No, actually the lawsuit was NOT frivolous. It was actually an exercise in corporate comeuppance.
The woman, who was elderly and rather frail, originally asked McDonalds to reimburse her for her medical bills incurred for treating second degree burns. While it may be necessary to BREW coffee at 205 degrees, it is not necessary (or prudent) to keep it on the warmer at that temperature, which McDonalds was doing.
The woman only brought the suit after McDonalds refused her request to compensate her medical bills. Pissed off by McDonald's stonewalling, the jury awarded punitive damages of well over $2 million. This was later reduced to just under half a million.
The 81 year old woman suffered THIRD DEGREE BURNS because McDonald's kept their coffee 20 degrees hotter than most other restaurants. They were punished because they were irresponsible and arrogant. I remember when I used to buy coffee at McDonald's how hot their coffee was compared to other places I frequented. They deserved what they got.
According to Wikipedia:
Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in a New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured." McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.[4]
Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.[4]
McDonald's refused to settle perhaps because, though there had been numerous lawsuits alleging that hot coffee was "defectively manufactured," courts had consistently dismissed the cases before trial on the grounds that coffee burns were an open and obvious danger.
This was also reported in the Wall Street Journal. See:
Oh, if only. I'm currently working on a site for a LARGE pharmaceutical that has yet to progress beyond a Windows 2000 environment running IE 6. My IT dept had to install a six-year-old computer in my workspace just to run that system. Works great as long as I remember to keep feeding the gerbils.
As the subject of many stories written by "legitimate" journalists, and having seen first-hand stories they covered about others and other issues, I'm hard pressed to consider these people as exalted arbiters and chroniclers of the truth. Journalists a typically pretty lazy, and love to be spoon-fed info, especially in today's media environment. I don't think much more of bloggers, either. Frankly, I find the whole blogging phenomenon akin to institutionalized gossip mongering. Don't read 'em, myself, and I suspect I'm in pretty good company.
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No, actually the lawsuit was NOT frivolous. It was actually an exercise in corporate comeuppance.
The woman, who was elderly and rather frail, originally asked McDonalds to reimburse her for her medical bills incurred for treating second degree burns. While it may be necessary to BREW coffee at 205 degrees, it is not necessary (or prudent) to keep it on the warmer at that temperature, which McDonalds was doing.
The woman only brought the suit after McDonalds refused her request to compensate her medical bills. Pissed off by McDonald's stonewalling, the jury awarded punitive damages of well over $2 million. This was later reduced to just under half a million.
The 81 year old woman suffered THIRD DEGREE BURNS because McDonald's kept their coffee 20 degrees hotter than most other restaurants. They were punished because they were irresponsible and arrogant. I remember when I used to buy coffee at McDonald's how hot their coffee was compared to other places I frequented. They deserved what they got.
According to Wikipedia:
Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in a New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured." McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.[4]
Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.[4]
McDonald's refused to settle perhaps because, though there had been numerous lawsuits alleging that hot coffee was "defectively manufactured," courts had consistently dismissed the cases before trial on the grounds that coffee burns were an open and obvious danger.
This was also reported in the Wall Street Journal. See:
http://www.reedmorganpc.com/wsj_coffee.htm
Frivolous, my ass.
Oh, if only. I'm currently working on a site for a LARGE pharmaceutical that has yet to progress beyond a Windows 2000 environment running IE 6. My IT dept had to install a six-year-old computer in my workspace just to run that system. Works great as long as I remember to keep feeding the gerbils.
As the subject of many stories written by "legitimate" journalists, and having seen first-hand stories they covered about others and other issues, I'm hard pressed to consider these people as exalted arbiters and chroniclers of the truth. Journalists a typically pretty lazy, and love to be spoon-fed info, especially in today's media environment. I don't think much more of bloggers, either. Frankly, I find the whole blogging phenomenon akin to institutionalized gossip mongering. Don't read 'em, myself, and I suspect I'm in pretty good company.