491
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

McDonald’s is being sued over a hot coffee spill, again.

This time, a San Francisco location is being accused of serving a “scalding” cup of coffee with an improperly attached lid, which allegedly resulted in the coffee pouring out on plaintiff Mable Childress’ body and causing “severe burns” after she tried drinking it.

The lawsuit, filed last week, alleged that the elderly woman is suffering from “physical pains, emotional distress and other damages.” The restaurant’s negligence was a “substantial factor” for her injuries, it alleged.

Childress also said in the lawsuit that the restaurant employees “refused” to help her, a point that the McDonald’s denied.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 325 points 1 year ago

In case anyone still has misconceptions about the famous case that came before. McDonald's spun public opinion, but she had a legitimate case. https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E

[-] Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world 122 points 1 year ago

Beat me to it. I remember as a teenager hearing adults laugh about this, “how could you not know coffee is hot?? Hahaha”. Holy shit the McDonalds PR really fucked that lady over. It wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned the reality of the situation and how horrific her burns were.

Fuck McDonalds.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 74 points 1 year ago

Jay Leno did the most to further that hit job. He spent months spreading lies, all while McDonald's became a major sponsor of his show.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

it also made it onto Seinfeld, it was also pushed by Republicans and their mouthpieces (Fox) that the country ia going to hell everyone can sue for anything bla bla bla, typical moral panic stuff.

that shit was so widespread I heard about the anyone can sue rhetoric about the USA as a kid, and I am from Slovakia

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

As ALWAYS with conservatives it's just a reflection of themselves. They sue people more often and for bigger sums.

[-] CynicRaven@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Geeze, seriously? He also got massive mileage out of denigrating Monica Lewinsky.

[-] NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world 96 points 1 year ago

Just want to add that this wasn't just McDonald's spinning it for their own purposes, it was part of a larger effort of tort reform - spreading the conception that people are suing for everything, even hot coffee hur dur, so that the public would support things like caps on pain and suffering damages and punitive damages. Corporations wanted more leeway to maximize profits(the reason McDonald's coffee was so hot was because they could get more coffee out of the beans that way), even if it hurt people, and the public jumped right on board. This was part of the same strategy as denigrating plaintiffs attorneys as "ambulance chasers" and the like. It got to the point that even when people were harmed, they still wouldn't sue because they didn't want to be lumped in with "those entitled people suing over everything". It became a point of pride to get fucked over by corporations and to do nothing about it. Really disgusting how easily the public was manipulated by all that.

[-] Confound4082@lemmy.ml 71 points 1 year ago
[-] Fosheze@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

The name of my garrage band.

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Aka hot enough to weld flesh together.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 26 points 1 year ago

What I don't understand is how she was appealed down to $480K, but the family in FL got $800K for not warning that the nuggets were fresh out of the fryer. The former was way, way, worse.

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago

What's nuts is that she originally only asked for like $32k to cover the cost of the fucking skin grafts she needed.

[-] CaptFeather@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

The only thing I can think of is maybe the '91 case wasn't adjusted for inflation? That would make it a little over 1 mil today

[-] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 20 points 1 year ago

Tl;dr: the burn fused part of her vulva, and they didn’t want to pay medical costs.

[-] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I just corrected someone about that last month who was using it as complaint about society. They had no idea about the details.

this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
491 points (100.0% liked)

News

23301 readers
3035 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS