maniajackSep 20, 2023

TIL In the Hot Coffee lawsuit against McDonalds,punitive damages were given due to McDonalds intentionally overheating coffee to save money on refills

https://lemmy.world/post/5386240

TIL In the Hot Coffee lawsuit against McDonalds,punitive damages were given due to McDonalds intentionally overheating coffee to save money on refills - Lemmy.world

During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald’s hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.

Show threadSpaceCowboySep 20, 2023

This thing has been going around a long time. McDonald’s is bad and people will believe anything anyone makes up about the case. People on the internet tend to be contrarian, so they jump on the chance to say “well actually the women that sued McDonald’s was in the right, I know this because I’m much smarter than anyone that thinks otherwise!”

The flaw with this meme is making coffee involves boiling water. You can’t actually heat water above 100C without it turning to steam. The coffee served to the woman was significantly less than the boiling point of water, because McDonald’s isn’t able to change physics. The injuries the woman were horrific, but anyone would suffer even worse injuries if the spilled water on themselves while making a pot of Mac & Cheese. Like anything that involves boiling water to make there’s an expectation that you need to be careful when handling it.

The reality of the story is the lady that got burned admitted it was her fault. The reason she sued was to pay her medical bills. The real issue is lack of healthcare. Handling boiling water is a common thing, an accident can happen to anyone. Having a system that depends on either having a corporation associated with the accident you can sue or face bankruptcy whenever you have an accident is the real stupidity here.

I mean who would you sue if you tripped while carrying a pot of Mac & Cheese and got burned because of it? The Kraft Corporation maybe? Dumb system that brainwashed people into trying to blame accidents on a nearby corporation instead of fixing the real problem.

Show threadCabrioSep 21, 2023
NSFL: www.google.com/search?q=stella+liebeck+burns&…
Bevor Sie zur Google Suche weitergehen

Show threadSpaceCowboySep 21, 2023
You want to appeal to shock and emotion because logic isn’t on your side.
Show threadCabrio
No, I’m appealing to the reality of the situation because your willful ignorance has no bearing on it.
Sep 21, 2023 at 12:57amWeb
Show threadSpaceCowboySep 21, 2023

I think you’re ignorant to some facts:

  • Boiling water is dangerous.
  • Boiling water is something we regularly encounter.
  • People understand the need to be careful to avoid horrific injuries.
  • Accidents happen.
  • Lack of healthcare puts people in a desperate situation where they have to sue someone to pay their medical bills when they have an accident.
  • The link above this discussion is to a personal injury law firm which is incentived to promote the idea that suing people to pay medical bills is good and proper. A little sus isn’t it?

You’re only at the level where you’re having an emotional reaction to the horrific nature of the injury due to an accident. You feel like it’s heartless to not have sympathy for someone who was injured in such a way.

I’m at the level where I’m sympathetic for people that have similar accidents without a big corporation nearby that they can sue to pay their medical bills. Just google random images of third degree burns (if that’s your thing) and understand that unlike the images you linked to, a lot of the people in the other images went bankrupt because of those injuries. So who deserves the most sympathy?

Why are you so heartless that you don’t care about people that suffered these injuries and didn’t have McDonald’s pay their medical bills? Emotion emotion emotion!

Show threadCabrioSep 21, 2023

Why are you so heartless that you don’t care about people that suffered these injuries

If self awareness was a disease you’d be the healthiest person alive.

Show threadSpaceCowboySep 21, 2023

Just developed the ability to do critical thinking. Many people suffer third degree burns in a variety of accidents. They are horrific. Why should only the people that these injuries in the vicinity of a corporation have their medical bills paid? Because it benefits law firms like the one that wrote the article above?

Consider the source of the information you get on the internet (personal injury law firm). Consider the motives (make suing others over accidents more socially acceptable). Consider the information they’re leaving out in constructing a narrative (people commonly handle boiling water and people do suffer from third degree burns because of it). Be wary of emotional appeals (the photos of the injury).

Set aside emotions and think. Where is the real problem? Lack of health care resulting in a society that’s overly litigious. Not something you’re going to hear from a personal injury law firm so there’s no money behind that kind of message is there?

Show threadCabrioSep 21, 2023
That’s a lot of words to miss the point.
Show threadSpaceCowboySep 21, 2023
What’s the point then? McDonald’s bad? Third degree burns bad? Personal injury lawyers good? You’re special because the internet revealed to you something most people don’t know?
Show threadCabrioSep 21, 2023
Based on the responses in this thread the only one who doesn’t know is you.
Show threadJazard23Sep 21, 2023

People on the internet tend to be contrarian

Proceeds to be the most contrarian person around

Show threaddecadentrebelSep 21, 2023
I must say, these are the types of replies I’d like to see. It allows me to re-examine everything on the incident from another side and possibly form a better take.
Show threadassassin_aragornSep 21, 2023

I’ll give you another angle. I’m familiar with safety hazard analysis in industrial settings – HAZOPs and LOPAs, if you’ve heard of them. By our guidelines, this event would be a significant violation. This would be considered giving a disability to a member of the public, which ranks as either the highest severity or second highest severity incident possible (varies depending on the risk matrix in question).

Considering the liquid can cause severe burns in 2 seconds, was served without a lid, and was given to someone in a moving vehicle, the likelihood of this incident would be incredibly high. Taken together, an industrial analysis would call for at least 3 independent layers of protection to prevent the incident from occuring, where each layer reduces the likelihood of the event by a factor of 10. There are no protections or safeguards in this situation.

Mitigating this risk would be incredibly high priority. It’s at the point where you might shut down, i.e. stop serving coffee, until you have robust protections in place. I can’t stress enough that what McDonald’s was doing is riskier than you’ll see in industrial plants.

Show threadSpaceCowboySep 22, 2023

The best take you can arrive at by simply sticking a thermometer into a cup of coffee. I did that this morning… 88C! Then laugh at how ridiculous this meme about McDonald’s being evil supervillains for serving coffee at “insane” temperatures of 80C.

The reality is, that’s just the temperature of coffee. The lesson here is don’t trust what personal injury lawyers say and be careful with coffee… it’s hot!