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Originally Posted by macallan25
This reminds me of the woman that sued McDonalds when she spilled hot coffee all over herself. Wasn't her compensation outrageous?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1856
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Yeah, the McDonald's hot coffee case is one of the most frequently misquoted/misused illustrations that I see.
If you really look at the case, it's about a company that knowingly sells a dangerous product when it has other options to make the product safe but that cost the company a little more. It's often package or understood to be a case about dumb people who hurt themselves doing something stupid and then want to blame someone else and collect huge damages.
But McDonalds knew that the coffee they sold was hot enough to burn people's skin off. Seriously, they had documented complaints that it had done just that. Not that it was hot, like most of us like our coffee, but that they were selling a food product that if consumed as purchased would blister people's skin.
Here's a quote from Jon's link: "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. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard."
They also knew that they could keep coffee at a lower, safer temperature that wouldn't burn people's skin off, but they would have had to make the coffee more frequently to keep the same quality. They decided to go with continuing to sell the coffee hot enough to burn your skin off.
Many of the damages in the case were originally to punish the company rather than anything related to the woman's claim of damages, if I remember correctly.