There should be some kind of monetary penalty you have to pay should you lose this type lawsuit. It would curtail a lot of them. Plus, the lawyer now will take "any" claim because he if he wins, he collects too. If the law said that the person making the claim had to pay a certain % of what they were sueing for, and the lawyer received no money for his time, I bet these suits would surely slow down.:angryfire
No, it's scientifically true - black women are more prone to gain weight. But there's a limit there. Nobody is genetically 300 pounds without aiding that through a lack of exercise and proper dieting.
Doesn't matter to me if it is caused by genetics, religion, or Tony Cachere, Emiril, and Manda's Fine Meats. It costs the airline more to carry a 350 lb. person than it costs to ferry my 170 lbs. around. Not to mention the inconvenience these "customers of size" bring other passengers. Fair is fair. Why not price the people fares as luggage is priced ? That is, you get to bring on 200 or 250 or whatever pounds of "flesh" for the flat rate. After that, it goes up incrementally like extra luggage does. Ah, the things that make you ponder........
As far as I know, this airline policy had never been to court. First time things like this need to be challenged in the court room in order to set a precedence. I used to agree about punishment for stupid lawsuits and how ridiculous our system was with awarding money for people's own stupidity, but after taking a law coure I realized how much more there was to the picture. I'll use the famous McDonald's case as an example. Old woman spills hot McDonald's coffee on herself - sues & wins millions. Ridiculous? Here's the rest of the story - that McDonald's coffee was obscenely hot - like 180 degrees or something, they had a well documented amount of complaints and injuries due to it yet did nothing to change the temperature. They were also aware that the temperature was hot enough to cause THIRD degree burns, requiring entire skin grafts and yet did nothing. And the amount awarded to the victim was substantially reduced in a later court. The court system, in general, works - it's just not very efficient.
i think the sytem failed entirely in the mcdonalds case, and i have read the whole story. coffee is hot, thats the nature of it. you brew it with boiling water. it is supposed to be virtually as hot as water can get without vaporizing. you should never screw around with freshly brewed coffee. if you spill it on yourself, your fault entirely. no way in hell i buy a cup and store it between my legs.
coffee given at a drive through window should never give third degree burns. I agree that the woman spilling on her self was her fault, but McDonald's exhibited negligence by ignoring the danger of their coffee.
of course it should. if i emember correctly this woman emptied the cup on her crotch. i cant really imagine any other result than terrible burns. hot liquids are not to be trifled with. it isnt negligence to serve fresh coffee. and fresh coffee is necessarily only moments away from having been boiled. when mcdonalds brews fresh coffee, and you order it, should they say "sorry, you cant have it yet, because you are a moron and we dont trust you not to spill it on yourself"?
Accidently though. She didn't act negligently, which might have made a difference in the case. No coffee, not starbucks, not home-made, nobody's (except McDonald's at the time) was brewed to the temperature they did. It was excessively hot, causing injury to lots of customers & McDonald's had well documented proof of it's existence, yet did nothing. This woman had to have all of the skin around her thighs & genitals grafted - and she'll still have pretty bad scars. Maybe you don't realize how hot something has to be to give third degree burns, but I do. Also, the coffee didn't even have a disclaimer on it saying hot. Does this make a difference? Not really because she should have known anyway, but it still made them look bad. It's negligence to serve coffee as hot as they did, while knowing that it causes injury and not acting. Coffee is meant to be drinken and should be served at a temperature that allows that. Our courts use a cost-benefit analysis to make sure all consumer products are safe. If they can be made safer with minimal cost to the manufacturer and take nothing away from the product, they require them to. At first, I was against this. But I think, overall, it has lead to a much better market for consumers - even though it isn't pure capitalism.
