We studied this case in my Torts class and the pictures of her injuries are pretty shocking. Also shocking is that she just wanted her medical bills paid ($10,000) but McDonald's only offered $800 to settle. The judge lowered the amount awarded significantly ($650,000) then they settled out of court.

Seriously, the picture will make you rethink everything about this case.

@Casey. You didn't read the article did you?

Never take what a law professor tells you at face value. Mine were a mixed bag, but at least half of them had some ultra left political axe to grind.

The extent of a plaintiffs injuries only comes into play when the tort feasor has done something wrong. In this case McDonalds was well within the industry standard.

Starbucks serves their coffee hotter (and has also been sued for it) and I hope they also declined to settle.

Seriously, the picture will make you rethink everything about this case.

If she boiled water in her own kitchen and burned herself with it, would the stove maker owe her big $?

I don't care how bad her injuries were, SHE DID IT TO HERSELF. Most morons know enough NOT to put a hot cup of coffee between their legs. That's what CUP HOLDERS are for.

Frivolous litigation is just one of many things ham-stringing this country's honest hardworking citizens. Another is the BS that the MSM and liberal politicians are trying to cram down our throats.

(Nope, I'm not bitter. But I do seem to have a highly tuned BS detector.)

Here's one of my favorites: Woman awarded over $1M for loss of psychic powers. And note the date; this was back in 1986. The thing about these is, even if thousands of plaintiff's claims are rejected, it only takes one plaintiff to get lucky, one time, and then that becomes a precedent. In three minutes of Googling, I came up with two other cases of people sueing over alleged loss of psychic powers. I haven't found how either of those cases came out, but that's almost not the point -- in all cases, it cost the defendant tens of thousands (at least), and lost work/family time in court, to defend themselves against claims that should have been rejected out of hand. There are laws about frivolous lawsuits, and ethics standards for lawyers, but they are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever enforced. Did I mention that they aren't enforced? Must be nice to work in a profession where you can decide for yourself how the law applies to you.

And if she had added the cream and sugar while in the McDonald's none of this would have happened. The film is crap, too.
Good to know that law students are being taught junk science.

Well, time to be contrarian again.

Ted Frank does make some good points about the Liebeck case.

But the facts remains that McDonalds knew that what they were selling was dangerous - because of the hundreds of prior incidents of injury.

How other people did or didn't make coffee, what is the 'correct' way to make coffee, how McDonalds had or hadn't made or sold coffee in the past, are all immaterial. McDonalds knew that what they were selling was injuring people - because of the many prior incidents, to which they stipulated at the Liebeck trial - and thus they were under a duty to do something about it.

You don't simply get to say 'you should know coffee is hot' and somehow magically absolve yourself of responsibility. You take the public as you find them, not as you think they ought to be. If years of experience has shown that what you are selling the public is injuring them, then the next injury that occurs is foreseeable, and avoidable, and the duty is on you to do something about it.

$2.9 million was maybe a bit stiff, which is why the judge reduced it to (IIRC) $300,000 on appeal. But McDonalds was liable for Liebeck's injuries. By how much, we can debate - but the base fact of their liability is not in question.

llater,

llamas

Yes, but llamas, you only hear from the people with complaints. I'm glad my coffee is served hot so it won't cool down before I have a chance to drink it. I am unlikely to write to McDonalds to that effect, however.

I cut myself on cooking knives, cooking knives companies know they are selling dangerous objects, ergo knife sellers own me millions every time I cut myself

Sell millions of anything, llamas.

You too will get hundreds of complaints.

Well, time to be contrarian again.

Because this makes you look smart...how, again? How does this make you look smart?

Because, yeah, what dee nile said. Sell millions of anything, and...

Oh, and while we're at it, McDonald's now sells iced coffee, and damn, I tore the skin on my thumb when it stuck to the cup because it was TOO COLD and I tried to take my thumb off the cup too fast! Wah! I lost time from work! Wah! I had to get a skin graft! Wah! McDonald's KNEW the iced coffee was too cold! I'm suing!!

See how ridiculous? Please.

"You don't simply get to say 'you should know coffee is hot' and somehow magically absolve yourself of responsibility. You take the public as you find them, not as you think they ought to be. "

The problem with that philosophy is that it requires every product to be dumbed down enough to be safe for the most incompetent and least capable citizen. If we apply that philosophy to computers, then every computer has to be a sealed box, you can only access Web sites that are on an approved whitelist, and only the manufacturer or an approved vendor can install software. And forget being able to buy a compiler or write your own code. You might do something stupid that lets someone steal your credit card number.

And this is without getting into actual malice. If you think that no one is low enough to deliberately burn themselves with coffee so as to have grounds for a suit, I can name someone known to me who has tried it.

My new favorite lawsuit story: adopted daughter kicked to curb wins her share of the family estate.

Evil adoptamom so furious she almost stopped buying islands ...

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/02/widow-owes-rejected-adopted-daughter-millions-court-rules/

Not a torte, really, more like icing on the torte.

She bought coffee, a beverage that comes hot, unless you specify iced coffee. She held the coffee between her legs, as she added cream and sugar, and she wore cotton sweat pants as she did it.

Just how stupid do you get to be before no one owes you anything when you hurt yourself?

Indeed, sell millions of anything and you will get hundreds of complaints. Duh!

But that is not a reason to ignore the complaints. If hundreds of people are getting hurt by what you sell and the particular way you sell it - and you know it - then that is reason enough for you to address what you are doing. The next injury is foreseeable, and avoidable. The number of non-injuries does not magically reduce the number of injuries - it's not a game of ratios. If a hudred people don't hurt themselves, that is not a free pass for you to hurt one person and walk away from it.

The point is made that Ms Liebeck behaved rather unwisely, and that may have contributed to her injuries. True enough - which is why her damages were reduced in some proportion (I don't recall what, and it doesn't matter) because she was held to be partly to blame. But - once aghain - you could only consider McDonalds to be 100% blameless if Ms Liebeck had been the first person ever to hurt herself in this way - because then her injuries would not be foreseeable, or avoidable. But she was not. Hundreds before her had hurt themselves in effectively-identical ways - and McDonalds knew it, and did (effectively) nothing about it.

Again, all these arguments about how foolish or otherwise she was are simply beside the point in light of McDonalds prior knowledge of the real-world dangers of what they were doing. They do not simply get to specify what is 'correct' behaviour by their customers, and absolve themselves of liability when their customers do not behave as specified. They might have been in a better place if they had warned their customers about the dangers of doing what so many of them did - this is how many manufacturers alleviate their risks.

As to the cooking-knife example - very useful, thank you. I will wager good cash money that the package that your cooking knife comes in is clearly marked 'Sharp knife inside! Handle with care! Danger of cutting injuries!' or words to that effect. If McDonalds had provided similar wanrings about the real-world use of their products, knowing full-well the real world dangers, then they might well have prevailed. They lost precisely becasue they took the positions being put forth here - well, she was stupid, she should have known it was dangerous. Now, tell me - why should she know that hot coffee is dangerous, but McDonalds should be allowed to ignore the fact that hot coffee is dangerous?

Contrarian? Why, yes. But, as another notes, you never hear from the people with no complaints. You'll only hear from me when I disagree, not when I agree. Logical, isn't it, when you think about it?

llater,

llamas

"The number of non-injuries does not magically reduce the number of injuries - it's not a game of ratios. "

Actually, it is. It is impossible to make a product 100% safe; if you sell enough of a product, someone will figure out a way to hurt themselves with it. The precautionary principle merely guarantees that competition is limited and that innovative products never reach the market. If it were applied consistently to food service, all hot foods would be banned.

Every time someone wins a product-liability lawsuit that is based on flimsy pretenses, it encourages thousands of imitators and fraudsters. The maker of the product then has to defend itself against all of these. That standard winds up being applied to the product industry-wide, so that the cost of defending against lawsuits becomes a barrier to entry for new competitors. It locks in the market position of the existing market leaders. There will never be another large-scale automobile manufacturing firm in the U.S., in part because of the liability barrier to entry.

@ Cousin Dave - when I wrote

"The number of non-injuries does not magically reduce the number of injuries - it's not a game of ratios. "

I could perhaps have been more clear, which is why you misunderstood me. But I was clearer when I wrote, directly afterwards,

"If a hu(n)dred people don't hurt themselves, that is not a free pass for you to hurt one person and walk away from it."

Damned Chiclet laptop keys.

Just as with bridge design, the number of successes cannot be used as some sort of offset against the number of failures. It's statistically interesting, but does not absolve the makers of liability for the failures.

While it is very true to say that it is impossible to make a product 100% safe, that is likewise not an excuse to absolve the maker of the product from all liability, ever. While something can never be 100% safe, if you know from great prior experience that it is unsafe, and why and how it is unsafe, it is your duty to do what you can to make it safer - not simply to say 'well, it can never be 100% safe, so anything that happens is just one of those things.. . . .'

Here's a thought experiment.

You are a maker of motor cars. Your cars include power-assisted brakes. You begin to receive reports of injuries and deaths because of a failure of the power brake system - people press on the brake pedal, but nothing happens, and so they crash.

You have several dozen reports of this failure, out of a couple of million cars sold. You have investigated and found that, indeed, the brake system has failed on many of the crashed vehicles, although you don't quite know why yet.

Now - Are you liable for the next death or injury that occurs? Or is it a valid defense for you to say 'Well, people should know that car brakes
sometimes fail. Driving a car is inherently dangerous. If the driver had been more careful, they would have been able to avoid the accident.'?

Yes, or no?

llater,

llamas

Llamas, product liability and manufacturing defects, are an area of law, that does not compare to serving hot foods hot.

Hot coffee is not a defective product. It is an expected hazard, like frozen ice cream or greasy French fries.
Now if a McDonalds employee pours hot coffe on you, and it burns you, you have an action for negligence.
Do you think you ought to be able to sue them if you choke on a French fry?

After all, hundreds of people probably choke on French fries every year, so they have to know it is a possible hazard. Correct?

I really miss the days when it took a top 15 percent LSAT score to get into law school.

"Now - Are you liable for the next death or injury that occurs? Or is it a valid defense for you to say 'Well, people should know that car brakes sometimes fail. Driving a car is inherently dangerous. If the driver had been more careful, they would have been able to avoid the accident.'?"

Was a standard of care met? If so, then the answer is no -- the automaker should not be liable. They are an automaker, not a health insurance company. Zero risk is impossible.

Let me give you an example that is acually codified in regulation. The FAA requires that, for catastrophic faults in aircraft, that such faults will occur less often than 1 in 1.000,000,000 flight hours. That's not the same thing as zero, and when enough planes of a given model accumulate enough flight hours, eventually a fault is going to happen. The specific number can be quibbled with, but the point is that the FAA explicitly rejects the precautionary principle -- they recognize that zero risk is impossible, and so they try to develop a state-of-the-art standard for what level of risk is acceptable. Once that standard is met, what's left is fate. As it goes with everything in life (and flying in an airliner is a hell of a lot safer than most of it).

There's an additional argument to be made that product liability law is an extremely ineffective means of improving product safety, but I'll save that for another post.