truTV
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2017–2023
5:33 · 978K views · Dec 16, 2016
An Adam Ruins Everything segment on the real facts of the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, covering the severity of the burns and the corporate PR campaign that painted it as frivolous.
HN cites it as a quick, entertaining explainer to correct the myth of the frivolous coffee lawsuit.
6 comments from Hacker News
> I read it far enough Clearly not since the crux of both lawsuits has nothing to do with the build quality of cups or lids. Entertaining overview: this video Lawyer's examination: [LINK] Whichever you prefer. Did you know the woman who sued so many years ago just wanted her burn injuries paid for, not a multi-million dollar payout? The coffee is brewed at such a high temperature, it could not be consumed when delivered to the customer. It was a known issue for many years with repeated (broken) promises to fix it. Rather than immediate consumption, the high temperature was targeted for folks to buy it, put it in a cup holder, drive to work, and then drink it upon arrival, by which time it would have presumably cooled to a drinkable temperature. For this use case it worked. However at the point of sale it is hot enough to cause third-degree burns through clothing within two seconds. If you spill it in a car, your mobility to deal with such a burning hazard is also predictably quite limited. Your clothing keeps the hot liquid next to your skin, prevents the heat from radiating away as quickly, and the seat belt restricts movement even further even if the car is not in motion. Liquid hot enough to cause third-degree burns in two seconds in a confined space is absolutely considered a foreseeable hazard for the vendor under laws regarding liability, especially after they were given multiple warnings prior to injury. "But I want hotter coffee, so it's still hot when I get to work," yo
They mentioned the coffee lawsuit. I heard about that one many times while working at Dunkin Donuts some 22 years ago. The customers were always (jokingly) threatening to burn themselves and sue the company for millions. I thought that lady was greedy until learning the truth much later. An Adam Ruins Everything clip explains: this video
The McDonald's case was most likely intentional though. They're a big company and most likely pushed the media that direction as damage control. There's a good Adam Ruins Everything video on it: this video
Special interest groups already dictate policy. There have been actual studies on that, and I did a video on one of them a while back: [LINK] I'm currently working on a post called "You can't vote with your purchases" which is something I feel a lot of libertarians and capitalists spew out. Don't like Wal-Mart? Don't shop there. The trouble is you really can't. Edward Bernays and Anna Freud really changed the game when they started teaching companies how to market to people emotionally to draw them in. I know tons of people, myself included, who don't shop at Wal-Mart, but it doesn't make a dent. Wal-Mart can still manipulate millions of people with their extensive ad campaigns, and most people simply don't care. Tobacco companies got women to smoke more by disusing it as being part of women's rights (look up Torches of Freedom). McDonalds led a PR campaign against "frivolous lawsuits" from the women who got 3rd degree, life threatening burns from their coffee, that people still believe to this day ( this video ). The Baptist church didn't put a dent in Disney by boycotting them. Even MLKings Montgomery bus boycotts didn't succeed due to financial pressure. They succeeded because the news and media attention got so huge that the Supreme Court had to step in. Every company does something unethical. Your processors are manufactured in Malaysia by people who get paid barely enough to live on, your shoes are made in Africa by companies driving people off their land and into the citi
I too stopped shopping at Amazon a little over a year ago after returning to the US. I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart in 2009 and simply see Amazon as the new Wal-Mart. But you and I and everyone else who decides not the shop there; we don't make a dent. You cannot vote with your dollars. There are still way too many people who don't care or who follow the advertising. It's the reason why Uber will be around for decades. Public Relations/Propaganda/Marketing is amazing. McDonalds convinced millions of Americans the girl who sued for spilling coffee on herself had fought and won a frivolous lawsuit when the reality was far from the truth: this video