Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with my nephew, Mikey. Mikey is 12 and totally awesome.
Since Mikey entered middle school, I have not gotten the opportunity to spend as much time with him as I would like—he’s a busy tween. So I talked him into spending the night Wednesday because he is on a vacation from school.
Before I took him home yesterday afternoon, we stopped at the library so I could pick up a copy of Hot Coffee—a movie that I have been very excited about seeing. I had ordered the movie through interlibrary loan. Because the movie is categorized as educational, I did not have to pay a rental fee. The librarian who checked me out did not understand why the movie was educational, so she asked what it was about. I told her that the movie was about lawsuits. Mikey asked for more information, and I told him that I would tell him all about the movie when we got to back the car.
I started off by saying: “There are people in this world who will try to trick you, and those people are called republicans. In fairness, sometimes though those people are called democrats too.” Then I went on to explain that Hot Coffee is a movie about famous lawsuits, including the McDonald’s coffee case.
Most people who have heard of the case only know that a lady once got burned by hot coffee and then she sued McDonald’s and won some crazy amount of money. The case is often used as a rallying cry for advocates of tort reform. The reformers, however, either do not know or do not care about some key facts surrounding the case.
If my information is correct, these facts include: 1) the coffee’s temperature was over 150 degrees; 2) the plaintiff required multiple surgeries to treat her severe burns; 3) she offered to settle with McDonald’s for her medical expenses, but McDonald’s blew her off; and 4) the trial judge reduced the amount of the verdict. Also, after the lawsuit, and I would say as a result of the lawsuit, McDonald’s and other restaurants lowered the temperatures at which they serve hot beverages. Now hot beverages are safer for consumers.
So I told Mikey the version of the case that is often related by the tort reformers. I expected him to express the same outrage shared by most people who hear the condensed version. Instead, he said: “Good for her.”
I was stunned. Then he added, “Now she is set up for life. And her grandkids are set up for life too.” I said, “You’re missing the point of the story.” (I did give him a high five though first.) I went on to explain the other facts, how the case is misrepresented by tort reformers, and how lawsuits help to protect consumers from dangerous products. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, I did admit to him that some people do file abusive/frivolous lawsuits.)
Mikey seemed to agree with me. But at one point, he became concerned that McDonald’s might not have enough money to pay for such an expensive verdict. After I explained that McDonald’s has billions of dollars, Mikey asked why the workers get paid so little. This earned him another high five and another lecture, but I’ll save that for another day.
