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.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    She didn’t seek out that much money. She only wanted money to cover her medical costs. If you feel upset about the amount then you should blame the jury. They’re the ones who came up with the amount. (Which the judge lowered.)

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not about the money. Its about her being as dumb and as irresponsible as mcds.

          • Exatron@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The woman who received serious burns from McDonald’s overheated coffee was a victim, sparky.

          • TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com
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            1 year ago

            There can absolutely be victims in civil suits. A company isn’t a person so it’s not like they can go out and mug someone, often the only way to get justice against a company is in civil court.

          • Nusm
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            1 year ago

            I’m very familiar with this case because of Randy Cassingham’s True Stella Awards (sadly discontinued). Here’s a few facts -

            1. She wasn’t driving the car, her nephew was.
            2. The car wasn’t moving, he pulled over and stopped so she could put in the cream & sugar.
            3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the coffee that McDonald’s served was not consumable by a human because of the excessive temperature.
            4. She was hospitalized for 8 days with 3rd degree burns, followed by 2 years of medical treatment.
            5. She only sued for $20,000 to cover her medical expenses.

            Those facts are not in dispute, but, instead of quietly paying her medical bills (which is all she wanted) and moving on, McDonald’s PR decided to publicly smear her and paint her as “DuH, sHe OrDeReD hOt CoFfEe ThEn BuRnEd HeRsElF. DuRr HuRr….”

            She absolutely was the victim, but McDonald’s turned her pain into a punchline. All the way to the point that most average people today still believe that it was a frivolous lawsuit, when she deserved what she got and more because of her severe pain.

            Also, if there were no victims in civil suits, there would be no civil suits. That’s the entire point, one party has been aggrieved, and they want compensation from the other party.

            • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              So she could have gotten out and she spilled it on herself.

              Still her own fault.

              • Nusm
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                1 year ago

                Yes, if you read the trial results, you will see that the jury did find her 20% at fault, but found McDonald’s 80% at fault. It doesn’t matter where she was, the point is that the coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns and wasn’t even consumable. If I buy cup of coffee, I expect it to be drinkable, this was not. Further, McDonald’s KNEW that their coffee was too hot, had received numerous complaints, yet did nothing. That’s what puts them 80% in the wrong - when they’re aware of a dangerous problem and they do nothing to fix it or mitigate the issue. They are negligent. Period, hard stop.

          • shuzuko@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            Others have already very kindly explained how you’re completely, totally wrong, so I’ll just add:

            Neener neener, you’re a stupid asshat and nobody likes you :D

          • BearOfaTime
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            1 year ago

            Right. Her getting third degree burns means she wasn’t a victim.

        • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Gee I spilled hot coffee in my lap…let me just do nothing and sit in it.

          Ur labia don’t get fused cuz coffee gets splashed on them.

          • oatscoop@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            I take it you’ve never seen or experienced burns from boiling water – second degree burns happen nearly instantly, with third degree burns taking seconds.

            The coffee they served her was near boiling.

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            The temperature it was at can cause third degree burns in three seconds. Please tell me how an elderly woman buckled in a car can get all of the scalding coffee off of herself in under three seconds.

          • shuzuko@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            Did you know that liquid at 150F can cause 3rd degree burns in 2 seconds? This was 200F, 133% hotter than liquid that can cause 3rd degree burns in 2 seconds. The woman, who it would behoove you to recall was elderly, was sitting down, buckled in, wearing jeans.

            Please, explain to me how, in this scenario, you would suggest that an elderly woman remove her now-scalding jeans in 2 seconds or less.

            You can’t, because it’s impossible. Now fuck off, you complete piece of human garbage. Go suck corporate dick on reddit.

            • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yep cuz she spilled it on herself trying to put cream in and then she sat in it for like a minute. No way some coffee just poured on ur arm is hot enough to instantly fuse flesh .

              Mcd should have paid the initial settlement I agree but the vast damage from this lady’s experience was a result of her own actions.
              That’s what people can’t get over.

              I get how a jury could get it wrong and pay her for her suffering. And I pity her this experience What I dont get is why people completely absolve her of any responsibility here when her own actions were the first contributing factors.

              Even if the coffee wasn’t “too hot”. Her own actions still would have left her burned. That is a fact.

              • Cabrio@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Burn damage occurs in less than a second. Go dip your hand in a pot of boiling water as fast as you can if you want to try it, I’m sure you’ll be just fine.

              • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                The jury also heard evidence how there had been multiple serious injuries before this lady and yet McD intentionally refused to lower the temperature as the bean counters realized they saved money keeping it hot… people couldn’t drink very much of it in restaurant as they ate their breakfast and therfore didn’t ask for refills. Even though they had paid out claims previously, it was cheaper to keep it hot and keep paying them out despite injuries. The jury thus decided on significant punitive damages to motivate McD to do the right thing.

                • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I mean fair. I’m not trying to side with mcds here, really because I do believe they deserve blame, but I also believe it’s not black and white. They don’t deserve all of the blame here.

                  If an employee had spilled on her then yes but she literally did it to herself.

                  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Consider however that she wasn’t served this coffee in a store, but in a car. The possibility of spilling the drink is significantly more likely, especially since she wasn’t given a lid. This isn’t the woman’s fault at all, it was a horrible accident just waiting to happen. It’s like if a roller rink covered the floor in grease and periodically had spike pits.

                    I did a bunch of chemistry lab classes in college, I think I had one each year actually. We regularly heated liquids and worked with concentrated acids. If we had spilled a liquid this hot on ourselves in a similar volume, we would have seen similar burns. It would take longer than 2 seconds to rip off a glove (which is probably fused to your skin very quickly anyway) or disrobe our labcoats. The coffee being spilled on us like this would have given us incredibly severe burns too, and that’s with PPE and emergency safety equipment right there. It would take far, far longer to get to one one of the showers and activate it even.

                    And this is in a controlled lab environment! There was no heightened risk of spills because of being in a moving vehicle nor having an open cup.

                  • BearOfaTime
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                    1 year ago

                    And guess what, neither did the jury. They assigned 20% of fault to her.

                    But you seem to not know this, yet keep on victim blaming.

              • XiELEd@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Burn damage happens near-instantly. Holy shit this is what happens when education isn’t done properly.