[ColdNoMore]

Speaking of big corporate lawsuits....

I'm sure there are still a lot of people who believe the infamous McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit...was/is the epitome of juries out of control.

If folks did some simple research however, they would find out things...that I bet they never knew.

I was one of those until one day while walking down the fairway at Arroyo del Oso, I mentioned it to my good friend and to my surprise (since he was the retired Deputy Chief of the State Police for NM)...he gave me the real facts.

I'm sure they're are some that don't even care though, because they go by emotions and will believe the false news put out at the time...and facts don't really matter to them.

Poke Here For The Whole Story

In a new segment of Adam Ruins Everything, host Adam Conover explains that basically everything people think they know about the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit is false. He walks through some of the actual details of the case:

Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old woman in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose grandson drove her to McDonald’s in 1992. She was in a parked car when the coffee spilled.

Liebeck acknowledged that the spill was her fault. What she took issue with was that the coffee was so ridiculously hot — at up to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, near boiling point — that it caused third-degree burns on her legs and genitals, nearly killing her and requiring extensive surgery to treat.

McDonald’s apparently knew that this was unsafe.

In the decade before Liebeck’s spill, McDonald’s had received 700 reports of people burning themselves.

McDonald’s admitted that its coffee was a hazard at such high temperatures. But it continued the practice, enforced by official McDonald’s policy, of heating up its coffee to near-boiling point. (McDonald’s claimed customers wanted the coffee this hot.)

Liebeck didn’t want to go to court. She just wanted McDonald’s to pay her medical expenses, estimated at $20,000. McDonald’s only offered $800, leading her to file a lawsuit in 1994.

After hearing the evidence, the jury concluded that McDonald’s handling of its coffee was so irresponsible that Liebeck should get much more than $20,000, suggesting she get nearly $2.9 million to send the company a message.

Liebeck settled for less than $600,000. And McDonald’s began changing how it heats up its coffee.

On a side note, when she originally went back to the restaurant to ask the manager to pay for her medical bills...he grabbed her elbow and forcefully removed her from the store.

She also makes the best tamales...I have ever eaten.