• Kushan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The whole McDonald’s coffee debacle is constantly misreported, but I think it’s becoming more known that McDonald’s are in fact the bad guys in that one.

    • dgmib@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You Americans get so obsessed with picking sides, and finding someone to blame. You miss the point.

      In every other first world country, this wouldn’t have been a court case, or even news.

      When freak accidents happen we don’t look for someone to blame, we treat any victim’s wounds free of charge.

      We have public health departments that study accident trends and make precautionary policies to prevent them from happening again.

      Stella wouldn’t have had medical bills to sue over.

      • PoopingCough@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is such a weird “america bad” take; having universal healthcare has nothing to do with wanting to hold corporations accountable for their shitty behavior.

        • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Instead we now have ‘warning, hot’ on cups with coffe in them. (It should be hot when I order a hot drink)

          That’s the problem with trying to make it fool proof or add foll proof warnings, there will always eb a better fool. Educate the ones that want to be educated and let nature run it’s course. Problems like thise solve themselves. (Although it could get messy)

          • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Her labia fused together. It was just a little ouchie hot, the coffee was being served near boiling.

          • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There are also temperature limits on hot drinks so the drinks aren’t hot enough to literally melt and fuse skin together.

            • dgmib@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You might want to google that “fact”

              There’s no legal maximum temperature in the US.

              Coffee and tea are routinely served at temperatures that can cause severe burns in seconds. Starbucks, today, normally serves their steeped teas at around 200°F. That 10°F hotter than the 180-190°F that was McDonald’s policy at the time of the Stella Liebeck case.

              To prevent scalding and burns, the WHO recommends water be no hotter than 60°C (140°F). Most customers would complain if coffee and tea was mandated to be served at a ‘safe’ temperature.

      • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When freak accidents happen we don’t look for someone to blame, we treat any victim’s wounds free of charge.

        We have public health departments that study accident trends and make precautionary policies to prevent them from happening again.

        This wasn’t a freak accident and McDonald’s had been warned repeatedly about the temperature of their coffee being dangerous. This is why the victim was awarded so much, McDonald’s was being intentionally negligent with their coffee to save a few pennies per customer. You act like you can just hit someone with a car in a place with universal healthcare and it’s ok because no hospital bill.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Oh, FFS… Have you ever read what actually happened?

        Yes, she politely asked get medical costs covered. McDonald’s told her to go pound sand. The ensuing lawsuit uncovered the fact that McDonald’s was intentionally serving coffee way above a safe temperature for consumption, and that they’d been warned about the potential for injury. The judgement–most of which was overturned on appeal–was because McDonald’s was engaging in bad behavior intentionally that cause injury. Most of the award wasn’t to cover medical expenses, but to send a “fuck you” to McDonald’s so that they would stop doing something incredibly dangerous.

        • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What he is saying is that her initial lawsuit was over medical expenses. Which would have been covered so she would never have even initiated a suit for McDonald’s to say no to.

      • WashedOver@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        That’s a long way to say I don’t really know the details of this case and will just follow the narrative McDonald’s wants me to…

        • dgmib@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If you believe there are details about the case that I don’t understand, feel free to enlighten me.

          • Krudler@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            McDonald’s had multiple incidents where they were ORDERED by courts to stop holding the coffee at an unsafe temperature, and they chose intentionally to disregard that.

            So McDonald’s chose to disregard human safety and legal orders. Hence the massive punitive fine.

            • dgmib@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I am aware that McDonald’s did have 700 claims nationwide from burns from coffee in the 10 years between 1984 and 1994.

              But I can’t find anywhere where they were ordered by courts to lower the temperature. Can you provided a link to one of these cases where they were ordered to lower the temperature and they disregard that?

              • Krudler@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You seem quite interested in this topic, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the process of continuing your research :-)