OT: Obituary

Lon did pass the time by typing:

kaki pants. and if things get real bad I just throw a pot of coffee in the washer and call it even. :)

The color of the clothing is the most key thing of all. Tomes

It's one thing to use boiling, or near boiling water, to brew through beans. It's another thing entirely to keep it at that temperature, even after repeated injuries. The woman in that case had it spill into her lap and when it wicked up into the material it caused THIRD DEGREE burns, requiring numerous skin grafts to correct. There's certainly something to be said for being careful, but a normal temperature used for serving would not have cause these sort of injuries. One shouldn't expect a beverage served at a drive through to be capable of causing such *extremely* severe burns. And yet McDonalds repeatedly chose to ignore the warnings and injury reports leading up to this. For QUITE a while.

So please, find a better 'bad example' as this one was rightfully decided.

The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?

And...

a.. Here's the Kicker: Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." (Source: NCAUSA.) Exactly what, then, did McDonald's do wrong? Did it exhibit "willful, wanton, reckless or malicious conduct" -- the standard in New Mexico for awarding punitive damages?

So she didn't spill it ? It just "happened" ?

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Right, so by that logic as long as you peddle enough crap to enough nitwits it really doesn't matter if you hurt several HUNDRED of them.

If 1 person in 10 was injured.. or 1 in a 100 or 1000 or even 10,000 it may have been company error. In this particular case there is one injury in 24 million from a person spilling a beverage they KNOW to be hot on themselves.

To compare cups of coffee to Pinto gasoline tanks is a bit of a stretch... unless you contend that the McDonald's Coffee Cup was of an intentionally dangerous and defective design and was used with the malice of forethought..

Yes, I will agree that shysters will always follow the money as it is in their interest to do so.

Coffee is, by its nature, a "hot" drink and carries certain well known inherent risks primarily among them that it is hot.

The lady in question did not order "Iced" or "cold" coffee so it is assumed by everyone not a shyster or in shyster mode that she intended it to be hot.

The coffee drinking association mentioned previously states the optimum brewing temperature and holding temperatures are as high or higher than McDonald's used.

No claim was made that this was her first cup of coffee or her first cup of McDonald's coffee.

Coffee temperature is relatively easy to gauge from the outside of a paper cup. If it is too hot to hold it is too hot to drink and therefore too hot to pour upon herself.

Pouring coffee know to be 'to hot" on yourself is not, as far as I know, an approved or suggested was of cooling coffee and no claim was made to that effect.

Specialty coffee shops (i.e. Starbucks) brew coffee at the recommended temperature... that is... a temperature higher than the McDonalds in question.

Perhaps Starbucks patrons are less ignorant than McDonald's customers. This goes against common sense as their patrons are willing and, indeed, eager to pay $3-$5 for a cup of coffee.

I guess it comes down to personal accountability.

I cannot blame McDonalds for brewing and holding their product at a temperature lower than the optimum according to industry figures.

I cannot blame a company if I spill a beverage from a non defective container (no such claim was made) on myself.

I will not blame a company if I insist of consuming a product that I requested be hot, was prepared hot, served hot, and I intentionally and with full knowledge of it hotness spilt it upon myself.

On the other hand Ford designed the Pinto (and Mustang and Maverick) and intentionally did not install any divider between the gasoline tank and the trunk (other than a floor mat) which in many cases had direct opening into the passenger compartment. The engineering department warned Ford officials of the problem and Ford Shyster and actuarial departments calculated the cost of the related deaths.

For those unaware ford used the top of the gasoline tank as the floor of the trunk. Anything thrown into the trunk was therefore thrown atop a gasoline tank protected only by a mat placed loosely in the trunk area (imagine a large vinyl floormat)

It is because of evolution.... The really stupid ones have already died off (or become shysters) so the general level of intelligence is rising..

You forget, that idiots are just as good or better, at screwing, than the rest of us. This accounts for the observable trend, of the percentage of idiots in the population increasing. They are getting a free ride off the rest of us.

Earle