavior from cradle-to-grave in order not to offend or inconvenence our neighbors.
The answer to this is of course to get a SUV and a can of spray-on mud!
I was thinking of fake license plate bumperstickers. You could plaster the back of your car with a shitload of stickers. Let the cameras try to guess which one is the real one.
And yes, the sound drives me crazy, too. I'm 30 and an audio engineer. And I'm the only one in my household who can hear the damn TVs whining.:-)
When I lived at home, I had an old color TV that had an occasional high pitched squeal that drove me crazy. I discovered that a proper application of percussive maintenance would quiet it down. One day my mother was watching something in my room and it began its squeal. I got up and walked over to the set and slapped it hard on the side. I turned around to go back to my chair and my mother's mouth was hanging open.
She thought I was nuts. I'll never forget the look on her face. It took me some time to convince her that I was fixing the set.
We also had an old princess phone with a mechanical bell ringer in the living room. When a call circuit was made, there was enough energy in the line to make the clapper touch the bell. I could hear the slight noise and I would announce that we had a call. A second or two later, the phone would ring. Mom would always look at me, astonished at my powers, and ask me how I did it.
By the way, neither of my younger sisters could hear the phone or the TV set.
The amount of times I've seen one truck trying to overtake another (usually going uphill! Wtf?!) on a 2 lane road so causing hundreds of metres of car traffic building up behind I've lost count of. What exactly is the point of overtaking another truck if you're only going 0.5 mph faster?
AMEN Brother!!!!
I drive 24 miles to work, each way, every day. I usually spend about 4 or 5 of it driving behind some fscking trucker who pulls over in front of me just as I am about to pass him, only to spend the next five miles trying to pass another truck.
What's worse is that trucks have to drive 10mph slower than cars in my state. Usually by the time I get around the truck, my blood pressure is in the rafters.
The world has changed quite a bit since the 60's and if you really want to get upset over loss of freedoms like having to fill out legal docs when buying a car then you might as well just off yourself now. Certain "freedoms" seem pretty inconsequential to me and I really don't mind "losing" them.
WOW... You're nuts!
It's a good thing you don't speak for me or anybody else but yourself for that matter. You need to do a bunch of growing up, sonny. While I'm certainly not a flower child of the sixties, at least I recognize that history is littered with corpses of people who think just like you.
Just a little food for thought, assuming you have any brain at all: The US founding fathers depended on anonymous pamphleteering. They were guilty of capital treason under the regime of the time.
Does anyone remember being told when they were a child, not to leave your can of drink open while outside for fear of a wasp/bee getting inside and consequently a painful next sip?
Not bee, wasp. Bees usually don't enter soft drink cans. People erroneously mistake Yellow Jackets (a social wasp, with beelike markings) for bees. Bees are generally cool.
By the way, if you are stung and can find no stinger embedded in your wound, you were not stung by a bee, especially a honeybee.
You may need to help out the non-Americans here. My constitution says nothing of the sort.;)
No Problem. Since we were discussing the US prosecution of US citizens on behalf of a US company for breaking an US law, I assumed you had US interest. But since you don't...
Article 1
Section 8
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
For a country that is really only just over 225 years old, 120 years can hardly be considered limited. It is especially disturbing to consider nothing has fallen into the public domain for the last 30 years. Works by authors are now protected for life plus seventy years. Exactly how does that extra seventy years promote the useful arts? Will that extra seventy years encourage the dead artist to contribute more useful arts?
That is a separate issue. These people are not being accused of pirating Mickey Mouse cartoons. They willfully distributed a movie that had not even been released. Yes, I think copyright protection is too long in the US, but that is a separate issue, to the article.
Not really. This is part and parcel to the issue. The copyright term length is ridiculously too long. The copyright infringement punishments are ridiculously too harsh. And the associated laws and regulations are draconian. The law is seen as a giveaway to corporations, and does not protect We the People. This breeds contempt for the law. If corporations can rob the public domain with impunity, why should we feel guilty about returning the favor? Anytime the need suits the media companies, they can purchase new laws to protect their property, but, We the People can't get copyright laws designed for our benefit.
As I said in my previous post, don't expect the FBI to come running to your aid if you feel you have been wronged on a copyright issue. You aren't rich or important enough. I have yet to hear of a single instance of the FBI investigating a GPL violation.
The fact that there have been bad laws does not make all laws bad. Just because Joe Citizen thinks that the age of concent laws are archaic, it does not mean he can go around flouting them.
I am not arguing that all laws are bad, only copyright laws. And civil disobedience is an important step in removing bad laws. When you have a law that makes half of the population of a country a criminal, you have to consider that you might have a bad law. Simply talking to my coworkers and friends, I find that more of them are in agreement with me than with you.
And unlike copyright law, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus that "age of consent" laws are absurd. Everybody from young kids to grandmothers used napster and still copy CDs.
Do you really think history will really judge copyright law the same way as those laws?
Maybe I'm naive, but yes I do. The current direction of copyright in an information age is impacting the culture and heritage of the world. To protect the wealthy few, the common man is deprived. Simple writings are now locked up for ~ 120 years regardless of the intent of the original author. (See the Woody Guthrie story for background) Nobody can reprint my written rants for the remainer of my life and without the permission of my descendants' for 70 years after I am dead and buried. Copyright is now extended automatically without notice and requires no registration.
You have to get over the idea that music, writings, and even movies are the "property" of the creator. They are the "property" of humanity. The law only allows the creator temporary rights, before returning to the public domain. It isn't the s
What you fail to realize is that copyright is supposed to be a tempoary loan from the public domain. Copyrighted ideas BELONG to the public, but are temporarily on loan to the author in order to promote the public domain. Read your Constitution.
Considering the totally unreasonable lengths and protections of modern copyright, I don't believe it is unreasonable that many people simply choose to flout it. Despite the rulings of the recto-cranial-impacted SCOTUS, copyright terms of the author's life plus an additional 70 years does NOT promote the useful arts.
The fact of the matter is that the law was designed to protect the revenue of large media companies. It was not designed for "We the People." Do you think for one second that if you created your own homemade movie and tried to get it published that the FBI would give two shits about your criminal buddy who "released it on the Internet" before you could commercialize it? Face it. Your rights don't matter.
Lets get back to the loaf of bread: A large portion of the price of a loaf of bread goes as profit to the person (or supermarket) selling the loaf of bread. No-one in their right mind would consider it to be fair of you to steal that loaf of bread, even if you left behind the shopkeepers costs.
Since we are dealing with hypotheticals... Suppose the loaf of bread would not have sold because the potential customer had only enough money to pay the shop keepers expenses, but not profit. Would the shopkeeper be better off with his expenses covered? Most certainly. Many stores sell excess inventory at or below cost because it is better than throwing it away.
Besides, stealing a loaf of bread or paying avoided cost is NOT the same as copyright infringement.
You tell me now. Do media companies deserve to deprive the public domain for 120 years? Disney made its fortune robbing
the public domain. Now they refuse to contribute back and instead, purchase laws to protect their "property" like Pinnochio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Wind in the Willows, ad infinitum. Maybe you don't mind puckering up when the media companies bend over, but don't judge the rest of the world when they won't.
The US is littered with bad laws that were only changed because public perception finally won out. Would you have so quickly supported Prohibition, Slavery, Segregation or miscongenation laws when they were in fashion with those who make the laws?
suppose you could argue that we are all not entitled to receive these new treatments, but I find it hard to defend the notion that people should die when we have reasonable means to save them
Okay... Who gets to decide what is reasonable?
Bullshit. You hire Mexicans because they work hard, and you can pay them terrible wages and not have to worry about benefits. This is what is occurring all across the country...
Well... I don't hire them personally. I don't have a need for an employee.
But it brings me to a point. Your argument is that they are hired partially because they work hard. This is precisely my argument too. Many state dependents with a sense of entitlement refuse to work, hard or otherwise. The argument of wages and benefits is the other part of my argument. Why is it reasonable to expect a foreign national, with no support, to work hard for these wages, but a native, with ties to the community, will not?
Why can Mexicans work to install roofs, pave driveways, frame houses, pick apples, run restaurants, but welfare recipients cannot? It is because they don't come here expecting something for nothing.
Ohio has insurance for dependent children available from the counties at little or no cost to those at or below the poverty level. And I don't fault those who are unable to work due to health concerns, but those who can, should.
You are not painting a pretty picture of the people of Ohio...
It's not a very pretty picture. I'd be willing to bet that your state is just the same. Dependency and entitlement breed apathy and sloth.
Your situation, I do not think, maps closely with urban poor areas.
Actually, I was referring to Dayton City Schools. Their spending per capita is so high because their teacher pay is so high. Their teacher pay is so high because it is a combat zone. Nobody wants to stay.
Perhaps... are any politicians championing this?
Of course not. It goes against the entitlement mentality.
Your parent's story does indeed reflect what many people think of as the American Dream. I wonder if they could have pulled off the same feat if they worked at WalMart for minimum wage (which, like it or not, is a reality for many people)... They have little or no health benefits, and then a child gets sick. Oops...
My maternal grandparents never had health insurance. My paternal grandmother never had health insurance. My parents started off their working careers making less than minimum wages and no insurance, but they worked anyway.
Farmers in our county (I live in Ohio) have been hiring Mexicans like crazy to harvest apples, grapes, beans, and tomatoes because they can't hire locals. We have no shortage of people on public assistance, but we have to import Mexicans to do the work.
One farmer I know had a bumper crop of sweet corn two years ago. He offered free corn to welfare families. All they had to do was come and get it. These people had transportation and not one single individual came. The problem was they had to pick it. Sorry, they were too good to pick their own corn.
And yet I was spared growing up in a dilapidating neigborhood with underfunded schools
Look around my area. Of the dozen or school so districts, the worst performing district has the highest funding per pupil (with the exception of one very affluent district). This particular district had nearly $2,000 per year per student more than one of the best performing districts. School is tantamount to improving one's station in life, but despite the highest funding and some of the best curricula and magnet programs they performed the worst.
Adults who are clearly milking the system are, I agree, deplorable... but is the correct response to scrap the system entirely just because some take advantage?
The correct response is a real help program, not institutionalized dependency. Make work programs like the WPA of the thirties shold be created.
And if you want to break the cycle of poverty, how about this suggestion? All women of reproductive age should be required to have Norplant to receive public assistance benefits. Each month when they pick up their checks, physicians can evaluate them to make sure their birth control is in place. Once they are able to take care of themselves, then they can create another dependent life. Children will not be constantly born into poverty and utter dependence on the state.
One of my wife's friend's husband left her and she was forced on public assistance. She had a very nice free apartment, food stamps and a monthly AFDC check. When her son reached school age, she was told she would have to go to work or lose her apartment subsidy. Her solution? She got herself pregnant so she could stay put and not have to work. Problem solved.
In my limited experience, I have found that people who share your worldview have seldom faced poverty or any real need... more often, that worldview seems to be an excuse for conservatives to convince themselves that there is no class, and that poor people choose to be poor.
My mother was raised in a coal mining family of five in Appalachia. My father was raised by a single mother (his father was buried the day he was born) in Eastern Kentucky. They subsistence farmed. He was the youngest of 9 children. Yet my parents lived the American dream: a home, two cars, and three children.
They weren't afraid of hard work. My father began his working carreer at 14 when he left home for the summer to raise broom corn.
When my wife and I were first married, I was working a full-time job and going to college part-time. My wife was working part-time and going to nursing school full-time. I had to take out student loans and we barely made ends meet. The majority of the students in my wife's nursing school were JTPA claimants. They received free books, free uniforms, free tuition, free child care, and transportation money to get to school. We paid our own way.
Many of the JTPA students would come to school and sleep, because if they didn't show up they lost their "pocket money." Most of the JTPA students did not graduate.
That was the moment when I lost sympathy for the poor. The government offers them more opportunities than I was ever given and I see no reason why I should be guilted into believing that they have no choices or opportunities.
On a side note, one day during my college career, I stopped at a grocery on the way home. I waited in line behind a couple who were dressed in very designer clothes and leather coats. Their cart contained large cuts of expensive meat and things I could not afford. They paid with food stamps.
I only had a gallon of milk so my order was checked out quickly. I walked out behind the couple and watched them load their groceries in a BRAND NEW car. The sticker was still in the window. I was furious.
I most sincerely feel for the children, who are trapped in bad situations, but I lost all sympathy for able-bodied adults a long time ago. Mexicans come north illegally in droves just for the opportunity to work in this country. They work like crazy around here and manage to send money home.
Call a spade a spade and just admit that in some small way, the RIAA and the MPAA getting taken to the cleaners by filesharing and it's unfair. Yes, I know that they are unfair in their pricing, artist recoupments, etc but still. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Music companies take their contracted artists to the cleaners too. And they keep money which is obligated for artists. And they were found guilty of monopoly price manipulation. And they lobbied to change the law to make recording artists copyrights "work for hire."
And they expect sympathy when Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite tune???? Just because you can buy a law, doesn't automatically buy you moral high ground. I knew the war was lost when my 60 year old, computer phobic, accountant told me she had been downloading mp3s and making CDs. She had no guilt or remorse and she is as straight laced as they come.
Legal, whether you like it or not, is defined by the law defined by government and courts action in respect to that law. Copyright law has been upheld and as of today you have no rights to copy movies, music, software w/o the owners permission.
You are correct. However... What those who make and enforce the laws fail to realize is that they breed utter contempt for the rule of law with unfair and unreasonable laws and decisions. Every day there is some new reason to question authority: The DCMA, the Supreme Court decision giving government free reign to seize property to promote "economic development", bankruptcy "reform", copyright perpetuation, and so on. People see government as a tool for business and the wealthy, not "We the People."
If I truly believed that the DCMA protected people like myself; not Sony, Time Warner, Paramount, and Disney, I would be a lot more supportive.
And before I begin a politics war, I think that the Democrats and Republicans are both just as guilty of it. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision and the absurd marijuana decision last week both came from the liberal Justice cabal. Clinton signed the DCMA and Bush pushed bankruptcy reform.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you reconcile these two statements?
And yet she received a multi-million dollar punitive award from the jury along with medical expenses.
And you do realize that we are talking about a 20 degree F temperature difference between McDonald's and their competitors, right?
Ah... The well considered reasoning of the tort lobby.
Despite the fact it was not McDonald's that placed coffee between the womans legs, McDonald's is responsible. Despite the fact it was not McDonald's that subsequently opened that cup in a moving car, McDonald's is responsible. Despite the fact coffee is a beverage which is universally understood to be served hot, McDonald's is responsible.
In fact, McDonalds is not only liable for the event, apparently there must have been no proportion of negligence on the part of the purchaser, (Full reimbursement of medical expenses) otherwise, there would be no need for punitive damages. (reduced to a paltry $480,000 on appeal)
Your reasoning is what is wrong with the US legal system. Clearly, the purchaser engaged in risky behavior and was injured. The plaintiff argued that a 20F degree difference in temperature between McDonald's coffee and that of its competitors was all that was necessary to "prove" complete liability and absolve the plaintiff of all responsibility. Considered reason is thrown to the wind and replaced by emotional hysteria.
Were her injuries horrific? Certainly they were, but that should have no bearing on personal liability for her own risky behavior. McDonald's or any other company should not be held liable for the stupidity of their own customers. And, apparently the jurors on this particular case were no brighter than the plaintiff.
Non-sequitur. I can only buy a Ferrari at a Ferrari dealership. I am easily able to injure myself in a Ferrarri. Does that make is Ferrari's fault if I do something stupid with their product? Just because a Saturn is unable to hit a tree at 200mph doesn't obviate me of my own responsibilty of using the product in a safe manner.
Again, immaterial. Spilling coffee on your lap is not the natural state. I do not manage risk by permitting first degree burns as acceptable.
I have a scar on my leg from a chainsaw muffler. I momentarily rested the chainsaw on my leg as I shifted positions in the tree. Should I have sued McCullough or did I do something stupid? McDonald's generosity on the two prior incidents does not necessarily set a legal precedent.
Hmmmm... McDonald's markets their coffee as the "hottest" and a buyer is shocked when their coffee is hotter than their competitors???? What is wrong with this picture?
Precisely the problem. Juries apparently cannot distinguish the difference between moral responsibility and legal liability. The lady was involved in an unfortunate accident, but is that the fault of the company? The company did not place the cup between her legs. The company did not open the cup in a moving car. Was the coffee defective? Aparently, not. They were marketing the temperature as a benefit.
I have read many accounts of the often cited, infamous McDonald's case. The question always comes down to this:
Was McDonalds morally or legally liable for the poor lady's injury?
The trouble with juries is that they have a hard time distinguishing the differences. Many people think simplistically just as you do that because a "relatively" impoverished person sustains an injury and a "relatively" wealthy corporation provided the product, legal liability inevitably must flow from the corporation.
In point of fact, the lady did a stupid thing. Since water boils at 212F, I would expect coffee could be served anywhere up to that temperature and therefore I would never place a flimsy foam cup near my balls in a car. Likewise, I would never place a loaded gun in the waistband of my pants. Any reasonable person would act likewise.
The jury wanted to punish McDonald's, plain and simply. They weren't "nice" to the woman. She could have easily prevented the injury by acting responsibly. Because of the publicity of this particular lawsuit and others like it, everybody believes they are just one small injury or slight away from winning the lawsuit lottery. Tort is out of control.
I was at the ass end of a personal injury lawsuit from a auto accident which I was involved. The plaintiff wanted the face value of my insurance policy plus $25,000. He perjured himself under deposition and at an arbitration hearing. My lawyer exposed it and tore him a new one under questioning. After the hearing, he agreed to settle for exactly what the insurance company offered right after the accident. He could have gotten all of the entire settlement up front if he hadn't chosen to hire an ambulance chasing lawyer.
Everybody thinks the civil tort system is a get rich quick scheme.
LOL... No, it's paybacks. I had to sit through Barney when they were little so it's only fair that they should suffer too.
My kids do not feel the same about Disney that my sisters and I felt when we were growing up. My older kids all cringe when we rent Disney direct to video crap for the younger ones.
And by the way, Miramax is effectively dead after Disney jettisoned the Weinsteins. I expect Pixar to decline into irrelevance as well.
Very well... My personal space by my own definition now extends for one square mile. The second you enter that region of space, you violate my claim to it. If you drive your vehicle within my personal space, I may be injured by it, therefore the government must ban all motor traffic within a one square mile area around me. Since I cannot be sure of your intentions as to whether you are travelling innocently or attempting to run me over, this is a sound policy decision to prevent aggression toward me. Endangering the lives of others is most certainly a violation of their rights.
Any time you cede a right, privilege, or freedom to the government, you can guarantee you will never receive it back. And I have noticed that those without an "obsession" over property usually have none.
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." -- Thomas Jefferson
It seems we agree. It should NOT be mandated by the government.
Society should have rules and codes of conduct for behavior, but those rules should not be policed by government. Society itself should enforce those rules. If I think you are a dick, it should be my right not to associate nor do business with you. It should also be my right to associate with like-minded individuals and ostracize you until your behavior improves.
The question deliberately seeks to incite an emotional reply. I am curious. How do you choose to allocate your own financial resources? Do you choose based upon return-on-investment, or social concience?
If you want true equality, consider this: Doesn't equality demand the boy genius receive his "equal share" of finite educational resources despite the fact that the girl with Down's Syndrome necessarily consumes more resources? (i.e. money and labor)
Egalitarians often confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. I don't understand how they can reconcile things like how Dave Thomas, who started with nothing, built a fast food empire, but Rodney King, after winning the lawsuit lottery, is now bankrupt.
Sorry, but no. Just because you cannot see the differences in those clumps of cells does not mean that there are none. If you would like to change the statement to "all men are created similarly", I would accept it. I would even accept all identical twins are created equal, but that still doesn't imply that they will remain equal.
Face facts, the great egalitarian society is the great lie. No amount of socialism, communism, political correctness, wealth redistribution, or social experiments will ever change it. As another poster has already pointed out, the best we can ever hope for is equal opportunity.
No, the Libertarians have it right. Swinging my fist, although it may be construed as an act of agression, by your definition, doesn't acutally harm you, therefore it does not violate your rights. It may inconvenience you, as you may feel the need to "pay full attention" to your agressor, but that is no more a violation of your rights than the actions of the asshole who cut me off this morning.
Thinking like yours is what has earned us our current nanny-state which seeks to regulate our behavior from cradle-to-grave in order not to offend or inconvenence our neighbors.
I was thinking of fake license plate bumperstickers. You could plaster the back of your car with a shitload of stickers. Let the cameras try to guess which one is the real one.
When I lived at home, I had an old color TV that had an occasional high pitched squeal that drove me crazy. I discovered that a proper application of percussive maintenance would quiet it down. One day my mother was watching something in my room and it began its squeal. I got up and walked over to the set and slapped it hard on the side. I turned around to go back to my chair and my mother's mouth was hanging open.
She thought I was nuts. I'll never forget the look on her face. It took me some time to convince her that I was fixing the set.
We also had an old princess phone with a mechanical bell ringer in the living room. When a call circuit was made, there was enough energy in the line to make the clapper touch the bell. I could hear the slight noise and I would announce that we had a call. A second or two later, the phone would ring. Mom would always look at me, astonished at my powers, and ask me how I did it.
By the way, neither of my younger sisters could hear the phone or the TV set.
AMEN Brother!!!!
I drive 24 miles to work, each way, every day. I usually spend about 4 or 5 of it driving behind some fscking trucker who pulls over in front of me just as I am about to pass him, only to spend the next five miles trying to pass another truck.
What's worse is that trucks have to drive 10mph slower than cars in my state. Usually by the time I get around the truck, my blood pressure is in the rafters.
But if it weighs the same as a duck, it must be a witch.
Burn Her!!!!
WOW... You're nuts!
It's a good thing you don't speak for me or anybody else but yourself for that matter. You need to do a bunch of growing up, sonny. While I'm certainly not a flower child of the sixties, at least I recognize that history is littered with corpses of people who think just like you.
Just a little food for thought, assuming you have any brain at all: The US founding fathers depended on anonymous pamphleteering. They were guilty of capital treason under the regime of the time.
Not bee, wasp. Bees usually don't enter soft drink cans. People erroneously mistake Yellow Jackets (a social wasp, with beelike markings) for bees. Bees are generally cool.
By the way, if you are stung and can find no stinger embedded in your wound, you were not stung by a bee, especially a honeybee.
No Problem. Since we were discussing the US prosecution of US citizens on behalf of a US company for breaking an US law, I assumed you had US interest. But since you don't...
For a country that is really only just over 225 years old, 120 years can hardly be considered limited. It is especially disturbing to consider nothing has fallen into the public domain for the last 30 years. Works by authors are now protected for life plus seventy years. Exactly how does that extra seventy years promote the useful arts? Will that extra seventy years encourage the dead artist to contribute more useful arts?
Not really. This is part and parcel to the issue. The copyright term length is ridiculously too long. The copyright infringement punishments are ridiculously too harsh. And the associated laws and regulations are draconian. The law is seen as a giveaway to corporations, and does not protect We the People. This breeds contempt for the law. If corporations can rob the public domain with impunity, why should we feel guilty about returning the favor? Anytime the need suits the media companies, they can purchase new laws to protect their property, but , We the People can't get copyright laws designed for our benefit.
As I said in my previous post, don't expect the FBI to come running to your aid if you feel you have been wronged on a copyright issue. You aren't rich or important enough. I have yet to hear of a single instance of the FBI investigating a GPL violation.
I am not arguing that all laws are bad, only copyright laws. And civil disobedience is an important step in removing bad laws. When you have a law that makes half of the population of a country a criminal, you have to consider that you might have a bad law. Simply talking to my coworkers and friends, I find that more of them are in agreement with me than with you.
And unlike copyright law, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus that "age of consent" laws are absurd. Everybody from young kids to grandmothers used napster and still copy CDs.
Maybe I'm naive, but yes I do. The current direction of copyright in an information age is impacting the culture and heritage of the world. To protect the wealthy few, the common man is deprived. Simple writings are now locked up for ~ 120 years regardless of the intent of the original author. (See the Woody Guthrie story for background) Nobody can reprint my written rants for the remainer of my life and without the permission of my descendants' for 70 years after I am dead and buried. Copyright is now extended automatically without notice and requires no registration.
You have to get over the idea that music, writings, and even movies are the "property" of the creator. They are the "property" of humanity. The law only allows the creator temporary rights, before returning to the public domain. It isn't the s
What you fail to realize is that copyright is supposed to be a tempoary loan from the public domain. Copyrighted ideas BELONG to the public, but are temporarily on loan to the author in order to promote the public domain. Read your Constitution.
Considering the totally unreasonable lengths and protections of modern copyright, I don't believe it is unreasonable that many people simply choose to flout it. Despite the rulings of the recto-cranial-impacted SCOTUS, copyright terms of the author's life plus an additional 70 years does NOT promote the useful arts.
The fact of the matter is that the law was designed to protect the revenue of large media companies. It was not designed for "We the People." Do you think for one second that if you created your own homemade movie and tried to get it published that the FBI would give two shits about your criminal buddy who "released it on the Internet" before you could commercialize it? Face it. Your rights don't matter.
Since we are dealing with hypotheticals... Suppose the loaf of bread would not have sold because the potential customer had only enough money to pay the shop keepers expenses, but not profit. Would the shopkeeper be better off with his expenses covered? Most certainly. Many stores sell excess inventory at or below cost because it is better than throwing it away.
Besides, stealing a loaf of bread or paying avoided cost is NOT the same as copyright infringement.
You tell me now. Do media companies deserve to deprive the public domain for 120 years? Disney made its fortune robbing the public domain. Now they refuse to contribute back and instead, purchase laws to protect their "property" like Pinnochio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Wind in the Willows, ad infinitum. Maybe you don't mind puckering up when the media companies bend over, but don't judge the rest of the world when they won't.
The US is littered with bad laws that were only changed because public perception finally won out. Would you have so quickly supported Prohibition, Slavery, Segregation or miscongenation laws when they were in fashion with those who make the laws?
The theatrical version cut the sentry guns scene, along with a bunch of other important points.
suppose you could argue that we are all not entitled to receive these new treatments, but I find it hard to defend the notion that people should die when we have reasonable means to save them
Okay... Who gets to decide what is reasonable?
Bullshit. You hire Mexicans because they work hard, and you can pay them terrible wages and not have to worry about benefits. This is what is occurring all across the country...
Well... I don't hire them personally. I don't have a need for an employee.
But it brings me to a point. Your argument is that they are hired partially because they work hard. This is precisely my argument too. Many state dependents with a sense of entitlement refuse to work, hard or otherwise. The argument of wages and benefits is the other part of my argument. Why is it reasonable to expect a foreign national, with no support, to work hard for these wages, but a native, with ties to the community, will not?
Why can Mexicans work to install roofs, pave driveways, frame houses, pick apples, run restaurants, but welfare recipients cannot? It is because they don't come here expecting something for nothing.
Ohio has insurance for dependent children available from the counties at little or no cost to those at or below the poverty level. And I don't fault those who are unable to work due to health concerns, but those who can, should.
You are not painting a pretty picture of the people of Ohio...
It's not a very pretty picture. I'd be willing to bet that your state is just the same. Dependency and entitlement breed apathy and sloth.
Your situation, I do not think, maps closely with urban poor areas.
Actually, I was referring to Dayton City Schools. Their spending per capita is so high because their teacher pay is so high. Their teacher pay is so high because it is a combat zone. Nobody wants to stay.
Perhaps... are any politicians championing this?
Of course not. It goes against the entitlement mentality.
Your parent's story does indeed reflect what many people think of as the American Dream. I wonder if they could have pulled off the same feat if they worked at WalMart for minimum wage (which, like it or not, is a reality for many people)... They have little or no health benefits, and then a child gets sick. Oops...
My maternal grandparents never had health insurance. My paternal grandmother never had health insurance. My parents started off their working careers making less than minimum wages and no insurance, but they worked anyway.
Farmers in our county (I live in Ohio) have been hiring Mexicans like crazy to harvest apples, grapes, beans, and tomatoes because they can't hire locals. We have no shortage of people on public assistance, but we have to import Mexicans to do the work.
One farmer I know had a bumper crop of sweet corn two years ago. He offered free corn to welfare families. All they had to do was come and get it. These people had transportation and not one single individual came. The problem was they had to pick it. Sorry, they were too good to pick their own corn.
And yet I was spared growing up in a dilapidating neigborhood with underfunded schools
Look around my area. Of the dozen or school so districts, the worst performing district has the highest funding per pupil (with the exception of one very affluent district). This particular district had nearly $2,000 per year per student more than one of the best performing districts. School is tantamount to improving one's station in life, but despite the highest funding and some of the best curricula and magnet programs they performed the worst.
Adults who are clearly milking the system are, I agree, deplorable... but is the correct response to scrap the system entirely just because some take advantage?
The correct response is a real help program, not institutionalized dependency. Make work programs like the WPA of the thirties shold be created.
And if you want to break the cycle of poverty, how about this suggestion? All women of reproductive age should be required to have Norplant to receive public assistance benefits. Each month when they pick up their checks, physicians can evaluate them to make sure their birth control is in place. Once they are able to take care of themselves, then they can create another dependent life. Children will not be constantly born into poverty and utter dependence on the state.
One of my wife's friend's husband left her and she was forced on public assistance. She had a very nice free apartment, food stamps and a monthly AFDC check. When her son reached school age, she was told she would have to go to work or lose her apartment subsidy. Her solution? She got herself pregnant so she could stay put and not have to work. Problem solved.
In my limited experience, I have found that people who share your worldview have seldom faced poverty or any real need... more often, that worldview seems to be an excuse for conservatives to convince themselves that there is no class, and that poor people choose to be poor.
My mother was raised in a coal mining family of five in Appalachia. My father was raised by a single mother (his father was buried the day he was born) in Eastern Kentucky. They subsistence farmed. He was the youngest of 9 children. Yet my parents lived the American dream: a home, two cars, and three children.
They weren't afraid of hard work. My father began his working carreer at 14 when he left home for the summer to raise broom corn.
When my wife and I were first married, I was working a full-time job and going to college part-time. My wife was working part-time and going to nursing school full-time. I had to take out student loans and we barely made ends meet. The majority of the students in my wife's nursing school were JTPA claimants. They received free books, free uniforms, free tuition, free child care, and transportation money to get to school. We paid our own way.
Many of the JTPA students would come to school and sleep, because if they didn't show up they lost their "pocket money." Most of the JTPA students did not graduate.
That was the moment when I lost sympathy for the poor. The government offers them more opportunities than I was ever given and I see no reason why I should be guilted into believing that they have no choices or opportunities.
On a side note, one day during my college career, I stopped at a grocery on the way home. I waited in line behind a couple who were dressed in very designer clothes and leather coats. Their cart contained large cuts of expensive meat and things I could not afford. They paid with food stamps.
I only had a gallon of milk so my order was checked out quickly. I walked out behind the couple and watched them load their groceries in a BRAND NEW car. The sticker was still in the window. I was furious.
I most sincerely feel for the children, who are trapped in bad situations, but I lost all sympathy for able-bodied adults a long time ago. Mexicans come north illegally in droves just for the opportunity to work in this country. They work like crazy around here and manage to send money home.
So you'll have to forgive me if I call bullshit.
Call a spade a spade and just admit that in some small way, the RIAA and the MPAA getting taken to the cleaners by filesharing and it's unfair. Yes, I know that they are unfair in their pricing, artist recoupments, etc but still. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Music companies take their contracted artists to the cleaners too. And they keep money which is obligated for artists. And they were found guilty of monopoly price manipulation. And they lobbied to change the law to make recording artists copyrights "work for hire."
And they expect sympathy when Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite tune???? Just because you can buy a law, doesn't automatically buy you moral high ground. I knew the war was lost when my 60 year old, computer phobic, accountant told me she had been downloading mp3s and making CDs. She had no guilt or remorse and she is as straight laced as they come.
Legal, whether you like it or not, is defined by the law defined by government and courts action in respect to that law. Copyright law has been upheld and as of today you have no rights to copy movies, music, software w/o the owners permission.
You are correct. However... What those who make and enforce the laws fail to realize is that they breed utter contempt for the rule of law with unfair and unreasonable laws and decisions. Every day there is some new reason to question authority: The DCMA, the Supreme Court decision giving government free reign to seize property to promote "economic development", bankruptcy "reform", copyright perpetuation, and so on. People see government as a tool for business and the wealthy, not "We the People."
If I truly believed that the DCMA protected people like myself; not Sony, Time Warner, Paramount, and Disney, I would be a lot more supportive.
And before I begin a politics war, I think that the Democrats and Republicans are both just as guilty of it. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision and the absurd marijuana decision last week both came from the liberal Justice cabal. Clinton signed the DCMA and Bush pushed bankruptcy reform.