> What gets me is the lead story is wrong so I'm skeptical about > all of it. McDonald's never changed the temperature of there > coffee and most places, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King > etc still serve coffee at that temperature.
Assuming McDonadl's didn't change their holding temperature down 10 degrees after the lawsuit (I don't have a copy of their policies so I can't say who's right), it's a minor point in the film (a footnote at the end, essentially) so I'm not sure that negates the whole film. I'd be curious as to their source for that information if it's in dispute though. They want us to be informed citizens, and it's fair to want to be informed as to the sources used in the film itself, I'd say. > Bottom line, how could she do that and expect different results? The jury did find her partially responsible, and remember this was an accident, not as though she intentionally poured it all over herself to see what would happen. There have been further lawsuits against McDonald's and others over the same issue as recent as 2012 (one case involved an employee serving the hot coffee to a four year-old girl where the lid popped off and spilled on her when she took it causing second-degree burns (apparently handing hot coffee to children is against company policy which is the basis for that lawsuit, e.g. negligence on the part of their employee by not following policies). Are these more recent lawsuits frivolous? Perhaps, I don't have all the facts of the case so I can't say, but the fact that companies are still serving a product at dangerous temperatures and people are still hurting themselves with it 15 years later should be cause for some concern. > Main point, if she pulled down her sweat pants the burns would have been > minor. Can you react that fast? Could a 79 year-old woman? "...the Director of Tampa General Hospital's Burn Unit says that's hot enough to cause a third-degree burn if you spill it on you. Doctor David Smith says, “There's a time - temperature relationship. The hotter the temperature, the much shorter the time. At 150 maybe 160 degrees, it takes less than one second to have a second or third degree burn." At 180 degrees the burns would set in even faster, and we're already talking "less than a second" at temperatures lower than that. Granted it would take a couple of seconds to soak into the sweatpants to get to the skin, but whether she removed the sweatpants within 10 seconds or 90 seconds is probably immaterial since the damage would have already been done (expert testimony in the case estimated 2-7 seconds for full-thickness burns at that temperature given the circumstances involved). I know my grandmothers wouldn't have been able to act that quickly at that age even while not in pain. From the sidelines it's easy to say "if they had done this one small thing everything would have been peachy" but put in the situation itself there sometimes isn't really time to think everything through and determine a mitigating course of action. This is why pilots and soldiers and firefighters constantly train, so their reactions become engrained and they don't have to think about what they're doing, it just becomes a reaction. People don't train for spilling scalding hot liquids on themselves so in the couple of seconds it took for the burns to set in there wasn't time to think about the situation and consider options. Regardless of this case, I believe the main idea behind the film is one that deserves consideration. Has the civil court system been abused in some cases? Undoubtedly (search for Randy Cassingham's "This is True" newsletter for tons of examples). The question to ask is should we give up our rights to seek redress from those who harm us because a relatively few people may have abused that system at some point? (speaking in general terms, not implying that this case or any they mentioned are frivolous or not). Should we be allowed to sign away our rights through sneaky arbitration clauses that most people don't understand and aren't aware of that get bolted on to contracts after they are signed? Is stability for big companies more important than protecting consumers from harm? These are the kinds of questions implied by "Hot Coffee" which are interesting to consider. -Justi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:366332 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
