Your explanation is "the injuries were so bad and McDonald's was so mean" but that should not be a legal justification.
Oh, so the woman was being reasonable, just wanted McDonald's to pay her medical bills - no, that's not reasonable either. I can't buy $1 bag of candy and then get my dentistry bills paid by the manufacturer, even if it was "closer to 100% sugar than is reasonable". Yeah, no metaphor will be exactly the same, but the situation is clear. Here's another one: someone buys a kitchen knife, and then cuts off their finger. Manufacturer has to pay? I'm sure some people in this vast country have said "man these knives are way too sharp" while the manufacturer says "our customers want the knives to be sharp".
McDonald's sold coffee near the boiling point. It was not defective or misleading. Something very unfortunate happened. And here in America someone has to pay for it! But that's not actually fair. If you really want this unfortunate woman to have her medical expenses paid for, have your government give her the money, sharing in the expense via your taxes.
I've declined to explain it. Do not project your straw man arguments onto me.
This will probably be downvoted too, but, golly gee, I'm just trying to have an open mind here and seeing if someone can convince me that MCD should be at fault. A hot product is hot and inherently carries those sorts of risks. Yes, it was hotter than it needed to be. I get that. So what? How is it some sort of gross negligence? (That's a real question, not rhetorical--I don't understand. 180-190 is not out-of-this world hot, but yes, is extra hot compared to 160 degree coffee).
My newborn example in the grandparent post still applies if served at a cooler temperature. They'll get burned right away. And for adults? The temperature coffee is served at all coffee shops everywhere can be inherently dangerous and cause 3rd degree burns (see page 3 http://www.ameriburn.org/Preven/ScaldInjuryEducator%27sGuide...). While people may not understand the specific number of seconds required, they get the gist--be careful with hot liquids.
- MCD served coffee at up to 190 degrees
- they had 700 previous reports of burns
- MCD claimed customers wanted it served hot
Those are the precious few facts we have about the product from the article. I'm aware of other facts of the case not covered in the article (business reasons MCD chose to serve at that temp and such), but it still doesn't connect A to B; why serving coffee extra hot (at a temp you can get at Starbucks if you request it) should mean MCD is liable for burn injuries if you take the lid off and spill it on yourself. Do you get where I'm coming from?
Now think about stairs. A certain athletic performance is needed to rapidly descend stairs. Get it wrong and you can tumble a long way onto concrete. Life-changing injuries are just one slip away.
It should also be clarified, it was not 700 previous reports of burns, it was 700 previous lawsuits. That implies that there were far more burns and spills that did not result in lawsuits. On your part though, the lack of infamy implies there were plenty of cases that were settled or where the judge agreed with McDonalds.
In the Too Much Coffee Man comic (if you'll forgive getting some info from a comic) others have posted: http://www.tmcm.com/tmcm/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit/ It's important to note the emotionally offensive arguments that were made by McDonalds, that actually helped tilt the case over to Stella Liebeck's side. Mainly, I expect, that she was asking for too much money because she was so old that she wouldn't get much more use out of her ahem parts. The awarding of punitive damages, I expect had to do with the 700 previous lawsuits which resulted in no change in behaviour.
Spilling a bit of coffee, especially when the cup is at its fullest and hottest, especially when in the cramped confines of a vehicle, is a common enough occurrence that I don't consider it unreasonable that McDonalds should have taken earlier action.
The Starbucks approach also highlights the liability - because you must request that temperature, it can more reasonably be claimed that you should know to take extra precaution. Certainly, it can't be claimed that you didn't know just how hot it was going to be.
For what it's worth, I've had to revise a little just how clear cut this is. But I still feel that the legal system was working as intended, that this lawsuit doesn't deserve its frivolous reputation, and that it's important for ordinary citizens to have these methods of recourse against giant corporations.