Quote:
Originally Posted by desertgrandma
Again, it was thru her own negligence. called 'taking responsibility for your own actions" What was REALLY bad luck for them was the sleazy lawyer who took the case. And how much do you think the 'sweet little old lady' got? Compared to the lawyer?  |
Well, they had a lot of evidence in that case about what was/was not a "proper" temperature for hot beverages to be at in order to be considered safe for sale. As I recall, there was even a memo floating around that mentioned how dangerous it might be to sell coffee or other hot beverages at temperatures that were too high.
But, hey ... it's sort of like Ford and the Pinto. They did a cost benefit analysis and decided that "most" of the gas tanks wouldn't explode, and that it would be much cheaper to fight lawsuits over those that did, rather than have a massive recall or to redesign the product.
McDonalds had more or less the same cost benefit analysis. It's just that the court disagreed with their logic.
As for the negligence of the lady who spilled her coffee. As I mentioned before ... the court simply decided that a reasonable person would not expect their coffee to be so hot that it would land them in the hospital for a series of surgeries. That's the standard that the courts generally use.
I have no idea if the attorney took the case on a contingency basis or for a fee. I do know that the injured woman had hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical costs to pay, as well as a hell of a lot of reconstructive surgery costs, and rehabitation therapy so that she could walk again.
I have no firm opinion on whether the attorney was sleazy or not. Some litigators I know are ... others not so much. I (and I may be a cheering section of one ...) happened to really admire the litigator who took on the KKK after they murdered one young (black) man, and forced them to give over their headquarters to the mother of the murdered man.
In short ... the court system generally does not set the "reasonability" standard for people in this country at a particularly high level. To me, that speaks more to the lousy education many of our citizens receive.
Oh .... and completely and totally aside .... today, when I went to visit Mrs. Moon, her family had given her a game called "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader." Now .... the fact that a group of (apparently) otherwise well educated people could find that game challenging is beyond me. Now, I just wish that $1,000,000 I "won" playing the game could be turned into real money.
