I am SOOOO Mad!

Interesting post Phil. It seems you expect everyone but yourself to anticipate every conceivable avoidance of personal responsiblity you should take and adjust all their products accordingly. For instance, I guess McDs should also take responsibility for the unexpected road bump, the position of your hand or lap holding your coffee, the condition of your car's suspension, the amount of time you had the coffee since it was served, and the temperature of your vehicle as opposed to you just taking responsiblity for your own actions of drinking coffee, most commonly served hot in the US, in a moving vehicle. If you already recognize the risks, why then is it incumbent on someone else to protect you from youself? If you don't have to take any responsiblity, why not just dump the coffee on your head and then sue McDs. After all, you have stated your own actions are not as significant as McDs inaction. Since every other action you or this disabled woman takes in drinking coffee is complete overshadowed by the temperature at which McDs serves it, you might as well bathe in the stuff and collect damages. It's always someone else's fault these days.

Interesting post Phil. It seems you expect everyone but yourself to anticipate every conceivable avoidance of personal responsiblity you should take and adjust all their products accordingly. For instance, I guess McDs should also take responsibility for the unexpected road bump, the position of your hand or lap holding your coffee, the condition of your car's suspension, the amount of time you had the coffee since it was served, and the temperature of your vehicle as opposed to you just taking responsiblity for your own actions of drinking coffee, most commonly served hot in the US, in a moving vehicle. If you already recognize the risks, why then is it incumbent on someone else to protect you from youself? If you don't have to take any responsiblity, why not just dump the coffee on your head and then sue McDs. After all, you have stated your own actions are not as significant as McDs inaction. Since every other action you or this disabled woman takes in drinking coffee is complete overshadowed by the temperature at which McDs serves it, you might as well bathe in the stuff and collect damages. It's always someone else's fault these days.

Originally posted by Michael Heather I think that the lady should have shouldered at least 50% of the liability... If each party is equally at fault, why should this lady collect?

Originally posted by aquageek If each party is equally at fault, why should this lady collect? Precisely. The punitive damages should still have been paid by McDonalds to a class action suit. My opinions. I know the system doesn't work in straight lines, but it usually works.

Seems that some of us are less interested in exchanging ideas and positions with dignity and respect than putting down anyone who dares to disagree. Even to the extent that we make the same disparaging post twice. Anyone remember what the real thread of this discussion is about without looking at the first post?

Originally posted by Michael Heather The punitive damages should still have been paid by McDonalds to a class action suit. Is this a joke? A class of people who don't know coffee is hot and drive with it between their legs? So now we take a singular ridiculous instance and develop and entire class of people? So we have classes like former nuclear workers with health issues, women who work at Wal-Mart, tobacco litigation and NOW we can add ding-dongs who don't know coffee is hot and drive with a cup between their legs. Yeah, excellent notion. Here's another class to add - people who drink cold beverages with ice and occasionally suffer tooth sensitivity. Sue the ice makers.

Interesting discussion on this, Tom. For many years most states recognized worker's comp as the "exclusive remedy" available to workers. That has since morphed quite a bit in many states. Some states now allow liability claims in addition to the work comp benefits. Many states also have a disability ranking associated with certain injuries that are included as part of a work comp settlement. It's complicated, to be sure. Now, you think liability policies have skyrocketed. Worker's comp premiums are really out of control, mostly due to increased health care costs.

That would never happen at Tim Horton's when you get your coffee there, they ask if you want cream and sugar and they put it in for you... Does anyone out there know what double, double means???

We all take calculated risks all the time, and usually understand the downside of the risk. for example, when I drink coffee in a car I expect to be able to sip without burning my lips immediately (not so with 190 degree coffee) I would be surprised and more damaged than I would have expected. for example, if I drink coffee in a car, and hit an unexpected bump, causing me to squeeze my styrofoam cup, which causes the lid to pop off and drench the front of my shirt, I expect, at the worst, a first degree burn, uncomfortable cold later on, and embarrassment at the office. (that is, in fact, what happened.) That is the downside of the risk I take, and I accept it when I drink coffee in the car. I do not expect to spend several days in the hospital with second and third degree burns. We are not talking about hot coffee here, we are talking about almost-boiling coffee. Emmett's coffee is hot, but not what we are talking about. Do you guys realize how hot is hot? Putting 167 or 172 degree coffee (already 20 degrees colder!) into a ceramic cup and it is not 167 or 172 degrees any more. I doubt any of you drink coffee, ever, that is nearly as hot as we are talking about. If I served coffee at a drive through, I would expect accidents to happen, and it would not be responsible for me to sell a product when the consequences are so serious, especially when the customer does not expect the coffee to be as hot as it is. I would feel responsible if someone got hurt by my unusually hot coffee. I would expect to get sued by the tenth (or whatever) seriously injured customer. I expect McDonalds to be as responsible as I am, especially if it has been told about the situation, several times.

To Pastor: it is easier to get forgiveness than permission. If you need to practice starts from the blocks and they exist, (and you are not able to get friendly with the guards or Mgt) go ahead and dive. In a court case, it could be argued that they (the blocks) were there for precisely that reason. But I am not an attorney or insurance adjuster, just a swimmer that has been where you are. Most likely the Y will throw you out if you persist in diving, but how much practice do you need? To Geek and Botterud, et al.: I think that the lady should have shouldered at least 50% of the liability, inasmuch as she decided not only to put the coffee in a sensitive area, but compounded her lack of good judgement by taking off the lid! Recipe for burnt naughty bits, right there. Mc Donalds apparently deserved the punitive judgement for being both stupid and arrogant.