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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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This thing has been going around a long time. McDonald's is bad and people will believe anything anyone makes up about the case. People on the internet tend to be contrarian, so they jump on the chance to say "well actually the women that sued McDonald's was in the right, I know this because I'm much smarter than anyone that thinks otherwise!"
The flaw with this meme is making coffee involves boiling water. You can't actually heat water above 100C without it turning to steam. The coffee served to the woman was significantly less than the boiling point of water, because McDonald's isn't able to change physics. The injuries the woman were horrific, but anyone would suffer even worse injuries if the spilled water on themselves while making a pot of Mac & Cheese. Like anything that involves boiling water to make there's an expectation that you need to be careful when handling it.
The reality of the story is the lady that got burned admitted it was her fault. The reason she sued was to pay her medical bills. The real issue is lack of healthcare. Handling boiling water is a common thing, an accident can happen to anyone. Having a system that depends on either having a corporation associated with the accident you can sue or face bankruptcy whenever you have an accident is the real stupidity here.
I mean who would you sue if you tripped while carrying a pot of Mac & Cheese and got burned because of it? The Kraft Corporation maybe? Dumb system that brainwashed people into trying to blame accidents on a nearby corporation instead of fixing the real problem.
Dude her labia fused to her leg. I think that coffee might have been just a bit too hot.
Yes yes, the emotion of it all. Let's bring it back to logic. You would suffer more injury if you spilled a pot of Mac & Cheese over your groin. Injuries be nasty, boiling water be dangerous, these are just facts of science.
Unless your mom cooks all your food for you, then you are at risk of similar injuries nearly every day. Most of us have learned the importance of being careful around the dangerous things we encounter every day to avoid these nasty injuries.
It wasn't a pot of boiling water, it was a cup of coffee. Which is expected to be at a temperature that is drinkable when you get it and if spilling it on yourself is dangerous then that's a problem.
Cool! So if you go to a restaurant, order mac and cheese, get it in a cardboard container and when it spills you get hospitalized for a week, do you say "mac and cheese is meant to be served very hot! Of course I'll cover the medical bill myself!". What about when a few dozen people run into the same issue, because the restaurant has figured out that the occasional lawsuit from people being badly injured is cheaper than the cost of keeping the mac and cheese at an edible temperature? I mean, consider the comparison you're going for here. "If she'd heated a substance to that temperature herself, then spilled it on herself, it would be entirely her own fault! Why is it when someone else heats a substance to an unsafe temperature, then someone gets injured by it, it's not entirely on the injured party? They should know that the substance was heated far beyond what anyone would reasonably expect it to be provided at!"
The coffee was spilled on the lady by a McDonald's employee, she spilled it on herself.
And yeah that's how it works. If I sell you a knife and you accidentally cut your finger off then that's on you. If when you buy a knife I throw it at you and you get injured as a result, that's on me. This is very basic logic of how responsibility works.
Except the temp they were serving at was above regulations. They had been warned multiple times and got multiple complaints. Those regulations exist for a reason, this case demonstrates why. Because people don't deserve to have their labia fused together because a coffee spilled in the drive thru.
I just did a test (for science!) I measured the temperature of instant coffee that I made. Black (just coffee and water) 88C. With sugar, 80C. After I added cream it was 68C.
All of these temperatures are about what you claim to be "above regulation" (please cite this regulation, I suspect you're just making things up). Millions of people drink instant coffee every day. The temperature being between 80C and 88C is considered normal because it is. When people say "it's coffee, it's supposed to hot!" this is what they mean, because people drink coffee at these kinds of temperature everyday.
Now you can go ahead and peer review my experiment, you just need instant coffee, a kettle and a thermometer. Please report back the temperatures you find.
They literally haven't changed the temp they serve it at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants#Coffee_temperature
How likely are you to spill a high volume of Mac n Cheese on yourself in the kitchen, to the point that it soaks through your clothes, versus spilling an open cup of coffee in a car?
We do encounter dangerous things everyday, and this scenario is more dangerous than what's acceptable at industrial plants. You would be required to put in several safeguards which each reduced the chance of the event occuring by a factor of 10.
As a process engineer it's absolutely insane to me how risky this was. I believe something causing permanent injury/disability to a member of the public would actually be our highest or second highest severity category. With how likely this is to happen, if a company had inadequate safeguards in place, they would be heavily fined and I don't even know what else. This is a flagrant safety violation from a process engineering perspective.
As someone who made coffee that was 88C (I measured it) this morning and every other morning. It's ridiculous to me that people are shocked that coffee is hot.
Stick a thermometer into a cup of coffee, see what temperature it is. Now work on some insane safeguards for it. Or just do what everyone else on the planet does and accept that it's hot, so be careful with it.
The bottom line though is that McDonalds sold/served it at an unsafe temperature (for the type of container it was put in), to make more money, making it an unsafe product to sell, which companies are not allowed to do.
The bottom bottom line is lawyers want to keep up the narrative that it's good and proper to sue over hot coffee. Check the source of the link.
You completely ignored my point about safety, you're not being intellectually honest, and arguing for arguing sake.
Except that coffee doesn't need to be brewed at the literal boiling point of water, so you're wrong there.
Also the lawsuit demonstrated that even 82-88c (as the manual described) was negligently high, and that 60c was plenty hot enough and in fact what most establishments served coffee at
In fact human cells denature at about 60c so any hotter causes damage to your body.
The trial was never anchored around 100c at all
Yeah nobody is disputing the hot water can injure someone. You think I don't understand what boiling water can do to someone? And it doesn't matter if other companies serve cold coffee.
How do you even cook food? You understand the danger and are careful about it. It's commonly understood that coffee is hot and therefore people need to be careful of it. Don't put yourself in a situation where a whole cup could spill all over your groin. I've been boiling water every day at the shockingly high temperature of 100C and somehow I've managed to avoid putting it in my groin area. Crazy, I know!
The link is to a personal injury law firm. How do you think their business would be affected if there was proper health care and accidents don't result in people in a desperate situation where they have to sue someone or go bankrupt? Probably enough of a negative impact that personal injury lawyers are incentivized to promote the idea that McDonald's was evil for serving coffee slightly hotter than other companies. Because they gotta promote the idea that suing someone that gets injured so they can pay their medical bills is a good and correct way of doing things. Which is why this silly meme persists.
Yeah wow a business wants to show competency in their core product, and educate their customers about how to mitigate their costs with their service.
Even without your stupid healthcare system, companies need to be held accountable for negligence. Until we all pull this stick out of our ass and demand governments provide real effective consumer protections, going after the wallet of idiot business is going to be the way.
Wow you must be some kind of cunt scientist, moaning about the fact that the water obviously wasn't boiling because it was liquid. Significantly under 100C, sure.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7997963/#:~:text=Studies%20show%20that%20a%20temperature,skin%20burn%20in%2030%20seconds.
Water at a temperature as low as 54C "can result in a full-thickness skin burn in 30 seconds" as in, 3rd degree burns.
How fast can a 79 year old strip in a parking lot?
In a kitchen you are an least handling your boiling liquids in rigid containers instead of cardboard. Why would you be walking around with that full hot pot anyway? Did you order your pot of mac and cheese to go?
The stupid thing here is instead of the government enforcing safe products that are fit for purpose, this kind of damage to a person is civil and a tort.
Nah I'm the kind of scientist that actually measured the temperature of a cup of Maxwell House instant coffee. Because actual scientist test instead of just believing rando articles from personal injury lawyers.
Black (just coffee crystals and water): 88C With two spoonfuls of sugar: 80C With sugar and cream: 68C <- I drank it at this temperature, it was nice!
Feel free to peer review my findings. You only need instant coffee, a kettle and a thermometer.
A carafe, a window, a cardboard cup, and someone sitting in a car next to the window.
Or did this old lady walk up to a counter?
This experiment doesn't seem too well thought out.
So you concede the point that the temperature of the coffee was fine?
So basically you think McDonald's shouldn't sell coffee at the drive through window. If you were saying that, then sure, maybe I can be convinced of that. But the main point of that the "coffee was too hot" is completely invalid.
BTW what happened in reality was McDonald's didn't significantly change the temperature of their coffee (it's supposed to be hot), they improved their lids and put a "warning coffee is hot" label on the cups. You could still suffer third degree burns from dumping coffee on your groin, so heed the warning on the label and be careful with it.
This is a stupid way of thinking.
Making your own coffee at home, you have complete control over how safe it is.
Buying it from a business, you expect it's not going to maim you. If a hibachi bar burns you this bad or you have equivalent injuries from dry ice at some gastro pub, the business is at fault because they should know how to prevent patrons from being injured.
The coffee was in her possession when the accident happened. Coffee is served hot, that's just what the product is. If someone buys a knife and after the knife is safely handed to them by the employee of the store, then the customer cuts themself with the knife in their car, would you say the store didn't take appropriate measures to ensure safety by only selling dull knives?
Nice try, McDonald's lawyer.
Nice try personal injury lawyer.
NSFL: https://www.google.com/search?q=stella+liebeck+burns&sca_esv=566856875&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AM9HkKmPBVZwzxW-bL6SS-UapPZ4BYy9aQ:1695197259357&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjigd_z3biBAxXQO3AKHd7ZAT8Q_AUIBigB&biw=360&bih=653
You want to appeal to shock and emotion because logic isn't on your side.
No, I'm appealing to the reality of the situation because your willful ignorance has no bearing on it.
I think you're ignorant to some facts:
You're only at the level where you're having an emotional reaction to the horrific nature of the injury due to an accident. You feel like it's heartless to not have sympathy for someone who was injured in such a way.
I'm at the level where I'm sympathetic for people that have similar accidents without a big corporation nearby that they can sue to pay their medical bills. Just google random images of third degree burns (if that's your thing) and understand that unlike the images you linked to, a lot of the people in the other images went bankrupt because of those injuries. So who deserves the most sympathy?
Why are you so heartless that you don't care about people that suffered these injuries and didn't have McDonald's pay their medical bills? Emotion emotion emotion!
If self awareness was a disease you'd be the healthiest person alive.
Just developed the ability to do critical thinking. Many people suffer third degree burns in a variety of accidents. They are horrific. Why should only the people that these injuries in the vicinity of a corporation have their medical bills paid? Because it benefits law firms like the one that wrote the article above?
Consider the source of the information you get on the internet (personal injury law firm). Consider the motives (make suing others over accidents more socially acceptable). Consider the information they're leaving out in constructing a narrative (people commonly handle boiling water and people do suffer from third degree burns because of it). Be wary of emotional appeals (the photos of the injury).
Set aside emotions and think. Where is the real problem? Lack of health care resulting in a society that's overly litigious. Not something you're going to hear from a personal injury law firm so there's no money behind that kind of message is there?
That's a lot of words to miss the point.
Proceeds to be the most contrarian person around
I must say, these are the types of replies I'd like to see. It allows me to re-examine everything on the incident from another side and possibly form a better take.
I'll give you another angle. I'm familiar with safety hazard analysis in industrial settings -- HAZOPs and LOPAs, if you've heard of them. By our guidelines, this event would be a significant violation. This would be considered giving a disability to a member of the public, which ranks as either the highest severity or second highest severity incident possible (varies depending on the risk matrix in question).
Considering the liquid can cause severe burns in 2 seconds, was served without a lid, and was given to someone in a moving vehicle, the likelihood of this incident would be incredibly high. Taken together, an industrial analysis would call for at least 3 independent layers of protection to prevent the incident from occuring, where each layer reduces the likelihood of the event by a factor of 10. There are no protections or safeguards in this situation.
Mitigating this risk would be incredibly high priority. It's at the point where you might shut down, i.e. stop serving coffee, until you have robust protections in place. I can't stress enough that what McDonald's was doing is riskier than you'll see in industrial plants.
The best take you can arrive at by simply sticking a thermometer into a cup of coffee. I did that this morning... 88C! Then laugh at how ridiculous this meme about McDonald's being evil supervillains for serving coffee at "insane" temperatures of 80C.
The reality is, that's just the temperature of coffee. The lesson here is don't trust what personal injury lawyers say and be careful with coffee... it's hot!
A semi quantitative risk analysis (LOPA) for industrial safety would find this event to be absolutely unacceptable.
So there's the logic you're looking for. Industry safety standards would flag this and demand several additional protections.
My kitchen has a stove I can burn myself on, knives I can cut myself with. Oh and a kettle that sometimes contains boiling water.
Does my kitchen not meet your "semi quantitative risk analysis (LOPA) for industrial safety"?
It's likely that you can injure yourself with those, yes, but the injuries that are most likely to occur are not high severity. The more significant injuries are less likely to happen, and there are things we do to make that the case. Kettles have a closed top, as do saucepans. There are procedures to use knives so that you don't hurt yourself, and if you're chopping something tricky, you typically pay heightened attention to it.
The risk assessment is all about likelihood and severity for scenarios, and the purpose of safeguards is to reduce that likelihood to meet an acceptable risk tolerance. With McDonald's here, they not only had a very high severity incident, but they also didn't really take steps to reduce the likelihood. They could have served it with a lid. They could have used a larger cup than necessary so the water level was low. They could have added the cream and sugar before giving it to the customer, so there was no need to do anything except hold it and drink it.
In other words, they were completely reckless. And if you behaved recklessly in your kitchen, it would also be a red flag in these safety analyses. Do you typically transfer boiling water when it's in a container full to the brim? Do you watch TV while chopping tricky food with blunt knives? Do you leave your floor wet if there's a spill? What about cranking your stove up to max your everything you do, or using your oven without oven mitts?
You're being very purposely obtuse by suggesting third degree burns are comparable to burns from briefly touching the stove. Feel free to continue doing so however, it only highlights the difference between serious safety analysis and being a contrarian jackass.
I'm saying that when I carry my Mac & Cheese over to my sink to strain the water out of it I could spill the water on my groin and suffer similar injuries this woman suffered. You're pretending that danger doesn't exist because you want to pretend the 80C liquid at McDonald's is somehow magically more dangerous than the 100C liquid in my pot of Mac & Cheese.
And BTW, I actually measured the temperature of a cup of instant coffee I made... it was 88C. Millions of people make instant coffee every day.
You want it to be true that people that say "coffee is supposed to be hot" are somehow dummies that don't understand the real facts that you found by "doing your own research on the internet." You want this so much you're willing to ignore actual facts that you could easily verify by simply sticking a thermometer into a cup of coffee.
Oh the irony of a random person on the Internet saying this to a chemical engineer
LOL, a chemical engineer that's not capable of sticking a thermometer into a cup of coffee to verify what the temperature of coffee is.