On Thursday 16 December 2004 12:03 pm, Amy wrote: > Granted a lot of court cases turn into a three ring circus here in the > states, but the McDonalds coffee case isn't nearly so much of one as > the media has made it out to be.
Yeah, it was. It also happened to be at a McDonalds about 1 city block away so I'm quite aware of the facts in the case. > The reason the lady won the case? It wasn't just normally hot coffee, > she got ~third degree burns~ from the frellin' stuff. McDonalds used > to serve their coffee extremely hot, so much so that it was way above > whatever temperature they were legally allowed to. No one ever said > anything about it before then, because most people don't touch their > coffee right away, so they'd let it cool down a little bit, and get to > it later, and it'd be just about perfect. Sorry, but I have to call you on this one. Coffee makers make coffee by boiling water and putting the boiling water through the coffee grounds. The boiling point of water is pretty much fixed by the altitude (around here it boils at 202 degF) so the temperature of the coffee is going to be the same no matter what percolater it comes out of. > More information about that specific case can be found here: > http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_mcdonalds.htm Note particularly the 'facts' are "According to Stella Liebeck's attorney, S. Reed Morgan" - hardly someone expected to be unbiased and as I recall many of these pointe were disputed in the case. As an example the plaintiff's lawyer claimed to have tested the temperature of coffee at various places here in town, finding all other coffee temperatures to be lower than the McDonalds coffee. Had he checked the temperature of the coffee fresh from the maker it would be close to the boiling point of water - as it would have to be since no one I know has a policy of putting fresh coffee aside to cool. > So yeah, a lot of the cases in our court system are insane, but that > one is hardly what the media has presented it as. > > Sorry about the side tracking of the thread, but this incorrect > coverage of that case and it's outcome is a bit of a hot button issue > for a friend of mine, and he's kinda got me started on it too. I think that McDonalds was being 'burned' by the bad publicity and didn't much defend the case, nor went with an appeal. The original judgement was reduced considerably in any event, but the final terms are private so we'll likely never know what they were.
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