Societal Downfall

[Sean OBrien]

Sure these are all pretty funny, but look how pathetic our society has become.

Stella Awards
It's time once again to consider the candidates for the annual Stella Awards. The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.


The following are this year's candidates:


1. Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

2. Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next-door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3. A 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hub caps.

4. A. Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 a! after she slipped on a soft drink spill and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

5. Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

6. A jury of her peers awarded Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, $780,000 after breaking her ankle by tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

7. This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.

Sean O'Brien

[Mariognarly]

That is pathetic...law can be really bogus sometimes...and there are tons of people taking advantage of those bogus loopholes....its brutal. Thanks for pointing this out Sean, I think everyone should take a look at this.

[RUSSIAN]

frivolous (s/p) lawsuits are the begining to the end for our society, It's regoddamndiculas what some lawyers are getting away with nowadays. I'm gonna sue anheuser-busch for giving me a beer belly.

[Mariognarly]

You hear about that lady whos sueing Mcdonals because their food made her fat? lol

[Neognosis]

Sometimes stuff like this really pisses me off. I don't know if it's the "Stella" case, but I know of a case where a woman was awarded money for burning herself on hot coffee at McDonalds. Sounds bogus, right? Well, only if you don't read deeper. Here are the facts:

That McDonalds was warned and fined 2X by OSHA for having their coffee hotter than the maximum temp. allowed by law for the workers safety. (yes, you are not allowed to let your workers handle coffee that is over a certain temp). After 2 fines, they still had not lowered the temp of the coffee, or fixed the malfunctioning coffee machine.

The victim received extremely bad burns on her inner thighs and genetalia. Burns which would resulted in the need for skin grafts and long periods of hospitalization.

Still sound ridiculous now? Well, you can stop blaming the legal system, as these cases are decided, in most cases, by a jury. Don't forget, you only hear a small snippet of info. It seems like most of the cases listed above might be frivilous, but the McDonalds one was not, and is always held up as an example of how bad the legal system is. Instead, it is an example of how quickly people make judgements without knowing all the facts.

[Melanie G]

That is ridiculous. Those people should be shot, what is wrong with this world!

[OttoNP]

The Mcdonalds one is still not valid. She spilled it on herself. Who cares how hot is was. Do we really need a regulation on coffee temperature to protect dumb people from burning themselves? At some point people need to take responsibility for there own safety. At least the case mentioned about fast food places being sued for making people fat got thrown out, hopefully this will happend more often.

There are risks in everything, flying, driving, drinking coffee, everyone needs to realize that some planes will crash and some coffee is hot. By living and doing these things you should accept the possible outcomes.

Nick
________
Honda Mantis

[Neognosis]

Yea, we need regulations saying how hot coffee can be. The same way we need regulations that say how close a plane can fly to the tops of people's houses, and regulations that say how often the plane must be certified as in good enough condition to fly.


The coffe thing is very valid. A worker can be expected to spill coffee on their hand at least once in a while. We have a regulation dictating the max coffee temp. so that that worker only receives a minor burn, and does not have most of their skin scalded off. They were warned, and fined, and they did not fix the problem. Stella sustained burns way beyond what would have happened had McDonalds observed the law that they were fined TWICE for not complying with. THAT is why they were responsible for the woman's injuries. If the coffee was within the legal limits, there would have been no grounds for a law suit.

[OttoNP]

The difference is that the passengers didn't cause the plane to crash. She spilled the coffee on herself. It's not the same comparison. Just because something can happen doesn't mean the company should have to plan for every possibility. I never said we shouldn't regulate everything, just the serving temp of coffee. If your flying today with the current regulations, you know the odds of flying. When you choose to fly, its a choice you make, as long as there wasn't obvious neglect.

Also, I don't believe Mcdonalds was ever cited for having "too hot coffee." In fact, I don't think it is a real regulation or law. You probably heard it second hand or something, but from what I've found here are the real facts of that case:

Mcdonalds coffee was served about 20 degrees hotter, 185 degrees, than most other restaurants

Mcdonalds had more than 700 other incidents of people being scalded by coffee burns in the last decade that settled

The woman had third degree burns that required skin grafts and a seven-day stay

The woman said she wouldn't have brought the case if Mcdonalds payed her medical bills

Mcdonalds said they had no plans to lower their coffee's temp or post warning

On appeal, the judge lowered it to 480,000

Some of these facts may make people think Mcdonalds was at fault, but for me, the bottom line is she spilled in on herself. Her actions caused it. I do think that Mcdonalds should have lowered their coffee temp as the right thing to do, but they still shouldn't be liable for a customer's mistake. Another example is slips and falls. Just because a stores floor is wet doesn't mean it is their fault. You should have been paying more attention to see it, you walked on it and lacked the balance/ability to keep from falling.

Juries aren't always the sharpest knives in the drawel, look at the OJ case

Nick

[Neognosis]

Here, from ATLA (American Trial Lawyer's Association)'s website:

Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.

McDonald's asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the company's own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.

McDonald's also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third-degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonald's coffee sales.

Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonald's had dropped to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 -- or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called McDonald's conduct reckless, callous and willful. Subsequent to remittitur, the parties entered a post-verdict settlement.

[Neognosis]

Stella was 20% at fault for spilling the coffee, but the coffee was beyond what our society deemed a safe temp.

Dude, if a store spills a crate of BB's on the floor, and doesn't attempt to clean them up, and you fall, they sure as hell are negligent and they should have to pay.

You should know that coffee will be hot, but you should not have to assume that it will be so hot at to cause 3rd degree burns. Nobody is saying she is not at fault for spilling it. But there is a reasonable temperature for coffee to be, and a jury found that McDonald's coffee was way hotter than necessary, and that it was a hazard to anyone drinking it.

[Neognosis]

This from the American Trial Lawyer's Associtation:
You may have received an e-mail that contains this unbelievable story: A man sets his Winnebago motor home on cruise control and gets up to make a cup of coffee in the moving vehicle. It crashes. He sues the manufacturer for failing to tell him to stay in the driver's seat. A jury awards him $1.75 million and a new motor home, and the company changes its handbook.

There's a simple reason this story sounds unbelievable. IT'S PHONY. THE CASE NEVER HAPPENED. It's fabricated and so are six other "lawsuits" summarized in the same e-mail, which has been widely circulated in various forms on the Internet over the last few years.

The e-mail of anonymous origin claims that the Winnebago case is the latest winner of the annual "Stella Award" for the most frivolous lawsuit in the United States. "Stella" is a mocking reference to Stella Liebeck, an elderly woman who won a lawsuit against McDonald's. Some versions of the e-mail claim she "won $2.9 million for spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on herself." That, too, is a myth. For the facts about Ms. Liebeck's case and the horrible third-degree burns she suffered, click here.

[Neognosis]

also, all the cases listed in the first post of this email, are fake.

[pedro]

The McDonalds thing confuses me.

The only way to heat water over 100 degrees centigrade is to 'superheat' it or basically, keep it under pressure and continue heating it.

It is possible that a coffee-water solution has a higher boiling point thanj just plain water but for now let's presume that McDonalds coffee has a maximum temperature of 100 degrees centigrade.

Your kettle at home boils water to exactly this same temperature, so it is safe to assume that most people that have experience of using a kettle to make tea, instant coffee or hot chocolate etc.

I think therefore it is safe to assume that most people know that coffee is going to be hot (she'd have taken it back if it had been cold) and that if you get some on your genitals that this is going to be uncomfortable. This obviously precludes people that have a 'thing' about dipping their genitals in hot liquid.

This is just a frivolous lawsuit. The lawyers are to blame, they will take on the case for free - which leaves you thinking 'why not ?' and then take a large percentage of the award.

It's not actually too bad for the economy though. Think about it - give someone with no money $75,000 and they'll go and blow it - which is good for the economy.

I have to go now - I'm in LA and I want to go and walk into a street light & then sue the manufacturer/local government for not making them softer.

[derrick lenz]

pedro in america we use the farenhiet scale. 212 (i think) is the boiling point of water on the farenhiet scale.

[B-rad]

There we go... think for a second pedro, would a resturant heat coffe at 100+ degrees centigrade, no.