MAFCA lawsuit

sgwilson904 said:
Mike, sounds like your mind is set on this and none of the facts will change it. Please just consider these reasons why the woman may well have deserved every penny and why, sometimes, these "frivolous" suits are not so frivolous at all.

1. For at least 10 years, McDonald's knew its coffee, when served at 180-190 degrees, was causing severe burns. In that period, more than 700 were severely burned from spills, including children and infants. And not all of them brought the trouble on themselves due to what you might think was their own stupidity. Sometimes a McDonalds employee would spill it on a customer. The company did nothing.

130 degree water will cause 3rd degree burns if skin is exposed for 30 secs of more. It was brought up at trial that cotton pants kept the hot coffee in contact with the skin so 130 would have caused burns as well.

2. Sure, personal responsibility is important. The jury found--and the judge agreed--the victim here was 20% responsible for the spill. Never mind the temp, she should have known better, you say. And how many people who need to add sugar and/or cream to the coffee just handed to them at the drive-thru pull safely to the side of the road to get out and add it?

They all should if they want to prevent being burned! The fact that the temp was coporate wide means that unless it was her first time evey buying coffee there she knew it was extreamly hot when she bought it.


3. But more important, ANY product we buy is, by law, required to be fit for the purpose for which it is sold. With food, that means it must be fit for consumption. Coffee served at 190 degrees is not fit for consumption. Even if you don't spill it, it's a third-degree burn waiting to happen. This is not the opinion of the "old woman's money-grubbing, scumbag lawyer." McDonalds admitted this in court. The company also admitted consumers are not warned and are unaware the temperature of the coffee is SO hot it poses a risk. (What? You don't carry a thermometer to check it before you drink? You expect it to be about the 30-40 degrees cooler, the same temp as it is virtually everywhere else in town where you buy hot coffee? How negligent and irresponsible of YOU!)

190 degree coffee is up to industry standards and since millions if not billions of cups sold at that temp means someone in consuming it.

4. The "McDonalds coffee woman" was never out looking for a so-called jury jackpot from a bunch of stupid citizens who might take pity on a poor, elderly woman. She and her lawyer would have been happy to settle the case for just $20,000--the amount of her medical bills that were not covered by her insurance. No, McDonalds said, here's $800, take it or leave it. THAT'S what prompted the lawsuit. In fact, the way the company acted and how it dealt with its own issue of personal/corporate responsibility was summed up in a single word: callous. That's what the appellate judge decided, not me.

She might not have been but the fact that the suit was brought showed someone was. As for the appellate judge that too is his opinion. If I sell something, anything that meets industry standards I can't see how selling it be callous.

5. Finally, keep this in mind: burns from liquids this hot is not just a minor inconvenience and a little temporary pain. 190-degree coffee causes the worst kind of a burn (third degree) in three to seven SECONDS. It causes not only disfiguration but years and sometimes a lifetime of pain and suffering and permanent disability. It can only be treated with very expensive skin grafting, special whirlpool treatments, and plastic surgery.

No arguement there! Who is responsible for the burns is. You are focused on the womans injuries and not on who is responsible.

Yes, the woman should not have opened hot coffee in the car. Had it been served at 130 degrees instead of 190 as McDonalds insisted, she would have suffered briefly and learned a lesson that she should have known by her age anyway...BUT she wouldn't have been in the worst kind of unbearable pain, scarred for life and in suffering for her final years.

Not true, 130 degree water will cause 3rd degree burns if skin is exposed for 30 secs of more. It was brought up at trial that cotton pants kept the hot coffee in contact with the skin, so 130 would have caused burns as well. 190 degree coffee is the industry standard. Whos standards should they follow the beverage industry or the publics?

All things considered, NOW do you think she might have deserved every penny? And aren't you glad there was SOMEONE to help her stand up for herself, even though you may have thought of of personal injury lawyers as money-grubbing scumbags?

No I don't for the reasons stated several times.
Click to expand...

This McDonalds lawsuit has more merit than the MAFCA suit in my opinion.

I have now stated my position several times on this. No more, so get your final word in now. If you want to discuss this off line fine by me I will answer any question you or anyone has via PM or email or even phone if you want just not here anymore.
 
ctvpa said:
A local hospital was just sued because the x-ray the patient got removed her ability to see into the future. She is a Fortune teller by trade. Jury award, $1 million, judge lowered to $600,000, now in appeal to get the full million.
Click to expand...

If she could see into the future, she should have known what would happen and refused the x-ray. I call Horseshot on this one.
Just to be on topic, I think we all agree its sad when we lost a fellow A-modeler and then MAFCA gets sued when their is no way they were even remotely responsible. It baffles me how this can be viewed by anybody as "justice".
 
ronn said:
Mike, the hot coffee lawsuit was thrown out in the appeals process and McD's won.
Click to expand...

Ahh, no. The jury returned a verdict of $160,000 in actual damages to cover medical expenses...and $2.7 million in punitive damages. The judge then reduced the verdict to $640,000. McDonalds did appeal but before the appeal could be decided, the company settled for a confidential amount. The verdict against McDonalds was never thrown out.

Okay, I'm going back to my Model A now. I promise.
 
ctvpa said:
A local hospital was just sued because the x-ray the patient got removed her ability to see into the future. She is a Fortune teller by trade. Jury award, $1 million, judge lowered to $600,000, now in appeal to get the full million.
Click to expand...

The fortune teller should have seen this coming, and never had the x-ray.:D:D:p:p
 
Back to the original issue for a change, I believe that MAFCA was sued because it was a MAFCA organized event....when they are involved in any way in Model A events I believe they have some legal liability and can be brought in. Another point is that in many cases, if there are multiple parties in a lawsuit, than the one "most able" to pay often times gets tagged with the lion's share of cost..........this is called "deep pockets". One last point, after working in the homebuilding industry for over 37 years, you quickly find out that you will lose virtually every case that any homeowner takes you to court on.......the little guy vs. the big company, and trying to litigate it almost always costs much more than settling it early, because you will likely still lose and be responsible for not only your costs, but also the plaintiff. Basically, you cannot win most of those types of cases...in this case, guilt by association would be an apt description.
 
TerryH said:
Back to the original issue for a change, I believe that MAFCA was sued because it was a MAFCA organized event....when they are involved in any way in Model A events I believe they have some legal liability and can be brought in. Another point is that in many cases, if there are multiple parties in a lawsuit, than the one "most able" to pay often times gets tagged with the lion's share of cost..........this is called "deep pockets". One last point, after working in the homebuilding industry for over 37 years, you quickly find out that you will lose virtually every case that any homeowner takes you to court on.......the little guy vs. the big company, and trying to litigate it almost always costs much more than settling it early, because you will likely still lose and be responsible for not only your costs, but also the plaintiff. Basically, you cannot win most of those types of cases...in this case, guilt by association would be an apt description.
Click to expand...

Terry, I think you are correct!! Not what anyone wants to hear. Becomes a cost of doing business! So the prices rise.
 
FWIW: One way to look at LAWSUITS is:

Appears that after graduation from Law School, Lawyers have very well devised a method to divide the Wealth of our Nation:

1. One (1) certain group of Lawyers decide to become LAW MAKERS & get elected to MAKE Laws.

2. The next group of Lawyers later decide to JUDGE the Laws made by the LAW MAKERS.

3. Then the next group of Lawyers decide to become TRIAL LAWYERS to go before the JUDGE LAWYERS to test the Laws made by LAW MAKERS.

4. As Citizens, we watch this Big Circus. Afterwards, our wealth is well divided among all three (3) Lawyer Groups.

5. After losing all belongings, we call a taxi to go live with our relatives.

6. But there is hope ....... another group of small town, self-employed Lawyers will listen to your sob story & render good advice to start over.
 
Franchise_24 said:
Wow what is this country coming to? The worst part is he wasn't even at the MAFCA event yet, he was on his way, and MAFCA still gets sued.
Click to expand...

Some of my clients are municipalities and when we do design work for them I am required by them to have an insurance rider that covers them in case I am in an accident going to or coming from a meeting, it is ridiculously expensive and doubles my premiums along with some other requirements they have. I am to the point where I am turning down their work because of the costs.
Todd
 
Now, can we discuss why the Titanic really sank?

Now that is a long case study............... grins grins and more grins!
 
It's mind boggling to me that any court, anywhere, would not throw this case out based on logic and resonable intelligence.
 
Seth Swoboda said:
It's mind boggling to me that any court, anywhere, would not throw this case out based on logic and resonable intelligence.
Click to expand...

logic and resonable intelligence These are what has been lacking in this country since the greatest generation retired in the 80's
 
Last edited:
Many times these law suits are from an insurance company that has paid a beneficiay...like perhaps his kids...and they subrogate against whomever they can to try and regain some of the money paid to the beneficiaries.

I work in the Trucking industry and it's unbelieveable how often this happens.

Perhaps the worst was a company I know that had a car cross a median and run head on into their truck. The attorney proved that they had exceeded the posted speed limit by as much as three miles per hour on the way to the accident site. They had to pay on the basis of "if you hadn't been speeding your truck would not have been there for our client to hit". Seriously!
 
Gentlemen,
This all comes full circle to the Deep Pockets Ruling that was decided years ago. The individual who hit the car probably did not have anything to make it worth anyone's time to litigate against him or her. So the law says you can go after anyone with any connection to the damage inflicted no matter how distant. Hence the club gets sued. A very sad reality.

The problem is the law. It must be changed in the interest of fairness.
 
As others have stated the case got settled out of court for the reasons stated. It still cost MAFCA a lot of money in lawyer fee's etc to get to that point. As a result of this our Club (and many other clubs) has used MAFCA new Liability document as an example and have asked members that participate in any activity to sign the release from liability document. It should never get to this, but that is the World we live in. Much to our surprise we had a member (1) that refused to sign the document and his given reason was he did not want to sign it in case he needed to sue ??????

Henry's 31
 
Let's hope that the judge allowed the plaintiffs to prevail and awarded them $1.00 in damages! It sometimes happens!
Terry

H. L. Chauvin said:
In trying to respond to the gentleman in reply #16, after sharing a small office building with a criminal lawyer for over 15 years, he & I became very close trustworthy friends until today.

In the early years he cooked every Friday afternoon & invited several of his young lawyer friends over to eat, & like any other small group, descent people enjoy the company of other good honest people; hence, I met some of the most sincere, compassionate lawyers & their families for whom I still have profound respect today.

Some later became responsible judges. These guys knew the very few lawyer shady characters who were never invited on Friday afternoons.

For people who try to do what is right, there is nothing like having a few good honest lawyer friends with integrity when you really need one -- also, many judges learn quickly who to believe in a court room.

I feel certain MAFCA chose a trustworthy attorney to fight this present "System" we all endure -- appears life is not always fair, & we should try to be prepared to take the bumps along with smooth sailing.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top