News Flash: fat makes you fat

[Fairweather]

Nope. There are three elements to my claim:

(1) I wasted my time. My post-count at 7,000 posts is my evidence. Res ipsa loquitur.

(2) It was Jon and Tim and your fault. I may have a harder time proving Jon and Tim are responsible, but your frequent baiting of me, for which I am not responsible in any way, is clear proof in your case. (Maybe I'll drop Tim and Jon, and just name YOU. You got a deep pocket?)

(3) I suffered damage as a result. I have at least one witness who will testify I'm suffering an elevated heart rate.

 

I wonder how the judge would rule your claim after I demonstrated the "Ignore User" feature available to you (and me) on this site.

[catbirdseat]

This just in: Woman Sues Bacardi Over Flaming Rum

 

"MIAMI A woman who says she was severely burned at a Miami night club four years ago is suing Bacardi, claiming the company's rum is dangerous and defective.

 

The lawsuit says a bartender was pouring shots when a customer lit a menu on fire and placed it in the stream of alcohol. A bottle of Bacardi 151 that was being used to pour the shots turned into a flame thrower.

 

The woman says she suffered second and third degree burns and was permanently disabled and disfigured.

 

Miami-based Bacardi U-S-A hasn't commented yet on the suit."

 

Source: http://www.wane.com/global/story.asp?s=5197788

 

Can you imagine that!?! Flammable alcohol. Bacardi should use the non-flammable kind of alcohol.

[Crux]

Did you know that The Association of Trial Lawyers of America is changing its name to the American Association for Justice?

Now THAT makes me sick.

Ergo propter hoc...

[Crux]

Funny, the computers I buy don't come with any warnings.

That's right, it wasn't your lawyers. Without a warning, your computers did it.

[Crux]

I have not read through this thread to see if anybody has made this point or not but, as I understand it, the reason big tobacco was held accountable was not due to their being a scapegoat for anybody's lack of self control.

 

They were shown to have hidden a great deal of information about the dangers of smoking, depriving the public of the information they needed to make an informed choice. In addition, I think there was something about how at least some companies (was it Phillip Morris?) were manipulating the nicotine levels to make their product more addictive that natural tobacco.

 

A similar argument has been used to ridicule the woman who sued McDonalds for serving coffee too hot: she has been the constant target of right-wing ridicule from folks all up in arms over a "lack of personal responsibility."

 

Stella Liebeck did in fact sue McDonald's for failing to adequately warn her of the danger in that hot cup of coffee, but the coffee was so hot it was truly dangerous and she didn't just scald herself -- she suffered third-degree burns that required skin grafts to repair. I believe she showed that McDonalds knew they were serving coffee too hot for safety (though maybe this particular cup exceeded their established standard), but they were shown to have known they were serving coffee dangerously hot but decided it was worth the risk for business reasons -- cheaper to take that risk than have people complaning the coffee is too cold when their staff are slow to serve it, perhaps?

You are correct, almost. The reason McDonalds lost that suit was because the company's own documents got out during the trial and proved that it not only knew the coffee it served was boiling hot (as was ordered by top-level management), but that its actuaries had accurately forecast the numbers of customers who would suffer serious burns annually as a result of having boiling coffee dumped on their laps as they sat in their cars at the drive-up windows.

 

Whereas executives had explicitly determined the company would lose dozens of customers annually to third degree burns, the profits it paradoxically related to serving its coffee boiling hot appeared to clearly justify the costs.

 

Consequently, despite the known peril it presented to its customers, the company maintained focus on providing a product that would be at an optimal temperature about 20 minutes after it was served. That was the key: So that customers would have HOT coffee with their Egg McMuffins after they arrived at their corporate cubicals first thing in the morning, McDonalds had determined its coffee must be served dangerously hot at the drive-up window. That way the customers would be more likely to come back for more the next day. Well, most of the customers anyway.

 

Treatment of the plaintiff's injuries required serial debridements of necrotic tissue of the pudenda. To be sure, the burns were critical by medical standards and severely painful over a long time, and she wasn’t coming back for any refills.

 

During the trial, it was found conclusively that McDonalds had been willfully inflicting third degree burns upon hundreds of customers, as evidenced by its own explicit documentation of that business practice. Ironically, for the duration of that practice, profits were indeed maximized.

 

Makes me wanna cry. Burn me baby, burn my big quarter-pounder mac with cheese.

 

mC

[catbirdseat]

Wow! I never heard that particular explanation. It's quite compelling. Seems like the better solution for MacDonalds would have been cups that insulate better rather than hotter coffee. But that would have cost more so it wouldn't have optimized profits.