Now how did this case even get to trial? Logic would demand that the pouring (accidental or otherwise) is probably not a good thing to do. Do people really need to have all these warnings in life?Do they really need to be told that? Was the 79-year old woman who was severely burned when the lid came off her McDonald's coffee cup that stupid that she didn't realize hot coffee would burn her? The answer is no. The real person to blame here is the lawyer who cooked up the idea of the lawsuit in the first place.
First things first, the original settlement offer made by Stella Liebeck (the 79 year old woman who was burned) was that she wanted $20,000 to cover her medical expenses which were $11,000. McDonald's, being the caring company that they are, offered her $800.
Naturally she lawyered-up for lack of a better term, and retained the services of Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Mr.Morgan, in true evil genius type fashion, came up with what would be one of the most controversial lawsuits in American court history. It is also one of the most referenced lawsuits in recent history, it was even parodied in an episode of Seinfeld. (The episode "The Maestro" to be precise.) The mere fact that Mrs. Liebeck was awarded the astronomical amount of 2.9 million dollars in the outcome of trial naturally caused a myriad of copycat lawsuits across the United States and elsewhere in this money hungry world.
In fact I would go so far as to say that case is the reason there are so many of these maniacal suits because let's face it, most people are looking for a payday and an easy one at that. I don't think Mrs. Liebeck was looking for that payday though, I think Mr.Reed Morgan found an angle that turned out to be a gold mine. He certainly did strike gold as he still takes similar coffee burn cases to this day. Not to single him out but he certainly set a precedent for future lawsuits of this nature. Hundreds of thousands of lawyers all took a similar approach and seen too take any case that they think will get a similar payout and more importantly the notoriety which will help these scum bags continue to make the giant amounts of money.
Coming up with these ridiculous lawsuits is now a full on business and I was made aware of this by a great site called overlawyered.com that I found in my research on the McDonald's Coffee Case. Through that site I found that there are even lobbyists for what is being called the trial-lawyer industry. It all finally makes sense to me now to as why there are all these unbelievably idiotic cases even making it to trial in the first place. It's all a WORK!
The main culprits in this mess are a group which call themselves The American Association for Justice. They lobby for their cause and donate millions of dollars on state levels to get what they want out of the state governments so in turn they can get whatever laws changed that are in their way. The politicians then can get their precious money to campaign and do whatever other ridiculous things with said millions. They are just one of many lobby groups that plague the US Government system, but I could spend the rest of my life going on about all the b.s. lobby groups are responsible for so I will gravitate away from that subject.
To get back to my main focus here, the trial lawyer industry needed to get some political muscle in order to keep soaking more and more of that CASH MONEY they want to with minimal impedance caused by such insignificant things like laws and legislature. With laws bent to help them they can then proceed to bring cases to trial that are so, in the words of Mike Tyson, ludicrous.
That's why you will continue to see lawsuits such as this:
From the Associated Press:
Woman sues Google over Utah walking directions
SALT LAKE CITY — A pedestrian injured by a motorist while following an online route has filed a lawsuit claiming Google Inc. supplied unsafe directions.
Lauren Rosenberg filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking more than $100,000 in U.S. District Court in Utah. It also named a motorist she says hit her.
Rosenberg used her phone in January to download directions from one end of Park City to the other.
Google Maps led her to a four-lane boulevard without sidewalks that was "not reasonably safe for pedestrians," according to the lawsuit filed by the Northridge, Calif., resident.
Are you kidding me!? You can't figure out that a road with no sidewalks is probably not a good place to walk on!?! You're such an idiot that you would continue to walk in traffic? It is so obvious that this is another cooked up lawsuit to get a massive payout from a huge corporation. If this person suing is really that stupid they should probably not be allowed to walk the streets alone in the first goddamn place!These cases are why Redbull has to put a disclaimer that their product will not actually give you wings! Good thing they put that warning on there or else I was going to get a case of Redbull and fly to the strip club tomorrow. I guarantee you if some kid has drank some Redbull and jumped off a roof and said that's why he did it, some trial lawyer would be sporting half a boner just hearing about the case and if he thought he had a chance to get a big settlement and make a name for himself, you know he would take it.
The other problem is that people are stupid and will try things from cartoons/wrestling/Jackass and get hurt or killed and rather than own up to being idiot most people will look to blame someone else almost right away. You never hear the person go, "I am so stupid that I tried to jump a shopping cart over twelve beds of nails while on fire with my ass filled with gun powder and oh yeah also with a cactus in my mouth and naturally I got hurt." If Jackass didn't have that warning before their show, MTV would be having to lawyer up and more than likely make that big settlement just to get the moron to go away.
And that you honor, is why I am going to throw up. Then I will sue myself after slipping in my own puke...well if that was the case though I would have to sue myself about six times.
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