What if she came out and you walked into her, upsetting the coffee causing her third degree burns? Are you negligently liable for causing the accident? Or is Macdonalds negligent for making the coffee so damn hot that common accidents become dangerous? The victim is not always responsible for the accident and may have no control. Macdonalds can control the coffee temperatures and has a higher responsibility. And the law agrees. "Period".
Not buying this industry standard bs. If you read the wikipedia article, you'll see where a national coffee association recommends keeping coffee warm at 180+ degrees. And Starbucks does the same thing. Seems like there is much inconsistency in the industry about how hot to serve coffee. And I have to wonder why no other person has been successful, to my knowledge, in suing a company over hot coffee, especially Starbucks. Some people think government regulations are the answer, that's why I asked the question.
I'm not defining negligence in terms of industry standards, just showing as an example that there is a, god this gets old, cost-effective & safer way to serve the coffee. You're right, it doesn't matter what the rest of the world wants to do. What does matter is what McDonalds does - they served coffee too hot. Why is it too hot? Because it's temperature could be reduced with little cost to McDonalds, not taking away anything from the product, and making all consumers safer from it.
No. It's a two way street. If the coffee hadn't been ridiculously hot, there wouldn't have been a problem. Just some ruined clothes - not an emergency room visit.
The court didn't just find them partly at fault, they found them negligent. And whether you agree with it or not, that does make them negligent. Serving coffee that is too hot is not negligence. Knowingly serving a product that causes injury when it could be made safer with little costs and no degrade to the product is negligence.
No. Even if people were continually being brought to the hospital due to choking on the burgers, and it could be proven that it was because the burgers were too big. It is still not the same situation. You can see a burger and tell exactly what size it is and know how big of a bite you can swallow. The person is in sole control of the situation. It's impossible to tell what temperature McDonalds serves their coffee just from having it handed to you and you only have relative control over that. You can let it sit & cool off for 30 minutes, but you don't have direct control to make it cooler in order for drinking or even an exact way to know how cool you need to make it, unless you keep a thermometer handy. (Admittedly, this is a bit picky but I think you get the idea).
By your reasoning, all car manufacturers are negligent, all chain saw manufacturers are negligent, all...well, you get the point. Granted, this jury found McD to be partially negligent. Another jury may find in favor of the vendor. To suggest that McDonalds should make less hot coffee borders on ludicrous. What they probably did was to add warning labels to their cups. But those warnings don't stop idiots.
Why? How much safer can a chain saw be made without taking away from it's intended purpose, especially cost-effectively? Just like I said with guns, just because a product is dangerous doesn't make the producer negligent. You don't appear to be following my reasoning if you think that. A higher court also found McDonald's negligent. I don't care whether McDonalds sells 500 degree coffee - I don't drink the crap. But if they do, they will get sued. It's their choice. They did add warning labels, but I think they reduced the temperature as well.
