Parents Suing Nissan After Dad Accidentally Runs Over Their Daughter

[Piobaireachd]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
where the hell is the guest book on the webpage? i can't even find it lol.

The guestbook was 404 this morning. Now the navigation button is missing from the nav bar. I guess they can't take the comments.

 

[AntiEverything]

Yeah, it's gone. That's a shame.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: spacejamz

Gunslinger is right one this one (contrary to popular belief)...Coffee that accidentally gets spilled on you should not cause 3rd degree burns on your body. When she tried to tell that to Mcdonalds, they blew her off which then prompted the lawsuit...IIRC they were keeping the coffee 20 degrees hotter than most other places (like around 160 degress or so)...

This lady didn'tjust spill coffee on herself and then sue MD out of the blue...

it caused 3rd degree burns because she spilled it on her groin AND because she was 80. iirc she also left it on herself to bake for a bit. if you were to spill some on your hand it wouldn't have caused 3rd degree burns. of course, this whole thing wouldn't have happened if she'd kept the coffee in a cup holder. people tend to lose sight of that fact. she was definitely negligent, and i'd say more than 50% negligent, so shouldn't recover anything.

iirc, the 'evidence' about how hot 'most other places' keep their coffee was faked.

Case facts

In short, here are some quick facts:

- The woman, Stella Liebeck, was *not* driving the car at the time
(The car was not even in motion at the time of the spill)
- Lieback received 3rd degree burns on 6% of her body
(check out the conditions for 3rd degree burns - they are pretty gruesome)
- Lieback was hospitalized for 8 days
- Lieback received numerous skin grafts
- Lieback tried to settle for $20,000 (McDonald's refused)
- McDonald's had 700 reported incidents of burns (some just as severe)
- A manager testified that the coffee was "not fit for consumption" at the temperature it was served
- Liquids at 180 degrees cause 3rd degree burns in 2-7 seconds.
- Liquids at 155 degrees are exponentially less damaging
- Lieback was awarded $160,000 in compensatory damages
- Lieback was awarded $480,000 in punitive damages

In short, this was not a typical, frivolous lawsuit. It was a valid case against a company that willfully sold a product to a customer that was unnecessarily dangerous, despite numerous previous complaints.

I'm all agianst frivolous lawsuits, but I'm also for companies to take responsibilities for their actions, as well as individuals. Serving a "drinkable" beverage that melts skin and flesh upon contact is patently stupid.

I think you're getting caught up in popular culture here, "fight the Man" and such... The fact is, there are a lot of products out there which require care to use. I'm sorry she received burns, but she's the only one to blame. And I believe she was awarded something like 67 million by the jury, which was of course appealed, leaving her with what she ended up getting - which was $640k too much.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: Piobaireachd

Originally posted by: purbeast0
where the hell is the guest book on the webpage? i can't even find it lol.

The guestbook was 404 this morning. Now the navigation button is missing from the nav bar. I guess they can't take the comments.

I bet people were leaving remarks like

"its your fault for being a tard"

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Case facts

In short, here are some quick facts:

- The woman, Stella Liebeck, was *not* driving the car at the time
(The car was not even in motion at the time of the spill)
- Lieback received 3rd degree burns on 6% of her body
(check out the conditions for 3rd degree burns - they are pretty gruesome)
- Lieback was hospitalized for 8 days
- Lieback received numerous skin grafts
- Lieback tried to settle for $20,000 (McDonald's refused)
- McDonald's had 700 reported incidents of burns (some just as severe)
- A manager testified that the coffee was "not fit for consumption" at the temperature it was served
- Liquids at 180 degrees cause 3rd degree burns in 2-7 seconds.
- Liquids at 155 degrees are exponentially less damaging
- Lieback was awarded $160,000 in compensatory damages
- Lieback was awarded $480,000 in punitive damages

In short, this was not a typical, frivolous lawsuit. It was a valid case against a company that willfully sold a product to a customer that was unnecessarily dangerous, despite numerous previous complaints.

I'm all agianst frivolous lawsuits, but I'm also for companies to take responsibilities for their actions, as well as individuals. Serving a "drinkable" beverage that melts skin and flesh upon contact is patently stupid.

I think you're getting caught up in popular culture here, "fight the Man" and such... The fact is, there are a lot of products out there which require care to use. I'm sorry she received burns, but she's the only one to blame. And I believe she was awarded something like 67 million by the jury, which was of course appealed, leaving her with what she ended up getting - which was $640k too much.

Actually, I think you and others are the ones who are caught up in the "damn stupid people suing for everything" popular culture here. Obviously lots of products require care and user competance, but who expects a food item to be unedible to the point that it dissolves flesh and tissue after 2 seconds of contact?

And did you even bother to read that link?

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount
was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at
fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in
punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee
sales.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 --
or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called
McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful

Sorry, but there are plenty of examples of stupid lawsuits, like the one in this thread, etc, but this one was not a black-n-white case of operator error.

 

[thegimp03]

Maybe the dad should learn how to look in his mirrors and over his shoulders before backing up next time. This is a good lesson.

 

[Gurck]

Actually I didn't see the link, I stand corrected on the amount. Still, she was rewarded for her own inability to handle a product which is known to require care. 150-160 degree coffee on you would be no walk in the park either, yet I'm sure many people spill it on themselves - and do far worse things to themselves - without suing everyone for their own incompetence. Cases like hers should be thrown out of court, and the people filing them (and their lawyers) should face fines for wasting the courts' time.

 

[myusername]

Originally posted by: NFS4
http://www.msu.edu/~camero52/Adriannas%20Rule's%20Dreambook.htm

Damn, my entry got deleted before it was mirrored, and I even tried to make it half intelligent without being overly crude, too

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: ToeJam13
SUVs, like any other large vehicle, have increased dangers. Its not just the blind spot behind the vehicle, it?s the blind spots in the rear corners. These blind spots are made worse when people install lift kits on their vehicles. Some of the largest SUVs can not see compact cars that have been lowered when driving parallel to said SUV.

I have personally seen SUVs pull into adjacent lanes when a small car was already there.

to be fair, small car drivers need to realize that large cars have decreased sightlines, too. When I was driving a van for the city, I was once parallel parking it in downtown Seattle (I hated doing that, but I got pretty good at it near the end). Anyway, I was carefully checking all my mirrors the whole time, and it was sheer luck that I got a glimpse of a FLASH of black in one of my mirrors. Turns out some moron in a Miata was parallel parking behind my van...WHILE I was trying to parallel park in the spot in front of them. They weren't there before, they had driven up while I was slowly backing into my spot, and started parking behind me.

Originally posted by: AntiEverything
Or even better, what if the child were retrieving a toy from underneath the car. All cars shall from this day forth be manufactured with zero ground clearance!

Or we could install cattle catchers on all vehicles

 

[waggy]

some remarks were way over the line.

Let them know it is there fault. elt them know they are stupid for filling the lawsuit.

But to call the child ugly was just over the line.

oh and if you really want to let t he people around there know how you feel put an editoral in the paper. I did.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Gurck
Actually I didn't see the link, I stand corrected on the amount. Still, she was rewarded for her own inability to handle a product which is known to require care. 150-160 degree coffee on you would be no walk in the park either, yet I'm sure many people spill it on themselves - and do far worse things to themselves - without suing everyone for their own incompetence. Cases like hers should be thrown out of court, and the people filing them (and their lawyers) should face fines for wasting the courts' time.

Again, the link I showed testimony from "a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns" who argued that reducing the temperature to the industry standard of 155° F, would allow the liquid to cool enough to exponentially reduce damage to tissue, causing only minor burns and pain, not flesh-melting agony that required multiple skin grafts.

She spilled her coffee - she wasn't juggling chainsaws and rabid wolverines while gargling Draino.


I'm on your side about frivolous lawsuits and wasting courts' time, but I will disagree with this one particular case.

 

[slightlyhuman]

despite the topic at hand,

for the little innocent girl that died because of her parents stupidity

 

[A Scream]

that just makes me sick...

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Again, the link I showed testimony from "a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns"

read: Some guy with a liberal arts degree who burned himself a few times as a kid

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Again, the link I showed testimony from "a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns"

read: Some guy with a liberal arts degree who burned himself a few times as a kid

lol - quite possibly.

 

[ElFenix]

wow, you squeeze a cup of coffee between your legs and you could get burned!?!? omfg!

just because a bunch of idiots do the same does not mean that the next idiot isn't any less negligent. like i said before, her fault outweighs mcdonalds and that should be that.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
wow, you squeeze a cup of coffee between your legs and you could get burned!?!? omfg!

Wow, glossing over important details to make a cute little quip seems to be the norm around here, eh?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: ElFenix
wow, you squeeze a cup of coffee between your legs and you could get burned!?!? omfg!

Wow, glossing over important details to make a cute little quip seems to be the norm around here, eh?

no, not really. the important detail is that i think that she is more negligent than mcdonalds. she was the last person who could stop this from happening, and did not do so. instead, she chose to do something that the reasonable person would not, she took the top off of a paper cup while squeezeing said cup between her legs. for that very reason the injury took place. yes, other factors were necessary. if she had been holding orange juice between her legs should wouldn't have suffered. but those factors alone were not sufficient to cause the damage. out of her own dumbassedness did her injury flow.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: ElFenix
wow, you squeeze a cup of coffee between your legs and you could get burned!?!? omfg!

Wow, glossing over important details to make a cute little quip seems to be the norm around here, eh?

no, not really. the important detail is that i think that she is more negligent than mcdonalds. she was the last person who could stop this from happening, and did not do so. instead, she chose to do something that the reasonable person would not, she took the top off of a paper cup while squeezeing said cup between her legs. for that very reason the injury took place. yes, other factors were necessary. if she had been holding orange juice between her legs should wouldn't have suffered. but those factors alone were not sufficient to cause the damage. out of her own dumbassedness did her injury flow.

Well, that's obviously an opinion, but a judge and jury that actually heard the testimony from both sides seemed to think McDonald's had a large share of the blame, by bucking industry standards and ignoring 700+ complaints of severe burns due to the undrinkable temperatures at which they maintain their coffee.

I mean, you obviously expect bad things to happen from things like this, but you also expect to have a reasonable idea of the "amount" of damage that can occur. Sure, I'd expect hot coffee to burn me if I spilled it on me. But I damned sure wouldn't expect 3rd degree burns on 6% of my body, and the agony of scalding hot liquid disolving my skin, tissue and muscles in a matter of mere seconds, would you? From a freaking cup of coffe? Whose entire purpose is to be consumed?

To me, that's be like buying a gun, then finding out the gun gets up in the middle of the night on its own accord, anally rapes your wife, then murders your children. Then you have people on a message board saying, "OMG! You had a gun in the house and now your children are dead! WTF did you expect, retard? Everyone knows guns can be dangerous!"

That's obviously a bit of a stretch, but it's the same principle.

 

[ElFenix]

obviously reasonable people could differ as to the result

 

[Andres3605]

this is just senseless

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
obviously reasonable people could differ as to the result

Obviously.. but where's the fun in that?

 

[thelastmccabe]

That's pretty ridiculous, i hope nissan plays this well, you have to act sympathetic and all that. Didn't read thread if someone mentioned this, but in that Mcdonalds hot coffee case which I did a little research on (old lady gets burned by coffee and sues them and wins tens of millions in damages plus punitive damages [punitive damages are not for her pain and suffering but are punishment damages like a fine against mcdonalds for having a defective product]) MC didn't really play it right. Not that I love Mcdonalds. But they brought in all these people to say how coffee tastes better if its hot and it has to be that hot to actually be considered brewed and said "well this happens to like 1 out of a million people!" But the jury thought they were too callous about it, so they lost.

Plus, in commercials those little rearview cameras look like the totally suck, this little wide angle lens with a horrible view. There'll probably be more people killed with people using those things to back up instead of just looking around.

 

[IAteYourMother]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein

"People don't realize they need this until they back over and kill their child," she said.

I'm losing hope for humanity!

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Well, that's obviously an opinion, but a judge and jury that actually heard the testimony from both sides seemed to think McDonald's had a large share of the blame

The average person isn't very bright, and what is a jury if not 12 average people? A jury also found OJ Simpson not guilty of killing his wife and Ron Goldman, and another awarded $400 million to the family of a woman who flipped her explorer by being a bad driver. Honestly though, the lawyers probably deserve most of the blame. They're the ones who chase ambulances and smoothtalk morons into suing. They're the ones giving frivolous lawsuits a sense of legitimacy & credibility for a fast buck.