Comment by nate_meurer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nate_meurer | Hacker News Reader

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No, the changes that McDonalds implemented in their cups were not really a big deal. Rigid styrofoam and cups were already in widespread use at large establishments at the time. McDonalds' "redesigned" cups were and continue to be quite pedestrian. Don't take my word for it. Go order a cup of McDonalds coffee, which will likely be served to you at the same dangerously hot, NCA-approved temperature that burned Stella, put the cup between your legs and squeeze it like Stella did, and tell me how safe you feel.

> But the bigger problem is that you're still ignoring that your mind has been captured by the propaganda that demonized this woman as a greedy opportunist

No, in my comments I have explicitly stated that I empathized with Stella and that I'm glad she got her medical bills paid. She didn't deserve what happened to her, and she definitely didn't deserve the hateful publicity she received.

I furthermore freely admit that I'm fully capable of doing the same idiotic things that Stella did. Putting hot coffee between my legs and squeezing it to fiddle with the lid is exactly something I would do, and I'd probably be on the fucking phone or driving while I did it. I recognize that Stella probably didn't understand just how dangerous this is, and I accept that McDonalds may have been negligent in the nature of the warnings it provided.

> Can you even imagine how much surgery is required to treat 3rd degree burns to the genitals?

This is an appeal to emotion. Yes, I've seen some horrific injuries in my time. I'm also a vegetarian with a deep abiding hatred of McDonalds and their ilk. McDonalds makes, markets, and sells shit food that is poisoning generations. But the magnitude of Stella's injury is orthogonal to the issue of McDonalds culpability for it. Clearly the judicial system has settled into some recognition of liability for merchants of hot coffee, but excessive service temperature is not part of that consideration. And it's a damn good thing, because coffee needs to be hot.

Here's a simple question for you, based on an actual experience I had years ago. If I accidentally stab myself in the eye with a paring knife (yes, long story), will you support me if I sue the knife maker or the merchant for selling me a knife that was excessively or unexpectedly sharp and pointy?

You don't seem to know very much about the redesigned lids. Disposable coffee lids in the US changed drastically following this lawsuit. It took a few years, but the quality of disposable cups/libs used to serve hot beverages to-go is vastly higher than it used to be. I'm surprised that you don't know that... There's a lot of legal scholarship on this topic that specifically discusses that shift, and analyzes the impact of this lawsuit vs other causes.

But then, you also don't seem to know very much about product liability in US law. Manufacturers are held to surprisingly high standards in the US, and McDonald's conduct before & during this trial actually shocked the legal community. Their position was seen as surprisingly risky, given the fact pattern.

Your knife example is pretty silly, and I'm not sure why you expected it to prove anything. Legal hypotheticals are sometimes useful analytical tools, but you have to actually construct the hypo case to distinguish a relevant legal principle or fact pattern... Your example does none of that. It's just an obvious tautology, and there's not really any argument contained in it.

Again, I would encourage you to educate yourself, instead of just making a lot of assumptions that are emotionally convenient to your preconceived notions.

> You don't seem to know very much about the redesigned lids. ... There's a lot of legal scholarship on this topic that specifically discusses that shift, and analyzes the impact of this lawsuit vs other causes.

Go ahead and cite some of that scholarship. I would genuinely love to see it. Explain how the current designs, which are still subject to coffee spill lawsuits, differ from those before Stella's lawsuit. Then explain why, if the lid was inadequate for its purpose, Stella's lawyers specifically cited her difficulty in prying off the lid as the proximate cause of the accident.

Otherwise, your detour into lids and cups is a bit of a distraction. The primary allegation, and the one most parroted by sympathetic media and trial lawyers to this day, was that McDonalds' coffee was a defective product due to outrageously excessive temperature, far beyond industry standards or best practices. Nowadays the trial lawyers like to claim that the lawsuit forced McDonalds to drastically lower the temperature of their coffee. I don't know whether you also believe these easily debunked claims, but you sure seem eager to redirect the debate in a direction where you know I don't disagree as strongly. It's kinda weird.

> But then, you also don't seem to know very much about product liability in US law.

Guilty as charged!

> McDonald's conduct before & during this trial actually shocked the legal community. Their position was seen as surprisingly risky, given the fact pattern.

Right, I definitely remember personal injury lawyers and opponents of tort reform acting "shocked". They still do. No surprise there. And almost every single one of them lies about the temperature issue.

> Your knife example is pretty silly, and I'm not sure why you expected it to prove anything.

I don't expect it to prove anything. I'm simply curious how you feel about strict liability as applied to other dangerous but common products, where the the issue of whether the product is safe for its intended or anticipated use is in dispute. It's a simple if unimportant question, which you appear unable to answer.

> Again, I would encourage you to educate yourself, instead of just making a lot of assumptions that are emotionally convenient to your preconceived notions.

Hmmm, I sure don't feel very emotional about this. My strongest emotion is, like I said, contempt for McDonalds' influence on peoples' health. And again, I was happy that Stella bill's were paid.

EDIT:

Seriously though, please cite that "scholarship" on lids and cups you mentioned. I'm skeptical, and it's somewhat tangential to the more sensationalized allegations made by Stella's lawyers, but I'm also genuinely curious.

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