Hot Coffee Mod

Everyone has heard of the McDonald's hot coffee case, correct? If not, you're either deaf, blind, and mute; or just completely ignorant to current events. So, if you don't fall into one of the aforementioned categories than you have passed the first test. If not, then I'm curious as to how you managed to type in the address of this blog to begin with. Regardless, let's move on. When I first heard of this case, I thought, "What an idiot! Just another money hungry *expletive." Today, however, my view has changed. We discussed the case briefly in Torts this evening. I haven't read the case yet, but most of the details I learned of came from my professor who seems to be a pretty knowledgeable individual. The case from what I gather is actually quite interesting. Contrary to what many believe, the woman burned by the hot coffee was not zig-zagging in and out of traffic in her red sports car. She simply took an innocent sip. Apparently it was so hot that it burnt her lip and and startled her enough to cause the spilling of the coffee on her person. She suffered major burns that required multiple skin grafts. According to McDonald's policy, the coffee was to be kept ultra hot to avoid letting the coffee go bad. I'm not a coffee drinker but I'm sure coffee drinkers better understand. Personally, I think it tastes like dirt. Moving on...So she sued for what I'm assuming to be negligence, but I'm not positive. The 3 million dollars in damages seeked was not just an arbitrary large number. It's actually the estimated combined sales of coffee by all McDonald's restaurants on any given day. Eventually they settled for something around $400k. Of course, one can debate whether or not a reasonable person would have dropped the coffee after burning her lip and whether or not she should have realized how hot the coffee was. I originally thought, "Come on now. Even a tard knows coffee is hot." I don't know how hot coffee normally is when you brew it yourself, but it doesn't seem to me that it'd be so damn hot that it can burn through all layers of skin in approximately 7 seconds. I didn't pull that 7-second stat out of my rear either; that's what the experts determined. If these facts are all correct (provided to me via my prof.), then I'd have to say that I agree with the outcome of this case. Moral of the story: Brew it yourself.