McBurned Off: The real story of how McDonald's lost

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It's amazing how widespread the mythologized version of this case is.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ktM-lIfeQ&feature=related[/youtube]

A lot of ignorance is a pretty dangerous thing.

Last edited by Master_Pedant on 28 Jul 2011, 6:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

You really do love posting that picture don't you? Is it the shock value that thrills you or the fact you've been getting away with it so far?

It really is amazing how distorted this case was in the media.

Sometimes I wonder if we do ourselves in injustice by avoiding images with shock value. I didn't find this image to be disturbing because I think it's a necessary illustration, although I regretted posting it directly as there may be young viewers here. A grown person, however, should really see it as an educating tool. No one should have made any judgements about this case without seeing all of the evidence - including this piece.

Why couldn't an after hours news program display this? It's really a game-changer. I don't see it as offensive at all. Maybe disturbing, but that's kind of the whole point. It is disturbing that this woman was burned so severely and the public just labeled her as a greedy fraud.

It reminds me of school lessons about the Holocaust. You can read about it, or listen to the stories, but for me, I don't think it really hit home until I saw the body heaps. Same with radiation. Sure, the news talks about disasters like Chernobyl, but it's sort of an abstract without the images. Pretty much any form of suffering can be better described through images.

This is nothing like the Holocaust! The Holocaust was the attempted intentional organized genocide of the Jewish people. This however is what happens when you have 100°C water soak into clothes in contact with your skin, it is an accident, not the intentional systematic murder of an entire people.

I never said this was like the Holocaust. I said it was like school lessons about the Holocaust <- subject of the sentence being "school lessons" and how imagery can be a useful educating tool. Way to pick out a phrase and spin it

700+ prior complaints at this single McDonald's location, including injuries, is not an accident. It's gross negligence. That was the finding of the jury who was forced to look at all the evidence, including actual photos. Maybe if the public was also shown this evidence, they might not have made this woman the scapegoat for tort reform.

Sorry, I misread what you said.

My cue for a "Think Before Speaking" moment:

What would an attempted UNINTENTIONAL organized genocide be like?

How do you attempt something unintentional?

How organized can unintentinal genocide be?

The image in and of itself isn't relevant to forming an opinion on liability in this particular case, but only comes into play after that question has been decided and compensation is being discussed. I can think of plenty of gruesome injuries that people have received solely due to their own negligence, having been through gunsmithing school I've actually witnessed a few personally. The severity of the injury in and of itself proves nothing, and is possible even prejudicial and inflammatory when shown devoid of context, since the natural inclination towards shock and horror tends to invoke emotion rather than reason in response.

Here's wikipedia on coffee preparation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_preparation

Notice that they list a brewing temperature of 190-205 degrees. In a fast paced, high turnover operation like a drivethrough restaurant I could imagine coffee being served immediately after brewing, and as long as everyone was aware of the temperature I don't see a problem.

At the most I could see a split liability verdict, as to me a customer is at least partially responsible for spilling a hot liquid on themselves, even if it was hotter than they imagined it to be. The real impact of this verdict isn't so much annoying warning labels as lukewarm, improperly brewed coffee in restaurants, and that to me is a real loss.

The transplantation of the Kakapo, coupled with the accompanying weasels which came along with humans from England. The transplantation of them to a, supposedly, isolated island was meant to keep them safe from their new carnivorous threat. It wasn't isolated enough and some weasels migrated to where these parrots went, and so the few remaining kakapo parrots were moved yet again and there are less than a hundred still alive today. That would be an example of an unintentional organized genocide. The organized effort was meant to help, and it did allow some to be preserved admittedly, but the first effort to isolate them from the carnivorous weasels was unsuccessful and nearly lead to the extinction of the kakapo parrot.

It was not an accident. The corporation was aware that people were suffering such injuries and decided that the penalties for such were insufficient when compared to the benefits they believed they'd get for heating the coffee as such. It was a calculated decision that left these results.

So, do you even have a clue how coffee is heated? Do you think there's a temperature setting on the coffee machine and some malicious evil employee changes it from "Standard" to "Burn Baby Burn!! !" laughing maniacally as they hear the screams of old little ladies who M_P enjoys staring at pictures of and posting ad naseum?

They did set it to a temperature that quickly causes third degree burns and that was decided at the top. Such was established during the course of court proceedings. They decided that if some people ended up with third degree burns, well, that's that.

Really, that's an interesting assertion. Proof please.

From: http://www.social.mtu.edu/faculty/spete ... sfacts.htm

"Stella had never initiated a lawsuit and was not looking to initiate one now. However, she and her family thought McDonald's should pay $15,000 to $20,000 to cover her daughter's out-of-pocket expenses (which were about $2000) and wages lost while staying home to take care of her and to reimburse Medicare for over $10,000 of medical expenses. About six months after the accident, Stella's daughter wrote to McDonald's to request reimbursement for these items and to ask that McDonald's lower the temperature of its coffee. Although McDonald's had previously settled many claims by other coffee burn victims for amounts up to and exceeding $500,000, it offered Stella and her family only $800."

They had full knowledge of the injuries they were causing and had even paid out for them already. They had indeed simply accepted the fact that their product was causing injuries because no action was taken to prevent further injuries.

Quite interesting, and that does seem to be executives at work though. How much have the numbers changed now that a warning label is printing on the cups and lids?