balderdash111

I know it looks like I am trying to hijack the thread here, but I'm not. This just happens to be a pet peeve of mine.

I assume you're referring to the woman who bought a coffee at the McDonald's drive through who put it between her legs, spilled it, got burned, and won a multi-million verdict.

Sure, looked at that way, the case seems ludicrous.

But those aren't all the facts, it's just what the media reported b/c it makes for a more colorful story.

Here are more of the facts:

1) The coffee was so hot the woman needed skin grafts on her groin to repair the damage. SKIN GRAFTS! Think of the last time you burned yourself with coffee. Was it so hot you needed skin grafts? I doubt it.

2) There is no reason to keep coffee that hot, and McDonald's knew it (they had internal studies on the issue, believe it or not) but kept it that hot anyway.

3) McDonald's had been told many times about the dangers posed by the heat of the coffee and ignored the matter.

4) (I think this last part is true, but may be mixing up cases) The coffee was so hot that it degraded the integrity of the cup they served it in. Translation: because the coffee was too hot, it weakened the cups, making them more likely to spill on customers.

Ok, so given the above, do you think the jury was right to award a hefty punitive award against McDonalds? If they didn't, would McDonalds have gotten the message?

Full disclosure: I am a lawyer, but not a plaintiff's lawyer. In fact, my clients are more likely to get sued over something like this. That said, I get irked when people complain about exorbitant damage awards when there is, in fact, some logic behind it.

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