I read your post above and wonder why the judge didn't enter a directed verdict if he heard what you say the jury heard.
Different judges do different things.
The plantiff had to proove; injury. The whatever skin issue. I assume she did to the jury's satisfaction.
The plaintiff only need prove injury from a product to bring suit. That is, to show cause for action.
The jury is in fact supposed to determine whether or not the injury resulted from the plaintiff's own negligence, recklessness, misuse, or carelessness. Otherwise, any injury caused by any product would result in an award instantly upon meeting the preposterously low burden of proving the product caused the injury without regard to any actions which set forth the events resulting in injury. I could hit myself in the head with a hammer, and so long as I could prove to the jury's satisfaction that my injury was indeed caused by the defendant's product, and not some other product or injurious force such as a fall, I would automatically prevail. That's absurd.
Statements by jurors after the trial in interviews show that they were, at the outset of the trial, virtually unanimous in their belief that the suit was without merit. After all, the woman spilled the coffee on herself, and that's really all any thinking person needs to know.
It was not until the McDonald's representatives took the stand that the jury was turned in favor of the woman's claim. Why? Jurors said that they found the attitude of McDonald's to be "callous" towards those who were burned by McDonald's coffee when the representative was merely pointing out that the incidence of serious burns from McDonald's coffee was not only extremely rare (one in every 14 million cups served) but due in the vast majority of cases to negligence on the part of the consumer vs. some event like the coffee 'melting' through the bottom of the cup which would suggest a defect in the product.
Rarity of risk is always part of any reasonability test. It is not reasonable to change the design of a car because there is one fatality in one hundred thousand accidents involving that car. It is reasonable to change the design of a car because there is one fatality in ten accidents involving that car.
Rarity of risk, particularly when risk is tied so closely with some kind of contributory negligence on the part of the user, is a perfectly sound standard by which to judge whether the "problem" (undue risk) lay with your product or some extremely small subset of clumbsy/negligent users who are being injured by it. Its a universal standard used to assess the 'safety' of everything in society; vaccines, medications, consumer products, etc, etc. You don't remove peanuts from your product because one in 20 million people who eat it will have a severe allergic reaction, especially if peanuts are part and parcel to the desirability, success, or popularity of your product (as being "hotter" is to McDonald's coffee).
But again, the jury was "moved" not by the factual evidence, but took [emotional] offense to they felt was the "callous" position of McDonald's, without considering, or perhaps even realizing, that dozens if not hundreds of products they liked and used, or needed (medications), would no longer be available if all consumer products were held to the standard which the jury was holding McDonald's. This is how emotion clouds critical judgement and reasoning.
But that is what personal injury is all about, who can emotionally 'sway' the jury. Even many attorneys will boast this is how they win personal injury cases if you catch them with their guard down (drinking at a bar or social function). Jurors have been polled and interviewed after many cases and have essentially admitted on television they didn't believe the defendant did anything wrong but awarded compensation anyway because it was a big wealthy company who could afford to give some money to a plaintiff with whom they sympathized.
Assume for instance that I frequent fast food resturants and buy coffee using 2 gizmos of cream which results in temperature reduction suitable for drinking right down in one fast gulp. I do this all the time. Ok. Now I go to Mcdonald's order coffee insert the 2 gizmos of cream gulp down the hotter than industry standard coffee and go into shock fall bang my head and sustain brain damage..(and become normal some would say) I file suit. Should I prevail?
No, no more than you should prevail because you order a fudge brownie dessert every Friday night at a restaurant for 10 years, go to a different restaurant across town, order their fudge brownie and it contains walnuts, to which you're deathly allergic.
Again, there does not exist any such beast as an "industry standard" coffee temperature no more than there is an "industry standard" patty weight for bacon double cheeseburgers. There is no industry organization defining standards for coffee serving temperatures. It is by nature a matter of personal preference and also varies by the style of coffee or type of ground.
There are certain expectations of competency it is reasonable to place upon the general population. By a certain age, you should have learned about gravity and the wheel. If insecurely you place a bowling ball on the top shelf of your closet and it falls on your head after rolling off the shelf, that isn't the fault of the bowling ball manufacturer, nor the shelf manufacturer. If you jump from your roof and break both of your legs, that isn't the fault of the builder for failing to warn you about gravity.
Coffee is by its very nature a "hot beverage". That is part of the nature of coffee which makes it desirable. The claim of the plaintiff that coffee served in your home is only 120 ~ 130 'F is a utterly absurd. 130'F is barely hatter than a hot bath or shower, which would for the vast majority of regular coffee drinkers be described as only 'warm' if it were the temperature of their coffee.
Our Krups makes a 170'F pot of coffee. Our Sunbeam makes a 160'F pot of coffee. Before the advent and popularity of home coffee makers in the 1970s and 1980s, the only way to make a pot of coffee was to
BOIL water at a 'cool' 212'F in a pot or kettle. When instant coffee was a staple of the American home much more so than coffee makers, you boiled a pot or kettle of water and poured it straight in the cup. "Hot" tea and "hot" chocolate are still made this way in many homes and was exclusively before the popular advent of the microwave.
It is a widely held, virtually universal, understanding among all over the age of adolescence that fresh coffee is hot enough to burn and no credible argument could made to suggest otherwise. Coffee isn't a beverage common only to the city or state in which the incident occurred, coffee is popular the world over as is the understanding that coffee is "hot" enough to cause injury.
The dichotomy here isn't that the woman ordered a beverage understood to be 'room temperature', unable to cause serious burns if 'properly' served, but received molten lava in a cup. If there were such a thing as this "industry standard" coffee temperature claimed by the plaintiff, those temperatures are hot enough to cause 2nd degree burns.
The dichotomy is between 2nd degree and 3rd degree burns. The difference over-and-above this 'industry standard' (but still injury causing) temperature, for which McDonald's was said to be negligent, should have in a worst case scenario, produced an award that compensated the plaintiff only for that degree of injury suffered over-and-above what she would have suffered had the coffee been served at this 'non-negligent' industry standard, since implied directly in the plaintiff's argument is that its "ok" for McDonald's to give people 2nd degree burns so long as the coffee which produced it conformed to the 'industry standard'.
Also implied in the plaintiff's argument, and the jury finding her 20% at fault for contributory negligence, is that the woman would have been 100% liable for her injury due to her own negligence, had only McDonald's served their coffee at the 'industry standard'. Except the temperature at which McDonald's served their coffee cannot possibly 'influence' or 'impact' the woman's actions. The woman's total negligence does not change at all from spilling 160'F coffee to spilling 180'F coffee, yet McDonald's liability goes from 0% to 80%? How could that possibly be logical? Its not logical, its emotional.
Fault is not determined by severity of outcome but upon the circumstances, actions, or events which produced the outcome. If she was 100% negligent at 160'F, by any rational standard, she is 100% negligent at 180'F.
The plaintiff's legal argument produces a number of absurd implications and the jury's reasoning a multitude of bizarrities.
That strike brought a great improvement in benefits and never occurred again, and in time I came to the conclusion that an oath extracted as a condition in not fair. I would, as the person I now am, strike in those same conditions.
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