WA State LDS Sexual Abuse Case

[realtall]

Originally Posted by SoCalCoug

1. The woman received 3rd degree burns in her genital area.

In retrospect, perhaps I am being a little heartless about this issue. It sounds like it hurt terribly. However, I am a little suspicious of coffee causing 3rd degree burns although I suppose any liquid could if you heated it up enough.


I do believe that she probably deserved and need something, probably medical bills plus, say, 20k for pain and suffering. Quite a bit more if she was young enough(20-30s) and it affected her ability to have children(which I'm just not seeing).

But not necessarily a retirement.

[SoCalCoug]

Here are the facts a little more in full.

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbus..._mcdonalds.htm

Just in the interest in assuring you have the entire story before making judgments about the woman, the case and the jury.

The funny thing to me is you made a statement about the damages not being very punitive - a little bit of circular reasoning in an argument about the damages being too high.

[realtall]

Originally Posted by SoCalCoug

Here are the facts a little more in full.

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbus..._mcdonalds.htm

Just in the interest in assuring you have the entire story before making judgments about the woman, the case and the jury.

The funny thing to me is you made a statement about the damages not being very punitive - a little bit of circular reasoning in an argument about the damages being too high.

Yeah, that's pretty brutal. I was a bit rash in some of my knee-jerk comments, I suppose. McDonald's deserved a lot worse than they got, according to testimony.

# McDonald's witnesses testified that it did not intend to turn down the heat -- As one witness put it: “No, there is no current plan to change the procedure that we're using in that regard right now;”

The $480k in punitive seems about right to me from the consumer perspective but wholly inadequate in the punitive aspect(Although the recap states that there was a post verdict settlement so I don't know how that affected things). There needs to be some sort of balance about what the plaintiff gets and what adequately punishes the defendant(when the plaintiff wins) but I have no idea how to accomplish this except to give part of the punitive damages to charity or something like that.

Thanks for the info, SoCal.

[ute4ever]

Originally Posted by realtall

I am a little suspicious of coffee causing 3rd degree burns although I suppose any liquid could if you heated it up enough.

I have a friend who received a third-degree burn burn this summer when she was pouring boiling water from a pot into the sink, missed the sink, and got it on her thigh.

[realtall]

Originally Posted by ute4ever

I have a friend who received a third-degree burn burn this summer when she was pouring boiling water from a pot into the sink, missed the sink, and got it on her thigh.

Ok, I am now officially sorry that I ever brought this particular case up. My apologies to all those who had to take time to correct me. There may be good reasons for tort reform but this case certainly isn't the best one to pick to illustrate them.