California AirTag Lawsuit Widened to Include Dozens More Stalking Cases

[redbeard331]

I mean, the first link to show up is a Wikipedia page that covers all the details, how McDonald’s knew the coffee was dangerously hot, lied about it, all to make more money. The woman was 79 year old woman was hospitalized for 8 days over it.

But hey, that won’t stop people from continuing to make erroneous claims until the end of time I guess.

Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[redbeard331]

As you can tell I have little patience for our current "blame and sue" culture versus taking personal responsibility for ones own actions.

As if, all I can tell is that you believe individuals should take “personal responsibility” for everything, unless those individuals happen to be the rich and powerful like the people who run large corporations.

 

[icanhazmac]

You cannot acknowledge that it is stupid to be in a car, place a cup of hot liquid between your legs and open it? To me, that is way more than 20% liable for any outcome.

You cannot acknowledge that it is stupid to hand a 4 year old, special needs child, hot deep fried food and not supervise them eating? Chicken needs to be a minimum of 165 degrees for safety, would you hand a child, fresh out of the fryer food and not supervise? Perhaps if the child was supervised the McNugget would not have gotten "stuck" between the child's leg and the seat belt for long enough to burn the child?

I am willing to acknowledge that perhaps the coffee doesn't need to be that hot (in fact I never said otherwise) but again, where is the balance between customer demands (hot coffee), customer expectations (for how hot the coffee is) and customer stupidity? Perhaps McDs should just hand you coffee grounds and a 20oz bottle of water so you can prepare the beverage at your final destination?

 

[wigby]

Thank you for that, a different take from the reference(s) I found.

On the coffee topic:

• Customers want hot coffee yet stupid customers place the cup near their "junk" to add stuff. I hear people at Starbucks ask for "extra hot" all the time. How is a corporation to balance between customer requests, expectations and stupidity?
• I don't think anything at a company as large as McDs happens arbitrarily, someone at corporate sets the coffee temp based on some convoluted criteria based on customer demand versus product recommendations versus safety, etc. I can only imagine that the serving temp was set that high because of customer demand or complains about the coffee not being hot enough.
• How does McDs fix stupid? Placing a freshly hot cup of liquid between your knees in a car to add stuff is just plain stupid. I have spilled coffee on myself and in almost every instance I was doing either something stupid, ill-advised or just purely accidental, bottom line is no liability could or should be placed on whomever I got the coffee from, it was clearly my fault. That is the way I judge this case.
• The coffee makers' (either mechanical or human) were not malfunctioning as you claim, a directive was set at the corporate level and was being followed by those preparing it. My guess it is out of the hands of any humans at any given franchise and is hard set by the manufacturer of the hardware itself.
• How this woman was only found 20% liable is astonishing and speaks volumes about our inclination to hand out ridiculous settlements when a claim is made against a corporation. Did this person know she was handling a hot liquid? I can only assume so. Did this woman use a common best practice, like a cup holder, to add products to her coffee? No, she decided to use her crotch, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

You failed to address the "McNugget" situation so I will treat it as above:

• Customers want hot food yet stupid customers hand hot, deep fried food to an autistic 4 year old and don't supervise.
• How does McDs fix stupid? Handing a child, let alone a special need child, hot deep fried food to eat unsupervised is stupid, simple as that. Almost anyone who has eaten hot, deep fried foods has burned themselves in one way or another so one could say they would be negligent in offering said food to a child.
• I did read that McDs acknowledged the McNugget caused the burn but again, that is not an admission of guilt on their part. Why was the child not supervised?

As you can tell I have little patience for our current "blame and sue" culture versus taking personal responsibility for ones own actions.

Again, thank you for at least following up on one of the claims in question.

I haven't read any legal conclusions extensively, but I do see a pattern of problem(s) that are not addressed by these corporations in varying degrees. They are not being sued for that. They are being sued for the cover up and the neglect. There seems to be internal documentation showing a pattern of neglect and when judges and juries see this, they want to punish these companies even if the customers are 100% to blame for the damages ensued. My hot take on these type of lawsuits is that while they are egregious in many/most cases, they are also necessary because they keep large companies and workforces in check by keeping the fear of massive monetary losses alive and well. Outside of overregulation, this seems to be the best way to keep companies from running rampant over consumers.

 

[1129846]

You cannot acknowledge that it is stupid to be in a car, place a cup of hot liquid between your legs and open it? To me, that is way more than 20% liable for any outcome.

You cannot acknowledge that it is stupid to hand a 4 year old, special needs child, hot deep fried food and not supervise them eating? Chicken needs to be a minimum of 165 degrees for safety, would you hand a child, fresh out of the fryer food and not supervise? Perhaps if the child was supervised the McNugget would not have gotten "stuck" between the child's leg and the seat belt for long enough to burn the child?

I am willing to acknowledge that perhaps the coffee doesn't need to be that hot (in fact I never said otherwise) but again, where is the balance between customer demands (hot coffee), customer expectations (for how hot the coffee is) and customer stupidity? Perhaps McDs should just hand you coffee grounds and a 20oz bottle of water so you can prepare the beverage at your final destination?

A lot of the hot coffee one is McDonald's coffee was being served and brewer at 190F. Normal hot coffee is 140F. Hot water heaters in a home tend to be set at 120f. Either way 50 degree hotter in hot coffee is massive over what everyone else and our coffee pots are cranking out.

It would be difficent if say a customer ask for extra extra hot coffee vs hot coffee as it was established in that court case hot coffee is consider 140f.

The special needs kid on chicken again cooking to 165 is not consider the issue. Servicing it still at those temps is another matter. I would not put pass McDonald's going really extra hot and leaving it there to "extend"the shelf life before the food was cold. Problem is there is what is cosider hot and then there is extra hot problem range. McDonald's was falling in the problem range.

 

[icanhazmac]

I haven't read any legal conclusions extensively, but I do see a pattern of problem(s) that are not addressed by these corporations in varying degrees. They are not being sued for that. They are being sued for the cover up and the neglect. There seems to be internal documentation showing a pattern of neglect and when judges and juries see this, they want to punish these companies even if the customers are 100% to blame for the damages ensued. My hot take on these type of lawsuits is that while they are egregious in many/most cases, they are also necessary because they keep large companies and workforces in check by keeping the fear of massive monetary losses alive and well. Outside of overregulation, this seems to be the best way to keep companies from running rampant over consumers.

I view this as an odd take. Why would McDs have their coffee that hot, there is no financial incentive as one could argue that is costs them more to have the coffee makers set to higher temps. My thought is they are tired of complaints of "cold" coffee. The wiki article challenges this but again, what is the incentive to serve coffee at that temp? Complaints are the only thing I can think of. EDIT: perhaps a higher brewing temp somehow makes for better flavor?

You also mention "cover up" and "neglect", I don't see any reference in the coffee case to a cover up. McDs simply has not enacted changes. As for "neglect" sure, one could argue that they could lower their coffee temps a bit and honestly I can't fathom why they haven't other than what I mentioned above, customer complaints. They must feel that the payouts they make outweigh lost sales.

Also, if a jury or government entity wants to punish a corporation I would find fines to be a much better way of accomplishing this versus egregious payouts to stupid people. I truly feel for the elderly woman in this case but if she had put her cup in a holder to take the top off instead of placing it between her legs this would have never happened, or at worst she might have spilled some on her hands from the cup being filled to the top. Fines could be used to provide legal help to consumers that could not afford lawyers? Paying out ridiculous amounts of money to consumers just feeds ambulance chasing lawyers. Instead of the crazy payout, which was 2 days of coffee revenue, why not simply deny McDs the right to sell coffee for 2 days. I would argue that would impact McDs way more than the payout which was probably covered by insurance anyway.

 

[Razorpit]

A lot of the hot coffee one is McDonald's coffee was being served and brewer at 190F. Normal hot coffee is 140F. Hot water heaters in a home tend to be set at 120f. Either way 50 degree hotter in hot coffee is massive over what everyone else and our coffee pots are cranking out.

It would be difficent if say a customer ask for extra extra hot coffee vs hot coffee as it was established in that court case hot coffee is consider 140f.

The special needs kid on chicken again cooking to 165 is not consider the issue. Servicing it still at those temps is another matter. I would not put pass McDonald's going really extra hot and leaving it there to "extend"the shelf life before the food was cold. Problem is there is what is cosider hot and then there is extra hot problem range. McDonald's was falling in the problem range.

Home coffee machines brew coffee ~ 195º - 205º, same as restaurant machines. Typical coffee machine heat plate temperature is 175º. Anything above/below these temperatures changes the chemical balance in the coffee and thus the taste. People drink coffee at 140º, no one brews or keeps it at that temperature.

The temperature to consider the doneness of food is an estimate established by the FDA using a very specific set of guidelines. Time and temprature work together to establish when enough bacteria is killed and the food is safe to eat. Cooking or storing chicken above 165º does not prolong the storage life. It does the opposite. No one is going to keep chicken “extra hot” because that only dries it out.