Have you Ever Been Sued ?

#31
sakuraicedtea said:
I just want to point out that the McDonalds coffee case was not as frivalous as people make it out to be. (Someone mentioned it above) What happenned in the case was that McDonalds used to heat their coffee over 180F degrees (because they didn't want their coffee to get cold for a 7 minute drive home) which at that temperature is instant 2nd-3rd degree burns. McDonalds got sued for endangering their customers.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter how hot the coffee is....if you drop it on your lap and it burns you then it's your own fault in my opinion. People don't generally order a cup of coffee from McDonald's expecting that it will be cold when they drop it on their lap.

In response to the main question: No I have never been sued. I have sued someone else before though and won my case. This guy shot me in the eye with a BB Gun and it ruined the vision in that eye for the rest of my life.
 
#32
^ actually, i think it does matter how hot the coffee is. the woman's burns were quite severe, because the coffee was heated at a dangerously high temperature.

yes, spilling the coffee was accidental (maybe it's her fault she wasn't careful?), however, if it wasn't that hot, it should'nt have injured her so severely. the court agreed in her favor, which makes sense.

yes, coffee is hot. i've spilled a some coffee on myself before (fresh pot) from my aunt's donut shop, and it never gave me second or third degree burns.
 
#35
I have never been sued but I was once involved in the largest sexual harassment lawsuit ever filed in the State of California. If you guys are really bored I'll tell you about it.
 
#36
siworae said:
^ actually, i think it does matter how hot the coffee is. the woman's burns were quite severe, because the coffee was heated at a dangerously high temperature.

yes, spilling the coffee was accidental (maybe it's her fault she wasn't careful?), however, if it wasn't that hot, it should'nt have injured her so severely. the court agreed in her favor, which makes sense.

yes, coffee is hot. i've spilled a some coffee on myself before (fresh pot) from my aunt's donut shop, and it never gave me second or third degree burns.
Click to expand...

I will agree to disagree on this subject. ;)
 
#39
Danica said:
I'm always bored. haha
Go for it!:flowers:
Click to expand...

Ok, Cliff's notes:

When I got out of the military I worked for a while as a civilian for a university-run DOD program. This was in the mid- 80's. There was a male manager who worked in my group who pretty much sexually harassed every woman he came into contact with, including me. He also retaliated against women who reported him. Back in those days, the "policies" about sexual harassment were there, but they just were not enforced.

This guy had a particular liking for an asian coworker of mine and he would make lewd comments to her within earshot of me. She finally filed a grievance against him and I was pulled into it because I had witnessed some of the incidents. He threatened me repeatedly about whether I should tell the truth about what I saw. I told the truth. (Gotta remember too that I was only about 22 years old at the time.) I knew I had no choice because I was not going to lie for this guy... and when I did that, I also knew my days were numbered in that job.

So what happened was not long after that, he found a loophole in the budget and did away with my job. He also made racial slurs to me relating to my Italian surname. At that time, I was finishing school at night and applying to Grad schools, so I considered it a sign that I needed to get out of there anyway. But what I did was after I left, I wrote a rather long and detailed letter to the director of this program, outlining this person's offenses. Shortly after that I moved to Washington to attend school and have been here ever since.

Fast forward TEN YEARS: one day I went to my mailbox and in it was a letter from the office of a prominent California attorney. Apparently this guy had been carrying on his rampage of harassment for the past ten years. One woman got tired of it and then others did too. They filed suit against him and the University of California, who were the subcontractor for DOD. Apparently when the attorneys were doing discovery, they found the letter I had written ten years earlier. To make a long story short, that letter ended up becoming a very important part of their case because it established a pattern of behavior going back YEARS with this guy. In the end he ended up being fired and the women got a pretty large settlement. I was not eligible for any settlement just because the statute of limitations had run out for me at that point.

The best part was that the attorneys flew me down to California and put me up in a hotel to give a deposition. I got to face that pig for the first time in ten years. It was great. :lol:
 
#40
Also gotta add: this guy had a top secret security clearance, bragged openly about using cocaine and had been arrested for beating his wife... and STILL was able to keep his job/clearance all those years.
 
#41
Oh my gosh Roo!!!!! That's a pretty crazy story. Aren't you glad you took action all those years ago and wrote that letter! You should feel pretty good that you had a large hand in helping that woman, and preventing more harassment in the future.
 
#42
sakuraicedtea said:
I just want to point out that the McDonalds coffee case was not as frivalous as people make it out to be. (Someone mentioned it above) What happenned in the case was that McDonalds used to heat their coffee over 180F degrees (because they didn't want their coffee to get cold for a 7 minute drive home) which at that temperature is instant 2nd-3rd degree burns. McDonalds got sued for endangering their customers.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100% except that you left out a couple of key points that make the case even less outrageous:

The woman who spilled the coffee was 79 years old and was the passenger in a car driven by her grandson who had pulled over so that she could put cream and sugar in her coffee. She was bracing the cup between her legs and when she removed the top (which may have not been properly applied given what happened next), the entire cup spilled on her lap resulting in 3rd degree burns over 6% of her body that she obtained through the sweatsuit that she was wearing. She was hospitalized for 8 days and required debridement treatments and skin grafts. McDonald's refused to settle for $20,000.

During discovery, McDonald's produced evidence that more than 700 people had been burned, many severely so, during the 10 years prior to this suit and indicated that they knew that 3rd degree burns were likely to occur from coffee kept at 185 degrees and that the likelihood of severe burns was reduced significantly when the temperature was reduced to 155 degrees (still 10 degrees hotter than the average cup of coffee made at home).

The jury did not find McDonald's to be 100% at fault for the accident as they held that the grandma was 20% responsible. Thus although they found that she was entitled to $200,000 in compensatory damages, they only required McDonald's to pay $160,000 of that in accordance with their 80% responsibility. They also initially awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, an amount equivalent to the amount of profits McDonald's makes from 2 days of coffee sales, but this award was reduced to $480,000 (3 times the compensatory damages) following a showing that the McDonald's in question had reduced the temperature of their coffee to 158 degrees. The final amount paid out is actually not known because following this reduction, the parties entered into a private settlement for an undisclosed amount of money.

As for whether I have sued anyone or been sued, let's just say its my job. ;)
 
#43
yes. I was sued by this girl when I accidentally hit her car going less than five mph. she sued me for 25 grand. didn't get a dime. it was very obvious that she thought she could get money from me because I was rollin in a bmw. obvious to the judge who ruled in my favor.... lol
 
#44
I have never been sued, but my boyfriend has been threatened with legal action by Americans unhappy with the outcome of an eBay purchase so many times we have lost count!

No offence to the many US members on this board; you guys just live in a country with many litigious people!
 
#45
I've never been sued - but we are in the process of suing right now. Basically to get our money back, nothing extra. Well, minus legal fees and court costs if it gets to that. I can't post any details yet, they were just served papers last week. So we'll see if they want to give us our money back or if we proceed onto court!!!!! $28K is no drop in the bucket to us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back