Speed bump video (now tort law discussion)

[Jeff]

No one likes my opinions, I'm used to that. Thats not what had me angry. My last post was to make a point I never made earlier. Thanks for the words of encouragement nonetheless.

[Mike]

No one likes my opinions,

:?:

stop being a victim, you're not one.

[G.Irish]

No one likes my opinions,

:?:

stop being a victim, you're not one.

It was a joke fool

[Jeff]

:| I was intended to be a joke...

[Mike]

i really don't think it was.

[Maengelito]

Needless litigation to make people money. Which I see as a growing trend in America

i blame mike. and jeff. but mainly mike. and a little bit of jack. damn liberal hippies...

(lets start some more flame wars)

[Jeff]

I blame the sleeping pig.
<------

[Dragon]

I blame the sleeping pig.

Leave RJ's mom out of this, she can't help it if she's got Mono.

[Mike]

Needless litigation to make people money. Which I see as a growing trend in America

i blame mike. and jeff. but mainly mike. and a little bit of jack. damn liberal hippies...

(lets start some more flame wars)

fuck you slant eye.

[Jeff]

The sleeping pig is Azian...:lol:

[Maengelito]

Needless litigation to make people money. Which I see as a growing trend in America

i blame mike. and jeff. but mainly mike. and a little bit of jack. damn liberal hippies...

(lets start some more flame wars)

fuck you slant eye.

damn round eye, go back to making your low quality cars, scoring lower than my people in standardized tests and eating greasy fast food

[Jeff]

damn round eye, go back to making your low quality cars, scoring lower than my people in standardized tests and eating greasy fast food

DONE! :lol:

[bassmangrammy]

I donÔÇÖt think it has to do with stupid so much as opportunistic. The coffee lady was probably looking for help to pay her medical bills and when McDonaldÔÇÖs refused (whether right or wrong), she went to a lawyer who told her she could stand to get a whole lot more than her medical bills. Who here would say no to 2 million unearned dollars?

Correct!!!! The issue is that the judgement based on punitive damages is designed to punish the company.

[bassmangrammy]

In Aaron original post, it said that payments are made to be comensurate with the size of the company so equalize the punitive damages e.g. a big ass corporation is fined a greater deal of money to ensure they properly address the situation. If the fine was just 20k, McDonald's wouldn't have began regulating their coffee temps as they do now.

If the temp increase resulted in such a dramatic increase in both severity of burn and the time it took to occur, I would assume that McDonald's is liable to some extent. Increasing profit at the risk of the public health seems like bad policy.

In relation to capitalism, free markets don't equate to free for alls. Companies have to be held to acount for their actions every bit as much as we personal responsibilities, if not more so because the actions of a company can affect a great number of people.[/code]

Thank you.

[G.Irish]

I donÔÇÖt think it has to do with stupid so much as opportunistic. The coffee lady was probably looking for help to pay her medical bills and when McDonaldÔÇÖs refused (whether right or wrong), she went to a lawyer who told her she could stand to get a whole lot more than her medical bills. Who here would say no to 2 million unearned dollars?

Correct!!!! The issue is that the judgement based on punitive damages is designed to punish the company.

If its about corporate accountability then why not make a law that says you cannot serve coffee above x temperature? There are plenty of laws out there on other parts of food service.

If a company willfully breaks the law, they pay a fine to the FDA (or equivalent authority) or if it is severe enough, people go to jail. Robbing corporations to give money to opportunistic citizens and lawyers is not exactly justice, its vigilanteism. And because litigation by its nature is mired in grey area, no one knows where they stand on any issue so they have to spend lots of money on lawyers and insurance.

Sure the downside is that companies might look at a fine and look at the profit and decide that the profit exceeds the fine. Well, either adjust the fine, live with it, or again, if the infraction is severe enough, put people in jail.