We should NOT take the news at face value.
http://retroreport.org/taking-the-lid-off-the-mcdonalds-coffee-case/
Taking the Lid Off the McDonald’s Coffee Case
More than 20 years ago, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck ordered coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spilled the coffee, was burned, and a years later, sued McDonald’s. The jury awarded her $2.9 million dollars.
Jurors heard testimony for a week and deliberated for hours. They learned that she was burned over 16% of her body, and had third degree burns on her groin. They also learned that McDonald’s had received nearly 700 complaints about hot coffee burns in the almost 10 years before Stella’s trial.
But those details went mostly unreported, and the public made a quicker judgment. Stella became a symbol for frivolous lawsuits and fodder for talk show hosts, late night comedians, sitcom writers, and even political pundits. The headlines, referring to an elderly grandmother spilling coffee from McDonald’s and winning millions of dollars, practically wrote themselves. But cleverness came at the expense of context, and despite some more detailed reports that offered greater context and a new perspective, such as the documentary Hot Coffee, most people still don’t know the extent of Liebeck’s injuries.
True.
Side Score: 3
|
 |
Meh.
Side Score: 4
|
|
|
|
|
2
points
1
point
1
point
I agree with the debate's topic, but it's argument, no. It isn't MickyD's fault that she spilled hot coffee on herself, coffee is supposed to be hot, she should have been careful. Although I do feel sympathy for her, I still don't think she was in the right of suing MickyD's. Side: True.
|
1
point
1
point
If you over analyze anything you can usually make it seem much more complex and intricate than it really is, but really, most of it is just a bunch of balderdash. There were 70 complaints a year about hot coffee, according to McDonald's website they almost 69,000,000,000 people every day. So out of 251,850,000,000,000 customers 700 complained that their coffee (widely known as a hot drink) was served at a high temperature. It pains me to know that there are humans on this planet that are idiotic enough to make this into such a big issue. Side: Meh.
|
