[fabsroman]

Gumpokc,

There is a difference between scalding and third degree burns. Find me a chart that will show at what temp water causes third degree burns and then we can compare apples to apples.

While it wasn't hot grease, I did spill a pot of boiling water down my groin and legs once while making pasta. I never got out of my clothes so fast in my life, and both of my sisters were in the room and I didn't even bat an eye about them seeing me naked. It was hot!!!!!! I jumped in the shower immediately and let cold water run over it. Then, I spent the rest of the night with ice packs all around my legs and groin. Last but not least, I was 18 and not 81. Something tells me that as you get older, you get frailer, but I could be completely wrong about that since I haven't hit 81 yet. Then again, this issue is also discussed in the article, wherein it is stated that a doctor testified that as you get older, your skin gets thinner and you are much more susceptable to being burned. Maybe McDonalds shouldn't serve 180 degree coffee to people over 50.

What I also find hilarious is that you say she couldn't have gotten third degree burns from coffee because coffee isn't that hot. Me, I ask how hot was the coffee that it caused third degree burns? Maybe this coffee was hotter than 180, but nobody really knows how hot it was because a temp wasn't taken just before it was spilled in her lap. So, maybe it was hotter than 180, which wouldn't surprise me. According to the article, coffee at 190+ degrees can cause 3rd degree burns in 1 second, whereas coffee at 160 degrees would be around 10+ seconds, giving the person enough time to take their clothes off.

I am assuming that you are using this quote from that article:

"When a law firm here found itself defending McDonald's Corp. in a suit last year that claimed the company served dangerously hot coffee, it hired a law student to take temperatures at other local restaurants for comparison.

After dutifully slipping a thermometer into steaming cups and mugs all over the city, Danny Jarrett found that none came closer than about 20 degrees to the temperature at which McDonald's coffee is poured, about 180 degrees."

Notice that none were higher than 160 degrees, but that doesn't mean that they weren't less than 160. It just means that McDonalds had everybody beat by at least 20 degrees, and possibly more for others.

I also like this quote from the article:

"Some observers wonder why McDonald's, after years of settling coffee-burn cases, chose to take this one to trial. After all, the plaintiff was a sympathetic figure - an articulate, 81-year-old former department store clerk who said under oath that she had never filed suit before. In fact, she said, she never would have filed this one if McDonald's hadn't dismissed her requests for compensation for pain and medical bills with an offer of $800."

"As the trial date approached, McDonald's declined to settle. At one point, Mr. Morgan says he offered to drop the case for $300,000, and was willing to accept half that amount."

"Only days before the trial, Judge Scott ordered both sides to attend a mediation session. The mediator, a retired judge, recommended that McDonald's settle for $225,000, saying a jury would be likely to award that amount. The company didn't follow his recommendation."

McDonalds rolled the dice and lost. The plaintiff wasn't looking to win the lottery, just something for her physical damages and medical bills.

If I were in her shoes and McDonalds offered me $800 to settle that claim, I would have been pissed.

What I really like about the article, and what most people don't understand, is the way the damages were determined. Here it is:

"Then the six men and six women decided on compensatory damages of $200,000, which they reduced to $160,000 after determining that 20% of the fault belonged with Mrs. Liebeck for spilling the coffee.

The jury then found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct, the basis for punitive damages. Mr. Morgan had suggested penalizing McDonald's the equivalent of one to two days of companywide coffee sales, which he estimated at $1.35 million a day. During the four-hour deliberation, a few jurors unsuccessfully argued for as much as $9.6 million in punitive damages. But in the end, the jury settled on $2.7 million."

The jury initially awarded her $200,000 for compensatory damages (e.g., pain and suffering, medical costs, and lost time from work if she were working), which it reduced to $160,000 for the plaintiff's contributory negligence (i.e., her being clumsy and spillig it in her lap). Then, the jury awarded the plaintiff $2.7 million for punitive damages. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a company, and not to make a plaintiff whole. For instance, when a company does a actuary analysis of how much money they will save by not using fire retardant material in kids pajamas and the actuary comes back with it being more profitable to use the non-fire retardant fabric becuase only W number of kids will catch fire, only X number will sue, damages will only be Y and the cost of the fire retardant fabric is Z which is a number that is larger than Y. The problem is that the punitive damages have to go to somebody, and it just happens to be the plaintiff.

To put it in a perspective that this board might understand a little better, how would you feel if a gun manufacturer knew that some of its guns had a defect in them, and that some people would be hurt by the defects, but it decided not to recall the defective guns because it would cost more to fix all those guns than it would cost to defend and settle lawsuits for those that got hurt? Now, if you are one of the people hurt by this defective gun, I am sure you would have rather it never happen than have to go through the headache of trying to receive some money from the manufacturer in an attempt to make you whole again.

We will have to agree to disagree on the McDonalds coffee lawsuit. As far as I am concerned, it is completely forseeable that in serving billions of cups of coffee, some of them might get spilled on people, and if you make the coffee too hot, then people might get burned and burned pretty badly.