The "Hot Coffee" case and other seemingly frivolous lawsuits

[author_by_night]

There are two "hot coffee" stories - the popular one and the truth.

(Short post, cut is for use of .gifs.)

The first is touted as proof that America has gone mad with frivolous lawsuits. (In 1994.) A ditzy young woman is driving her car when she takes sip of coffee from a McDonald's cup. She spills some of it.



It hurts poor Ditz McValleygirl, so she decides to like, sue. Are you asking her to let McDonald's get away with ruining her manicure? As if!

And that's the version we heard for years. It helps that it's McDonald's; they're a big company everyone likes. No one likes this Stella Something from somewhere. They don't know her.

... which means they don't know she was a grandma who spilled coffee and suffered third degree burns.


Imagine Sofia from The Golden Girls needing skin grafts.

A College Humor segment called Adam Ruins Everything has brought light to the real deal, although it's hardly the first. It's also been discovered that McDonald's did a pretty good job at orchestrating the "as if!" version.

However, I have to wonder how many "frivilous lawsuit" stories are like this. Not that the Big Guys necessarily orchestrated an interpretation, but that nonetheless, the general public got 1/4 or even 1/10th of the story and ran with it. I think of that horrible, evil bitch of an aunt who sued her nephew for giving her a hug... only to learn it was an insurance policy issue, and the poor nephew was devastated that the world hated his aunt. Fortunately, the internet uncovered that within a few weeks at the most. Poor Stella Liebeck died a national punchline. :(