In case anyone still has misconceptions about the famous case that came before. McDonald's spun public opinion, but she had a legitimate case. https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Beat me to it. I remember as a teenager hearing adults laugh about this, “how could you not know coffee is hot?? Hahaha”. Holy shit the McDonalds PR really fucked that lady over. It wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned the reality of the situation and how horrific her burns were.
Fuck McDonalds.
Jay Leno did the most to further that hit job. He spent months spreading lies, all while McDonald's became a major sponsor of his show.
it also made it onto Seinfeld, it was also pushed by Republicans and their mouthpieces (Fox) that the country ia going to hell everyone can sue for anything bla bla bla, typical moral panic stuff.
that shit was so widespread I heard about the anyone can sue rhetoric about the USA as a kid, and I am from Slovakia
As ALWAYS with conservatives it's just a reflection of themselves. They sue people more often and for bigger sums.
Geeze, seriously? He also got massive mileage out of denigrating Monica Lewinsky.
Just want to add that this wasn't just McDonald's spinning it for their own purposes, it was part of a larger effort of tort reform - spreading the conception that people are suing for everything, even hot coffee hur dur, so that the public would support things like caps on pain and suffering damages and punitive damages. Corporations wanted more leeway to maximize profits(the reason McDonald's coffee was so hot was because they could get more coffee out of the beans that way), even if it hurt people, and the public jumped right on board. This was part of the same strategy as denigrating plaintiffs attorneys as "ambulance chasers" and the like. It got to the point that even when people were harmed, they still wouldn't sue because they didn't want to be lumped in with "those entitled people suing over everything". It became a point of pride to get fucked over by corporations and to do nothing about it. Really disgusting how easily the public was manipulated by all that.
"Fused labia"
The name of my garrage band.
I'm not going to watch the video since the case was covered in both my business law and ethics courses, but absolutely do not look up the images of her injury.
It's brutal.
What I don't understand is how she was appealed down to $480K, but the family in FL got $800K for not warning that the nuggets were fresh out of the fryer. The former was way, way, worse.
What's nuts is that she originally only asked for like $32k to cover the cost of the fucking skin grafts she needed.
The only thing I can think of is maybe the '91 case wasn't adjusted for inflation? That would make it a little over 1 mil today
Tl;dr: the burn fused part of her vulva, and they didn’t want to pay medical costs.
I just corrected someone about that last month who was using it as complaint about society. They had no idea about the details.
I don't think "burns herself" is quite the turn of phrase I would've chosen but then I don't like the taste of boot leather so... yeah.
Yeah, I swear I’m reading more and more articles/headlines that seem slanted in favor of the corporate side.
Possibly. Or maybe you're more aware of it now.
Yeah, hard to say without a systematic review of news media I’ve consumed.
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McDonald’s should be considered guilty unless proven innocent given their track record. Nail em to the wall lady!
I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more often than it does, considering how much coffee McD's sells.
They're supposed to serve it at a safe temperature, and they usually do.
tbh I'm not sure how they managed to overclock their coffee maker. Did they just heat it up on the stove?
Yep, wife used to work for Starbucks. You're supposed to check/calibrate the thermostat on the machine on a regular basis so you get the coffee hot but not boiling, third degree burns hot. For whatever reason, it has to be done because the thermostats will gradually deviate from their initial settings. If you fail to check your thermostats, eventually someone's going to burn the fuck out of themselves with a hot drink. Water, which is the main ingredient in any coffee product, has an enormous heat capacity, and will absolutely fuck your shit up before you have a chance to do anything about it.
IIRC, McDonald's was either deliberately tampering with their thermostats or just failing to check them when that famous case went down, which was how they were found to be negligent.
They determined that the average customer stayed in a given McDonald's after ordering for x minutes, so they made the coffee so hot it couldn't be consumed within x minutes in an attempt to get people not to utilize their free refills on coffee. The coffee was so hot it was dangerous. All to save a customer from getting 2 more cents worth of coffee.
Shareholders don't ruin someone's life in exchange for an extra 0.0001% return this quarter challenge (impossible)
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The real question is why would anyone still get coffee at McDonalds?
Up in Canada (at least my part), McDonald's coffee is a great affordable coffee. It's better than Starbucks or (🤮) Tim Hortons. It's not going to compete with a bespoke artisan coffee shop that squeezes cat butt glands or whatever justifies selling a $5 cup for $10, but it's better than almost everything else for the price.
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It's fairly cheap for getting coffee out and it's better than Starbucks coffee. Sure, go to a cafe if you have the means, but many don't.
This is quite a common answer. It seems like a virtual thing. In Europe there are many coffee cafes that aren't much more expensive then Mac Donald's, si I wouldn't even think of going there.
Yeah, the US general has a lack of cafés. I imagine there are two reasons. First is the culture doesn't really encourage it (though that's mostly newish, and has to do with the second point). Second, the sprawl, especially in suburban hell, does not allow for many third places at all. There's almost nowhere people go to sit around and relax outside of their house. It's a real shame and I think it's caused a lot of issues.
Last time I visited the US, McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts was easy places to get coffee on the road that wasn't see through, like pure water, or tasted like shit
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Who doesn't like coffee hotter than the surface of the sun?
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