![There was a discussion yesterday about the woman who sued McDonalds because their coffee was too hot. I was suspicious of her name and decided to look her up. She is rather (((tribal))) looking [460x276 - 25KB]](https://pic8.co/sh/elAJcK.jpg){kind=link}
"personal responsibility has to kick in sometime." No argument there. Neither do I think that someone too stupid not to know better than to put a cup of hot coffee between her legs deserves $600K.
But I've looked into this case at length and it's very clear, to me at least, that McD's should have paid her initial demand for $17K and then changed how they served coffee. In fact they should have changed how they served coffee a long time before the incident took place, which is why the bulk of the settlement was punitive. If it had been the first time it had happened then McD's probably could have blown her off without worry. The "but they sell millions of dollars of coffee a week" defense was attempted but failed, presumably because at some point some becomes too much ie. if it wasn't this case then it was just a matter of time.
Don't think of it as a $600K reward for being a stupid person but as a $600K penalty for being an uncaring corporation.
That's a more reasonable argument, but stupid people are going to hurt themselves in stupid ways no matter what you do. They didn't specify what the other scalding cases were about, but I'm guessing they were instances where employees had spilled hot drinks on customers. In that instance it'd be perfectly reasonable to pay out.
Customers demanding compensation for spilling drinks in themselves, off premisis, with no influence from staff or the site whatsoever, is a massive escalation. If they started paying those kinds of claims it would mean they'd be responsible for anything anyone did with their food any time after it had been handed to them. It doesn't matter what size the business is or how evil they are, no one could afford to start taking on that kind of risk. So they drew the line and said no, it's your fault. There has to be a limit to caring.
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