I frankly don't know whether all McD's are franchises or not It really is irrelevant to the liability issue whether corp or franchisee both appear financially healthy.

Whether you add health care as a labor cost is dependant on whether you provide health benes.I f you include it as a labor cost because you provide it then labor is high if you don't then I would think there are other costs that would exceed pure labor in a lot of circumstances.

Corporate profits - I think you & I are basically saying the same thing a corporate profit maybe a standard line in the books but how one cooks the books determines that figure.

Bankruptcy Comment - Yes that is one of many costs of doing business that offsets profits but so are Golden parachutes insider trading ,corporate fraud and outrageous corporate compensation packages.

Dangerous instruments The Question for the Jury to consider was - Was the coffee McD's serving dangerous knowing how it was intended to be used & knowing the various way it was used. The Jury Found McD's Liable
All things can be dangerous - Distinctions are made which classifies the various products ie The Lawnmower,Knife ans scissors are considered inherently dangerous products
hamburgers popcorn are not inherently dangerous
coffee doesn't have to be dangerous - but when served at scalding temperatures it becomes dangerous & McD's becomes responsible for the coffee because they determined the temperature it was served and Knew that people would be using it with one hand & while driving because they advertised it and served it through a window.

Cell phone - Unless the cell phone maker also makes their battery they will probably not be responsible for a fire unless their was proof they knew the batteries were defective & used them anyway.

Manufacturer defect - Again a manufacturer is not responsible for a defect of its product unless it knew or should have known of the defect before putting it into the stream of commerce.

Facts
1) coffee is hot & does not have to scald.
2)the process of making coffee does not require scalding hot water - just hot water.
3)People make & serve non scalding coffee everyday.
4)McD's served scalding hot coffee when it did not have to knowing people would be in their cars & doing other things when drinking said coffee.
5)Coffee is hot but doesnt have to be scalding especially if you serve it at a drive through.

Coffee maker -McD's has absolute control over the products it purchases I would imagine they even have machines designed to their specifications. Again It would have been an easy & inexpensive alteration to the machine to protect the public remember Mcd's Knows that all their customers are not all that bright there fore they have a responsibility for them to protect them from foreseeable harms.

Bottom line is John Edwards is a ghoul and his whole theory about "Two Americas" is dangerous.

Please explain.

Lacked class bigtime after election loss.

pmn1:

"Yes that is one of many costs of doing business that offsets profits but so are Golden parachutes insider trading ,corporate fraud and outrageous corporate compensation packages."

While outrageous, the inception of "golden parachutes" was initially spurred to prevent litigation when firing an executive, mainly because of the dollars involved and the salary-plus options that can range into the millions of dollars. The more money involved, the greater chance for litigation. The reasoning being that there will be less of an incentive for a corporate executive to sue if a compensation package is already supplied.

Frankly, if you're an incompetant boob (which most modern-day CEOs appear to be in my honest opinion), you should be thrown out on your a**. So, you'll get no argument with me about "golden parachutes", obscenece executive salaries (especially for public corporations - privately held businesses are another matter), and obscene valued stock options. Then again, it is the job of the board of directors to look after corporate health, and not you or I, or even the government. So, if they feel fit to offer ungodly sums of money to well-dressed nincompoops, that's their business. So long as as the company is pulling a profit, all is well.

Corporations cannot survive in a market-driven economy when they continue to do stupid things over long periods of time. This is the "advantage" of a capitalist system, in that the market will thin the herd over time. We've seen this with Enron, continue to see this with the auto companies (one of which I work at), and in numerous small companies that try to penetrate a market where they cannot compete.



"The Lawnmower,Knife ans scissors are considered inherently dangerous products..."

So is coffee. Try sticking your hand under the stream that flows into the pot.



"hamburgers popcorn are not inherently dangerous."

Steak, when prepared tartare (which is essentially raw hamburger, just made with a different cut of meat) or prepared less then "medium" is dangerous as these temperatures are not enough to kill dangerous microbes and parasites. A tapeworm can kill the host, as can an E Coli infection. Neither of these conditions can be totally eradicated from raw and/or undercooked meat.



"coffee doesn't have to be dangerous - but when served at scalding temperatures it becomes dangerous & McD's becomes responsible for the coffee because they determined the temperature it was served and Knew that people would be using it with one hand & while driving because they advertised it and served it through a window."

It's called a "cup holder". And if they intended to make it easier for customers to consume their products while driving, McDonalds would not wrap the products in paper, nor stick them in a bag. Then again, you could say the same thing about a pair of scissors or a knife that doesn't come with a sheath in the packaging or where the blades are pre-sharpened. The manufacturer promoted the dangerous use of said product because they were lethal right out of the package, and did not provide any means of making them non-leathal. And while this sounds a little nutty, so is suing a company because they sold hot coffee, just like everyone else sells hot coffee.



"Cell phone - Unless the cell phone maker also makes their battery they will probably not be responsible for a fire unless their was proof they knew the batteries were defective & used them anyway."

McDonalds did not make the coffee maker, nor did they create the standards by which coffee is made or heated - someone else did. And, I might add, I can find little or no documentation as to whether the franchise was sued over the incident; odds are they weren't. Their pockets weren't deep enough.

Even if a battery is considered not defective, it still has the potential to become defective. Also, misuse can MAKE it become defective. One might also claim that by taking the lid off the coffee, and straddling the cup in her lap, Stella misused the coffee, knowingly exposing herself to the risk of burns.



"Manufacturer defect - Again a manufacturer is not responsible for a defect of its product unless it knew or should have known of the defect before putting it into the stream of commerce."

Serving hot coffee is not a defect. You have a coffee trade organization endorsing the same temperature that McDonalds served the coffee at. Also, no one did ANY tests on the temperature of the coffee as it was served to Selma. So the temperature of the coffee served to the plantiff is not known. All we have is a doctor's "best guess" as to what the temperature was, and McDonalds guidelines, which conform to a national standard. I challenge you to go to any resturant, ask for coffee (don't ask for it cold), and have them serve it to you stone-cold.

Odd how McDonalds has to comply with one set of rules that no one else has to conform to.



"1) coffee is hot & does not have to scald."

Temperatures above 100 degrees can scald the skin of babies and the elderly.

A little blurb from the Consumer Product Safety Commission:

"Most adults will suffer third-degree burns if exposed to 150 degree water for two seconds. Burns will also occur with a six-second exposure to 140 degree water or with a thirty second exposure to 130 degree water. Even if the temperature is 120 degrees, a five minute exposure could result in third-degree burns."

So even at the temperature alleged to be safe by the supposed "experts" for coffee, the burns would have occured. The issue was that Stella's sweatpants absorbed the hot coffee, and kept it in contact with her skin for a long period of time. When the stuff seeped downj the buttocks area, it's quite feasible that there was no way for the heat to escape into the air, and thereby cause the burns in the period described above.



"2)the process of making coffee does not require scalding hot water - just hot water."

That's just outright false. Try making coffee from coffee grounds with 100 degree water, and see what you get.



"3)People make & serve non scalding coffee everyday."

That's outright false as well, as indicated by the blurb I cited.



"4)McD's served scalding hot coffee when it did not have to knowing people would be in their cars & doing other things when drinking said coffee."

Once McDonalds hands off the product, they are incapable of controlling what the customer does with it. Assume that someone picks up a plastic knife at McDonalds, and uses this to injure another person (yes, this is possible, prisoners in jail do it all the time). If we followed this line of reasonsing, thyen McDonalds could be found liable for some of the most bizzare stuff.



"5)Coffee is hot but doesnt have to be scalding especially if you serve it at a drive through."

Not even going to bother with this one.



"Coffee maker -McD's has absolute control over the products it purchases I would imagine they even have machines designed to their specifications."

They do now. They didn't then.



"Again It would have been an easy & inexpensive alteration to the machine to protect the public."

An alternation that NO ONE in the food service industry has requested.

Yeah, right.



"remember Mcd's Knows that all their customers are not all that bright there fore they have a responsibility for them to protect them from foreseeable harms."

Great. Sopmeone stays at your home, then gets into a dibilitating car accident. Using your line of thinking, you're at fault.

Be careful where you go with this.

J I have tried to explain the law as it is applied in a logical way . Yes it is complicated & even more so by taking bits & pieces out via posts.But Alas I have failed suffice it to say that the law which has evolved over a 200 year period was properly applied the checks & balances were utilized and the appellate courts ruled.
Certain products are inherently dangerous certain ones are not. courts have consistently ruled that when products are placed in the marketplace the manufacturer & seller have certain obligations to the public one of them is safety over foreseeable harm.What is defined as foreseeable is a jury question. You may disagree or agree but that is the way the system works you may argue your case as to coffee, what is dangerous or what is not or control after the sale but the result based on current law would be the same.I do not expect to change your mind on these issues.I also hope you have no need for a lawyer in your future I get the sense that it would not go well.Besides there is no law that says that you need one - handle it your self and good luck.

p,
good post (86).
I don't think, however, that anyone is claiming that you couldn't use the existing laws to prove the case.
I believe the point is simply that the laws shouldn't be used when common sense can be applied. Yes, this is a difficult thing to apply, since it is not easy to define. But who the hell doesn't know that HOT coffee can actually be "hot"?

Many of the absurd lawsuits are indeed the figment of our imagination known as the internet, but all too often seemingly frivolous cases are heard in our courts, and many of those result in some sort of settlement.
In these instances, it's disgusting that the plaintiffs are not held responsible for thier obvious intent to simply milk the system.

Without doing a google search and verifying the cases, we could look no further than the recent outbreak of lawsuits against the aformentioned McDonalds and other fast food chains for "Making" people become obese.

How does a case like this make it to the courts? Because lawyers use actual laws to make their case.

Personal responsiblity is gone. People can eat what they want, get fat, then blame the food company.

It's a slippery slope, because we can't deny citizens the right to fair damages when it's a legitimate case, but these obesity cases will usurp our courts time and money simply because a few people feel zero responsiblity to their own actions, and feel they are somehow owed something by mr. Big Bad Corporation.

The lawyers who file these lawsuits should be disbarred forever.

pmn1:

I have no doubt that you've tried to explain to me the law, or what currently passes as law. What this case came down to was an emotional reaction by the jurors, and not reason. They saw the pictures of the burns on a little old lady, and felt - for right or for wrong - McDonalds was gonna pay, regardless of any evidence that came up. That doesn't bother me as much as people who try to defend this indefensible verdict. Because those who defend this pap end up paving the way for further insanity, like suing McDonalds for obesity.

As tailgater mentioned, there was a time when most people stepped up and took responsibility for their actions. Yet our society has degraded to the point where idiots are turned into heroes, and make others pay dearly for their own actions. It's wrong, no matter how you slice it.

We're also breeding a culture that seemingly cannot handle the fact that things sometimes go wrong. If they do, SOMEONE'S gonna pay for it, by God! Instead of sucking it up and moving on, people dwell and obsess on the perceived misdeeds of others. And that type of poisonous mentality is dangerous.

I know that if such a thing has happened to me (and in a couple of instances, it has), I'd be ashamed to show my face on the street were I to pursue such a lawsuit. Then again, no such lawsuit would have been filed in the first place.

The facts of the matter are that McDonalds did nothing wrong - period. You can dress this up with a lot of litigious nonsense, but in the end the only thing they did was make coffee the way everybody likes it: hot.

Gater
The fact that this case made it to a jury & that the jury found for the plaintiff is per Se evidence that the case had merrit.You may disagree and so does J but the Jury which heard both sides of the case & no disrespect to J the defence probably made an even better arguument than J did and the jury still found for the plaintiff.To know exactly their reasoning would require you to sit there any other comments is pure speculation
You may feel that to allow what you feel are frivolous lawsuits to be allowed is evidence of our degrading sociaty.I will not comment on that However one of the things that distinguishes us from other societies is our legal system. Access to the courts by anybody & converting an eye for an eye to a system that compensates with monetary damages.There is no doubt that bad decisions are made But I can think of non better.

The system is what it is - a reflection of our current society both good & bad. Lawyers are a part of the system. I feel your clear hatred for them is somewhat misplaced they do what the system allows them to do and they aggressive advocate positions on both side of the issues. Life happens & is not black & white more often than naught it is grey. Try looking in the mirror you may see things a little differently.

Vindication is at Hand !