Legal Acountability

[Forest Ump]

Frivolous law suits would drop precipitously if this country would adopt a loser pays all court cost.

BTW: The McDonald’s Hot Coffee lawsuit sounds frivolous on the surface. However, when you find out the facts of the case, it is not. That elder women received 3rd degree burns on her legs and required skin grafts. If you have any inkling as to what a third degree burn is, you would think different about that case. This is just one http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm of many web sites that report the facts surronding the McDonald's case.

[ManInBlue]

Originally Posted by Forest Ump

Frivolous law suits would drop precipitously if this country would adopt a loser pays all court cost.

BTW: The McDonald’s Hot Coffee lawsuit sounds frivolous on the surface. However, when you find out the facts of the case, it is not. That elder women received 3rd degree burns on her legs and required skin graphs. If you have any inkling as to what a third degree burn is, you would think different about that case. This is just one http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm of many web sites that report the facts surronding the McDonald's case.

I know what 3rd degree burns are. I read the article in your link. I have yet to change my mind on how frivilous this lawsuit was.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Forest Ump

Frivolous law suits would drop precipitously if this country would adopt a loser pays all court cost.

BTW: The McDonald’s Hot Coffee lawsuit sounds frivolous on the surface. However, when you find out the facts of the case, it is not. That elder women received 3rd degree burns on her legs and required skin graphs. If you have any inkling as to what a third degree burn is, you would think different about that case. This is just one http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm of many web sites that report the facts surronding the McDonald's case.

The lawsuit changed how hot restaurants made their coffee and other drinks. It was a good lawsuit. People do not expect to spill a drink and have to have major medical procedures.

Having said that, who cares what the system does or does not do in lawsuit situation. The fact that anyone can file one and to defend yourself requires money and time that many people do not have, I would do whatever I could to avoid being sued. Or I would do everything I could to make sure I reduce me liability.

The one time you do not care or you do not do something, the kid who gets hurt parents are going to be lawyers and you will have to deal with a lawsuit. I will take my changes with asking a dumb question and checking something that takes a minute or two than spending months on a lawsuit to just have the case thrown out.

Peace

[Mountaineer]

Originally Posted by Forest Ump

Frivolous law suits would drop precipitously if this country would adopt a loser pays all court cost.

BTW: The McDonald’s Hot Coffee lawsuit sounds frivolous on the surface. However, when you find out the facts of the case, it is not. That elder women received 3rd degree burns on her legs and required skin graphs. If you have any inkling as to what a third degree burn is, you would think different about that case. This is just one http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm of many web sites that report the facts surronding the McDonald's case.

And that's McD's fault??? The woman got $600,000 because she put coffee between her knees to remove the LID?? Are you freaking kidding me? This certainly was a frivolous law suit. (IMHO)

[GarthB]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer

And that's McD's fault??? The woman got $600,000 because she put coffee between her knees to remove the LID?? Are you freaking kidding me? This certainly was a frivolous law suit. (IMHO)

The jury took this into consideration and found her to 20% at fault and reduced her award accordingly. McDonald, who admitted to knowlingy brewing coffee above at temperatures above the industry norm and at temperatures that they knew to be unsafe, was found to be 80% at fault.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer

And that's McD's fault??? The woman got $600,000 because she put coffee between her knees to remove the LID?? Are you freaking kidding me? This certainly was a frivolous law suit. (IMHO)

Here is another thing you need to realize. I jury can award whatever they think is appropriate. They person or persons suing might ask for to take care of their medical bills and other reasonable expenses as a result of their damage. Punitive damages are there to make an example out of the people or company responsible so it will discourage other similar behavior. A jury can award any number they feel in many cases unless there is a law or statue that prevents this. I guarantee you that McDs did not lose a lot of their money to that lawsuit. As a matter of fact McDs has prospered since then. And even if the women were at fault, no one expects to buy a product and expect to have a major medical procedure for a simple mistake. We are not talking about handling a firearm. We are talking about drinking a cup of coffee.

If there was not a threat of a lawsuit, there would be companies that would continue to hurt the public and not consider safety. And still we have companies that put harmful components to products (Led in toys from China as an example) and the threat of a lawsuit should be apart of equation when they are negligent.

Peace

[Forest Ump]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer

And that's McD's fault??? The woman got $600,000 because she put coffee between her knees to remove the LID?? Are you freaking kidding me? This certainly was a frivolous law suit. (IMHO)

I'll write this again for those of you that are hard of reading. The women received third degree burns and required skin grafts. That's not a sunburn. That's not a blister. That's the complete destruction of tissue. All from a cup of coffee. She was in the hospital for eight days.

McDonald’s served the coffee at approximately 190 degrees. McDonald’s admitted coffee at that temperature is “unfit for human consumption”; 190 degree liquid causes third-degree burns within 2 to 7 seconds of contact with skin.

And you think that McDonald's is not liable for causing a permanent disfigurement plus pain and suffering?
Wow!

A frivolous law suit is a judge in DC suing a dry cleaner for $58M for losing his pants. A woman being burned by near boiling coffee from a company that knows it is wrong, is not.

(This really is all I have to say about that)

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Forest Ump

I'll write this again for those of you that are hard of reading. [B]A frivolous law suit is a judge in DC suing a dry cleaner for $58M for losing his pants. A woman being burned by near boiling coffee from a company that knows it is wrong, is not.

(This really is all I have to say about that)

And that case was thrown out.

Peace

[Forest Ump]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

And that case was thrown out.

Peace

Yes it was. However, the defendent spent $84K defending the law suit. I believe they were going to settle out of court for $10K. He didn't take it and now is appealling the ruling. That dry cleaner is going to have to do alot of shirts to get back the $84K.

But I do believe in karma http://www.examiner.com/a-782166~Pan...0_000_job.html



ooops

[Paul L]

A defendant who prevails over a plaintiff in a lawsuit can sue that plaintiff for malicious prosecution. It's pretty tough to win. The new plaintiff (former defendant) must prove that the original lawsuit was totally without merit and frivolous.

But the pants suit guy apparently was basing his suit on the dry cleaner guaranteeing satisfaction, and when they lost his pants, he decided he wouldn't be satisfied unless they paid him some exorbitant amount of money. A reasonable jury could decide that was malicious prosecution and award the dry cleaner damages for their attorney fees and court costs, as well as punitive damages maybe. Then the dry cleaner would just be faced with enforcing that judgment, a process for which attorney fees are not available.

BTW, this is a matter for state law, which may vary from state to state.

[Tim C]

"I know of at least two and I bet I can find several more."

Fit, you could really help out the group if you would list a url or a link to these situations.

Those of us that work on a national level would love to see rulings that slip through our research.

Our criteria that we review is:

A sports contest official must be involved,

The case must find the official at fault,

There must be a legal decision rendered.

We know of several where officials have been named in the orginal documents (Wichita State college baseball) but what we are looking for is a contest official actually winding up being on the losing end of a ddecision.

I admit freely that there have been some rulings that have "nearly" placed officials in jeopardy (example: A slow pitch plate umpire was found negligent because he did not offer HIS mask to a catcher who was not wearing one . . . when the catcher was injured the PU "should have" offered his mask for the catcher to use -- that is what the final determination of the court decided). This case was actually appealed and an out-of-court settlement was reached.

I also believe there have been a couple of lightning related cases.

Message Boards can be usefull and this is one of those times.

Regards,

[MD Longhorn]

There is a current lawsuit underway in Texas from an incident in football 2 years ago where an official (linesman) collided with and hurt a coach who was ON THE FIELD. The entire crew is still dealing with the suit. I don't know huge details, but I do know that "sideline maintenance" is now a point of emphasis in the entire state.

[Tim C]

Fit,

We have two attorneys on the committee.

For the record, following my criteria as listed above there is still no listing of any contest official having been found at fault and been successfully sued.

That is still no reason not to purchase insurance that is available to all officials. You don't want to be the first.

Regards,

[canadaump6]

A few years ago, a pair of umpires allowed the players to continue playing into the sixth inning just for fun, even though the game should have been a mercy rule after the fifth. Somebody got hurt, and the umpires got sued. So yes these types of things do happen on the ball diamond. People do not want to take responsibility for their own actions. I think in this case the parents of the kid that got hurt should be sueing themselves for not pulling him off the field. That would make more sense than sueing the umpires. Of course everyone likes to put their blame on the umpires.

[briancurtin]

Originally Posted by Forest Ump

I'll write this again for those of you that are hard of reading. The women received third degree burns and required skin graphs.

skin grafts
just wanted to put that out there