USA Litagation gone mad - Stella Awards

[firemachine69]

The case of the woman spilling McD's coffee is actually real, although neither that name nor the point of the lady taking off the lid are real.

I'll summarize what actually happened.

Lady decides that, with hands full, she'll put coffee in between her lap. Not too smart, and of course, it spills.

McDonald's undergoes an investigation, and as I recall, the lawyer discovers their coffee is 20 degrees F hotter than any other brand - with lots of anecdotal evidence from customers who buy it "because it's the hottest they can get". Unfortunately, the temperature also happens to be able to serve second degree burns within a few seconds - Essentially, the coffee is so hot that it's near-suicide to take a huge gulp and actually poses a real danger.

The lady and her lawyer are very simple with what they wanted. Pay the medical bills (something small like $6k), drop the temp to a safer level like other competitors, and everything else would be swept under the rug, essentially like nothing happened with a "non-disclosure" clause from the lady.

McDonald refuses. They say it's a selling point.

Her lawyer returns with a new litigation amount. $500K, med bills, a new non-disclosure amount, and the threat that it would become litigation (and of course, dropping the temperature). McD's is run by a bunch of retards, and they refuse again.

They up the ante to something like a million. Of course, the lady was found something like 20% at fault, but being the fucktards that McD's is all about, they're ordered by the court anyways to drop the coffee temp, and still pay out a huge sum to the lady. Not to mention, she was no longer bound (or anyone else for that matter) by a non-disclosure agreement.



I agreed completely with her first claim, US folks don't have a government sponsored medical system like we do in Canada. And only McD's was stupid enough to refuse it.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by firemachine69

I agreed completely with her first claim, US folks don't have a government sponsored medical system like we do in Canada. And only McD's was stupid enough to refuse it.

Sometimes saying "No" is the smart move.

Denny's Restaurants used to be known as "Sambos" and featured a cartoon character on their signs which was appropriate for the 1930s but not in these more reasonable times. The last Sambo's sign I saw was in the early 1980s, when the chain agreed to mend its ways and get with the 20th century.

Okay, fine, they realized that those Sambos signs were chasing away business. They were annoying. A picture of a little boy with "black" features that was a parody and not flattering at all.


Denny's buckled when they were accused of promoting racism against customers. Allegations were raised that customers were not served or were harassed by police. Denny's settled out of court, apologized and created a legal precedent, that the company was systematically racist.

So now they are preyed upon by race baiters. Every so often some poverty pimp visits and sits down to eat. If they're not catered to and lorded over they may get a weed up their tails. Every so often the company gets sued again and pays off.

I've seen a lot of African Americans at Denny's, both working there and eating there. I live in a part of the US that is very "white", we have the Klan hereabouts (they're not nice people) but Denny's doesn't ignore their customers in my area. The only color they care about is the green cash in your pocket.


In contrast to Denny's Eat n Park did not buckle. They fought in court. Today they're not harassed by race baiters because they don't make it easy.


So there is something to be said for going to court. Keeps the dirt bags out of your hair.

Gene