Ultimately I’m not a customer but I am a big fan of theirs. They keep beating out their competition and their stock really hangs in there. They’ve got to be growing 6% a year or more fairly consistently now for a decade or so. Pretty amazing if you thing about how difficult an achievement that is for a commodity-based company approaching $100 million market cap.

The coffee incident is a lesson for all corporations, not for the amount paid, but for the blowback on reputation. Treat the little people fairly and it pays off in the long term…

I also think it’s outrageous that the importance and need for challenging and suing large corporations is reduced to something as greedy and outright stupid as this lawsuit. Challenge corporations for abuses they are actually at fault for!! Not ones where lack of personal responsibility and lack of personal risk management was to blame. My opinion is that this lawsuit was rightly held up as a mockery of the litigation system. I’m not falling for this propaganda that’s been making the media rounds; if anything, it just further clarifies how ridiculous the lawsuit was.

I find it sad that you’re citing this awful case as part of a narrative of challenging corporations. I’m not going to partake in that sort of blind hatred that you are espousing. Macdonalds (and many a large corporation) is guilty of a lot of serious infractions and overall harms; this was not one of them. Or are you the sort of person who would be glad to see your adversary be successfully sued and blamed over the one thing they are not guilty of? That’s a really messed up sense of justice.

I do not think you are batshit insane and a liar. Due to your insistence on changing the subject from: “coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns on 16% of her body” to “don’t put drinks brewed at the appropriate holding temperature* for coffee between your legs.” I can only conclude that you’re either batshit insane, or a liar. But not both.

As for trading notes, sure. Describe the burn the last time you spilled coffee at holding temperature on yourself. Do an experiment: Pour hot coffee on your hand until it hurts too much to hold it there. Describe the burn. Can you see ligaments and bone? Then you were probably not burned by McDonald’s coffee circa 1992.

A jury of people just as smart as you looked at all the evidence, heard the diversionary argument that you are presenting, and came to a conclusion completely divorced from yours. Then you and a million armchair tort reformists decided that you knew more than the jury and the judge who oversaw the case in order to present some abjectly unsupportable argument that its too easy to sue large corporations for damages in this country.

Frankly, you are clearly too intelligent to be stupid enough to believe everything your argument demands that you believe, therefore I think you are ignoring relevant facts (coffee should not be served [<-salient point there, "served"] hot enough to roast your genitals off) to argue against an important, but non-salient fact (that it's stupid to put hot drinks between your knees). You are, quite simply, arguing in bad faith. I

* I know you said you're against making the temp the focal point, but your argument has absolutely no basis in reality unless we discuss wether the coffee was and should have been hot enough to burn one's genitals off.

The fact that the lawsuit was successful reveals major flaws in the litigation system, and in my opinion, is an greedy abuse of the justice system. Right now there is a push to paint this ridiculous lawsuit case in a more sympathetic light. Heaven knows why, but it’s a wonderful sociological example of the power of persuasion.

The temperature of the coffee was not unreasonable (if you’re an avid coffee maker like you said, you ought to know this, I’ve worked at cafes too, do you want to trade notes?), and like I said, I am against making the temperature the focal point in the first place. It was a hot beverage. Period. The woman was injured because she mishandled it, placing it in a foolish, compromising position.

Contrary to what you may think about me, I do not have delusions of superior smarts. But I don’t always agree with juror outcomes, and I don’t believe legal decisions always reflect what is right. Do you? I retain the right to disapprove of the lawsuit, and I resent being told that I don’t “have the facts right” or that I’m an insane liar because I disagree with your point of view.

Like I said, I do not know if the perception that the American legal system is more litigious than others is true or not. But I do know that this particular case would not muster in many other legal systems. The woman sustained burns and injuries because of how she mishandled her coffee. Using the temperature as the focal point for this case is ridiculous and frustrates me to no end. And like others have noted, the temperature of the coffee does not even seem unreasonable in the first place.

Hot beverages are not meant to be handled in between your legs. And it’s horrible that stating as much would prompt someone to wish the commenter was never born. Why hasn’t that comment been deleted, mods?? The facts of the case are not hard to understand, and they were never that elusive to begin with, contrary to what the article tells us. The facts of the case are precisely what made it so ridiculous in the first place.

I think whoever is writing these articles is just trying to create sympathy for the woman because she was so disparaged by the media, and build a man vs. corporations narrative. They’re capitalizing on the fact that there is very little goodwill for Macdonalds. Hit ‘em anywhere you can. I wouldn’t be surprised if that sort of sentiment strongly influenced the original case as well.

Now, if someone had sustained burns while being handed the coffee (for which there were many complaints), then the responsibility does shift more onto the company. Or if there was a lawsuit by many people sustaining various coffee injuries, then I would be curious to see the outcome, and probably be a lot more sympathetic to the cause.