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Do you have car insurance ? Why not take financial responsibility yourself for damage you cause ?
I'm sure McDonalds had public liability insurance too.
The $2.7m McDonald's hot coffee judgement
- Thread starter basilio
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Do you have car insurance ? Why not take financial responsibility yourself for damage you cause ?
I'm sure McDonalds had public liability insurance too.
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You are not really getting the gist of this thread are you? Public Liability is there for a reason in case of "accidents" and not for vexatious litigation as Stella was originally lumped into. It was not until the seriousness of her injuries and the FACT that over 700 complaints over a 10 year period had occurred which led to the damages being awarded.
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One persons "accident" is another persons stupidity. Stella was found to be 20% responsible, so that was taken into account. Virtually every traffic accident I would say is forseeable to a degree, and yet we all have insurance in case we are dreaming while driving, not watching where we are going or get distracted by the kids at the wrong moment. Give it a break, people are not robots.
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There is a huge difference between being inattentive behind the wheel and sticking a boiling hot cup of coffee between your legs. Check out the Darwin Awards for degradation of the gene pool.
I was inferring that the thread was originally posted to invoke a response as to what "culpable" meant to the fellow ASFers and you have gone off on a tangent that we should all be self funded insurance companies so that when a stupid accident occurs the monetary shift is towards the plaintiff.
Also huge difference in "public liability" and "damage" insurance. For instance did you know if you employ a contractor to work on your home and you do not have contractors insurance (not public liability) attached to your home insurance, you are personally responsible if the contractor injures themselves whilst working on your property.
Even if they have their own personal insurance !!http://www.higherlegal.com/the-famous-McDonalds-coffee-product-liability-case.html
It was McDonald's defense that let them down .....
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Whatever, but it's all over now and maybe the publicity has resulted in a few less people burning themselves.
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When I started the thread I was interested in peoples initial understandings of the McDonalds hot coffee case because it has become so infamous. When the details of the case come out it becomes clear that the assumptions that this was a frivolous, money hungry attempt to squeeze McDonald's just weren't true.
( Stella initially only wanted enough money to pay for her medical bills - this was refused ;the injuries were extremely severe ; McDonalds had 700 prior complaints about burns from hot coffee; the final payout was far smaller than initially suggested.)
My interest was seeing if/how any people changed their attitudes to Stella, the Courts and McDonalds after learning all the facts.
Thanks for your responses. It was a good discussion.
Cheers
( Stella initially only wanted enough money to pay for her medical bills - this was refused ;the injuries were extremely severe ; McDonalds had 700 prior complaints about burns from hot coffee; the final payout was far smaller than initially suggested.)
My interest was seeing if/how any people changed their attitudes to Stella, the Courts and McDonalds after learning all the facts.
Thanks for your responses. It was a good discussion.
Cheers
For all of the pretense of humans, controlled studies have shown that they change their minds much, much less often than they actually think they do.