Waldo Jaquith

I love Helen Vendler’s response: My accusations speak for themselves.

Posted by Harry Landers on 6 December 2011 @ 9am

Isn’t this why we have tort lawyers? If this is happening as often as the author suggests, it is hard to believe there haven’t been plenty of lawsuits. Seems like that is how you get companies to change. It’s hard to see how a squatter cup would adversely affect sales.

Posted by robert on 6 December 2011 @ 10pm

My guess is that there haven’t been plenty of lawsuits because the parents of the victims chalked it up to an accident—nobody’s fault, really. Now that the makers of these products know that they’re dangerous, though, they’d be crazy not to change them, because then they’re quite clearly at fault.

It’s very similar to the famous Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, the hot coffee case. McDonald’s was deliberately keeping their coffee at dangerously hot temperatures, knowing that it would produce third-degree burns (!) in just two seconds of contact with skin. They’d had over 700 such burn incidents with their over-hot coffee. A 79-year-old woman who spilled their coffee on her lap suffered horrific burns to her genitalia and thighs, requiring skin grafts and two years of treatments. She asked them for $20,000 to cover her medical expenses. They offered her $800. That was when she hired a lawyer. McDonald’s still wouldn’t pay her bills, so she took them to court. The jury awarded her $200,000, plus they awarded punitive damages of $2.7M—a number they chose because it’s how much McDonald’s makes in two days of coffee sales. McDonald’s eventually settled, after appeals, for under $600,000.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 7 December 2011 @ 10pm