what? a coffee percolator works because the water is boiling up through the maker. it literally cant get any hotter! zillions of people brew coffee boiling hot, or the percolator wouldnt even work. so what you are saying makes no sense. there is a maximum temp at which liquid water can exist, and tons and tons of people brew coffee at that temp, including me. you used the key word, accident. it isnt mcdonalds responsibilty to keep peope from spilling stuff. should they label water as "slippery", because you could spill it and fall down? it is very apparent to me that coffee is dangerously hot. that is why i dont spill it on myself. especially if i am seated in a car when i could spill it on myself and not be able to escape it quickly, and it would just cook my crotch. it doesnt make them look bad to not warn people that coffee is hot any more than it does to not label ice as cold. i cant remember anyone ever ordering coffee and being able to drink it immediately unless it is outside and it is like 10 degrees or if they blow on the top and sip only the tiniest amount off the coolest part of the coffee, the very top. nobody can gulp down freshly purchased coffee, unless they are a robot.
You say you read the case, and the case says - without objection by McDonalds, that their coffee was brewed much hotter than a usual coffee machine. I don't care about how they did it, it is a fact that their coffee was brewed and served incredibly hot, much hotter than usual and capable of giving third degree burns - which usual coffee could not do. McDonald's isn't at fault for the accident and she didn't receive compensation for her own mistake per se. McDonald's was sued and lost based on negligence from the temperature of their coffee, lack of warnings and refusal to act despite knowledge of the facts, and the subsequent injuries due in part to that. Most coffee isn't.. Would it hurt like hell? Yes. Would it require going to the hospital and having all of your skin regrafted? No. Two completely different situations. The key here is the degree of heat or cold. Spilling ice on yourself is a hassle, not an emergency room visit. McDonald's coffee was so hot that it hurt to touch the cup, much less take the smallest of sips from it. It often required up to 20 minutes just to be able to be slowly sipped. This is a far cry from having to let coffee cool for a minute or two.
it is physically impossible to brew hotter than an ordinary home machine. you pour cold water in, the it boils the water up through a tube into the reservoir with the coffee, then drips into the cup. it is a necessary condition of the brewing process to boil the water. regardless of what anyone says, physics determines that water cant get any hotter than boiling, and thats how coffee is made. we should have to treat everyone like a child. if you gonna purchase something, you should know the normal details and risks involved with that product. yes it is. read about how a coffeemaker works. the pressure that pushes the water into the brewing chamber of most makers is the pressure of steamy boiling water, a constant terperature, regardless of who makes it. you can burn yourself with much cooler water, it is a function of how long you marinate yourself in the water. ordinarily a spill doesnt stay on you in a seated position in a car. usually you shake the stuff off your arm or whatever. the situation was unique because the woman was old as the hills and was stuck inside a car where the coffee sat in her lap and boiled her biznass. in a normal situation you would stand up and shake it off. 1. not true, hers was in a styrofoam cup, just like always. you are making it sound like they gave her a volcanic rock. 2. fresh coffee is almost always so hot that you cant touch an ordinary cup without protection. thats why they have those cardboard cup sleeves at starbucks.
This is interesting to me, because the past few weeks I have been hooked on Starbucks. That crap is so hot, they put that cardboard thing around the cup so it doesn't burn you, but it still does sometimes. They were out of those yesterday, so the lady was putting two cups together, but it would still light you up if you didn't keep swapping hands. I agree with marting 100% because: http://www.kraftfoodservice.com/BusinessSolutions/brewing_great_coffee.htm http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html
I don't care how they did it, but I know that in the case it was presented as fact that McDonalds brewed & served their coffee much hotter than usual, and McDonalds did not object to that. You can use your own logic all you want about the possability all you want, but when McDonald's themselves (not to mention a judge & jury) accepts it as truth - I do as well. We shouldn't have to treat everyone like a child, but we can't assume people are psychic either. How is someone supposed to know what temperature a particular coffee is served at? Well it wasn't like the coffee was on lady's lap for hours. It was longer than usual, but still should not have been enough to go through 2 layers of clothing and give third degree burns after only a couple minutes. It wasn't hot enough to give burns, but certainly wasn't something you wanted to keep your hand on for very long. Again, due to the increased temperature which it was served at.
obviously the moment it leaves the heating element it starts cooling. but a fresh cup of coffee was boiling hot pretty recently, and that should be understood by the purchaser. thats why the case is screwy. it shouldnt suprise anyone that spilled coffee wil burn the living crap out of you. and you take on the responsibility of managing that risk when you buy it.
I agree, but that's not what this case is about. It was about the negligence by McDonalds. They had lots of complaints, knowledge that it had caused injury to a quite large percentage of customers (especially compared to other companies serving coffee), and did nothing - didn't serve the coffee cooler, or even put a disclaimer on the cup. Had McDonald shown the slightest bit of initiative in making the product safer, this might not have even made it to court. If this were an isolated incident, it would have also been thrown out of court. Really, the only relevent info is whether McDonalds was negligent.
this reminds me of an intersting story. not long after i moved up north i realized that fire alarms are constant in these huge building i live in. and real fires are happening all the time. about 5 times in 5 years there has been a real fire of some sort that has emptied my building. one time a fire alarm went off when i lived in the 4rth floor of my old building. so i went out on the balcony and there was what i thought was smoke billowing from the guy next door's place. i was scared so i ran and woke my roomate and we got the F out of there. i aint trying to die in no towering inferno. i banged on my neighbors door and tried to see what was up, but the door was metal and locked and fireman were arriving so i just took off. it turned out to not be smoke, but steam coming from their apartment. while they were asleep a pipe had burst and flooded their place with boiling water. then when they got up they put their feet in and their feet were literally cooked. when i got downstars a guy and a chick were on the ground with bloody ass boiled feet with all kindsa flesh hanging off, crying. it was horrible to look at. and thus ends my off-topic story of the day.
but they serve billions of cups of coffee. they dont have isolated incidents. everything that happens regarding their products probably happens a ton of times. i bet you can find multiple instances of people slipping on a busted mcdonalds ketchup packet. accidents happen, and they happen alot when you sell more food than anyone in the world. all you need to know is that every cup is way too hot to spill on your twizzle.
