this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
1429 points (98.5% liked)

Today I Learned

17858 readers
37 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald's hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yep cuz she spilled it on herself trying to put cream in and then she sat in it for like a minute. No way some coffee just poured on ur arm is hot enough to instantly fuse flesh .

Mcd should have paid the initial settlement I agree but the vast damage from this lady's experience was a result of her own actions.
That's what people can't get over.

I get how a jury could get it wrong and pay her for her suffering. And I pity her this experience What I dont get is why people completely absolve her of any responsibility here when her own actions were the first contributing factors.

Even if the coffee wasn't "too hot". Her own actions still would have left her burned. That is a fact.

[–] Cabrio@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Burn damage occurs in less than a second. Go dip your hand in a pot of boiling water as fast as you can if you want to try it, I'm sure you'll be just fine.

[–] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The jury also heard evidence how there had been multiple serious injuries before this lady and yet McD intentionally refused to lower the temperature as the bean counters realized they saved money keeping it hot... people couldn't drink very much of it in restaurant as they ate their breakfast and therfore didn't ask for refills. Even though they had paid out claims previously, it was cheaper to keep it hot and keep paying them out despite injuries. The jury thus decided on significant punitive damages to motivate McD to do the right thing.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean fair. I'm not trying to side with mcds here, really because I do believe they deserve blame, but I also believe it's not black and white. They don't deserve all of the blame here.

If an employee had spilled on her then yes but she literally did it to herself.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Consider however that she wasn't served this coffee in a store, but in a car. The possibility of spilling the drink is significantly more likely, especially since she wasn't given a lid. This isn't the woman's fault at all, it was a horrible accident just waiting to happen. It's like if a roller rink covered the floor in grease and periodically had spike pits.

I did a bunch of chemistry lab classes in college, I think I had one each year actually. We regularly heated liquids and worked with concentrated acids. If we had spilled a liquid this hot on ourselves in a similar volume, we would have seen similar burns. It would take longer than 2 seconds to rip off a glove (which is probably fused to your skin very quickly anyway) or disrobe our labcoats. The coffee being spilled on us like this would have given us incredibly severe burns too, and that's with PPE and emergency safety equipment right there. It would take far, far longer to get to one one of the showers and activate it even.

And this is in a controlled lab environment! There was no heightened risk of spills because of being in a moving vehicle nor having an open cup.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And guess what, neither did the jury. They assigned 20% of fault to her.

But you seem to not know this, yet keep on victim blaming.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like she does deserve 20% as you just admitted. Oh noes there goes ur high horse.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

You're the one with the high horse from your hubris, mate.

So far you've strawmanned, goalpost moved, and ad-hom'd.

Got any more sophistry you'd like to trot out?

[–] XiELEd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Burn damage happens near-instantly. Holy shit this is what happens when education isn't done properly.