Fun fact: anytime you hear a story that boils down to “and then some ABSOLUTE FOOL sued this totally innocent megacorporation for assloads of money AND WON! Can you believe it? Ridiculous. Some people, right?” 99 times out of 100, the corporation super fucked up, the plaintiff 100% deserved that money,.and you’ve just been fed corporate propaganda.
“Hot Coffee Lady” had to get skin grafts and was at least the 11th customer to be hospitalized. The coffee served to her was in violation of a court order requiring McDonald’s to sell their coffee at a safe temperature.
The “warning: contents hot” label is a passive-aggressive move by McDonalds because they implemented it at the same time that they finally complied with legal requirements to serve safe beverages.
Every time you see “warning contents hot” and roll your eyes because of course it’s hot, you’re assuming that you and McDonald’s agree on the definition of “hot.”
What’s more, you assume you’ve always agreed, which is the baseline for assuming that the lady who sued had unrealistic expectations.
Yeah. I don’t remember the corporate policy for McDonalds coffee temperature at the time, but i do remember that it was *near boiling.*
Your Starbucks? Not near boiling. Not likely to make you need massive reconstructive surgery on your hoo hah if you spill it in your lap.
Also, please remember exactly how much BS someone would have to go through to get that verdict. Generally speaking, someone has been seriously injured or killed. They have to prove that the company was negligent or knowingly refused to fix an issue. This isn’t like airing something on Fox News - there are actual standards of proof that have to be met. Even so, most consumer lawsuits against corporations do not achieve large awards. When they do, consider how severe the damage must have been. The MCD lady only wanted them to pay her damn medical bills (think about how much medical care costs in the U.S.); McDonalds refused. Toyota eventually had to pay a massive settlement (after being sued multiple times) for issues with the gas pedal causing sudden massive acceleration. Do you honestly believe they would have just fixed it on their own? Toyota lied to regulators and blamed it on “driver error” - because sometimes you just hit the gas really hard when you meant to hit the brake… (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/toyota-reaches-12-billion-settlement-to-end-criminal-probe/2014/03/19/5738a3c4-af69-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ab92a7e6b655)
Don’t let them fool you into thinking that people are getting hurt by a company’s product just because they’re stupid.
Corporations have no qualms about lying and defaming people they have hurt to avoid being held accountable.
