Discussion Question Two Due Day 4 Fri No first week of a law course for business students would be complete without soliciting your evaluation of the judicial merits of the now famous or more aptly put infamous McDonalds hot coffee case In February 1992 Stella Liebeck then 79 was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson s car He ordered coffee for his grandmother from a McDonalds drive through window The coffee was served in a lidded Styrofoam cup which the grandson immediately handed to Stella The grandson drove forward slightly and momentarily halted the car so that Stella could add cream and sugar to her coffee She placed the coffee cup between her knees and while attempting to remove the lid the entire cup of coffee spilled into her lap Although she was wearing sweatpants at the time she was severely burned suffering 3rd degrees burns on 6 of her body including her thighs buttocks and genital and groin areas and spent eight days in the hospital during which she had a number of skin grafts Stella offered to settle with McDonalds for 20 000 but the offer was rejected by McDonalds Ultimately Stella sued McDonalds for negligence and after an extensive trial the jury awarded Stella 200 000 in compensatory damages less 40 000 as the jury found Stella to be 20 at fault and 2 700 000 in punitive damages which the judge reduced to 480 000 McDonalds appealed the verdict but Stella and McDonalds entered into a secret settlement prior to any further judicial action on the matter Is this case another example of the lunacy and unreality of the American legal system or an illustration of the American legal system s innovative and responsive nature Why Please post a well edited response of about 350 words to the thread entitled Week One Discussion Question Three Thread in the Main forum For your information negligence is classically defined as the omission to do something which a reasonable man would do or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do For a more legalistic definition of the elements of a cause of action based on negligence I quote from Cheeseman s Contemporary Business Law a text I use in another UOP law course To be successful in a negligence lawsuit the plaintiff must prove that 1 the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff 2 the defendant breached this duty of care 3 the plaintiff suffered injury and 4 the defendant s negligent act caused the plaintiff s injury You also can find a very good discussion of negligence in Chapter 5 of your text in the second week of the course First response I guess McDonald s is sorry they rejected the 20 000 oh that hindsight I think that folks feel sorry for Stella that she got burnt but the degree of the payout was over the top and beyond ridiculous that s why people are up in arms the exorbitant amount of money These days people don t take responsibility for their actions It s always someone else s fault This case is no different The base for this case is McDonald s negligent unintentional tort Did McDonald s owe a duty of care to Stella Stella chose to open the container in the car and HER grandson chose to hand her the hot coffee and not give a 79 year old women a hand Isn t the Grandson part negligent here did he not owe his Gram duty of care Duty of care is the obligation people owe each other to cause any unreasonable harm or risk of harm as per the readings in chapter 6 I don t disagree with the fact McDonald s should label their coffee HOT if it s that hot that is can cause 3rd degree burns but I don t think they are 100 responsible in this scenario I believe there are other negligent parties involved ones that also should have shown duty of care I would have said more like a 35 fault is with the Grandson is it fact the car was at a dead stop when Stella took off the lid It only says drove forward slightly and momentarily halted the car so that Stella could add cream and sugar or was the vehicle moving when Stella had the lid off 35 fault with Stella and 30 with McDonald s for not warning the consumer the coffee is so HOT that it can cause 3rd degree burns So while I might have offered some payment to Stella it would not have been as much as what the jury had offered in punitive damages I wonder what the final settlement was Second response I think this an illustration of the American legal system s innovative and responsive nature Stella filed a claimed against Mc Donald s asking to pay for medical bills that was 20 000 McDonald denied the claim and offered only 800 as a settlement Stella did not approve the 800 compensation and filed a lawsuit against McDonald for negligence to get the appropriate settlement due to her for injuries caused by McDonald s hot coffee This became an actual cause for McDonald s because they were able to prove that McDonald s coffee was twenty degrees hotter than their competitors There has also been complaints submitted by McDonald s customer who have burned themselves McDonald s took no action to those previous seven hundred complaints McDonald s lack their attention to change their coffee and how it is made The jury granted Stella 200 000 for her compensation but reduced 40 000 due to her negligence I think negligence in Stella s part was because she did not handle the coffee cup properly and knowing that coffee is always hot she should have not placed a cup between her knees Another point is Stella s age her skin is not as taut and is vulnerable to anything that is hot or cold in temperature Another 480 000 was being compensated to Stella for punitive damages The American legal system works because it gave both the plaintiff and the defendant an opportunity to prove themselves in their situation Both are found negligence to an extent so the appropriate settlement decision is appropriately applied The decision gave Stella a compensation for her medical bills and damages caused by McDonald s coffee Why didn t t McDonald continue to the appeal trial why did they have to settle privately Could it be for marketing reasons losing customers and to get out of the public scrutny I believe Stella only wanted her medical bills paid off due to the scaled burns she received That was the whole point in the beginning of the case To this day McDonald s has not changed their temperature in their coffee but does have a warning label on their cups