Mr. Common Sense

I came across this on another site and thought some of you might like it.


Mr. Common Sense

Mr. Sense had been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such value lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable Parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).

His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.

Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student; but, could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge financial settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on; if not, join the majority and do nothing.

LOL! I loved that!

How true!

I hate it when people use the McDonalds coffee as an example of this sort of thing. She doesn't deserve the derision. She got 3rd degree burns requiring skin grafts from that coffee. That is WAY more than suing because it was hot, or you got scalded. That was an extended stay in the hospital because their coffee was ludicrously hotter than anyone could be expected to expect.

Common sense really died when people started to believe many things taken out of context and then reworked for a late-night-talk-show kind of sound bite.

James S said:

I hate it when people use the McDonalds coffee as an example of this sort of thing. She doesn't deserve the derision. She got 3rd degree burns requiring skin grafts from that coffee. That is WAY more than suing because it was hot, or you got scalded. That was an extended stay in the hospital because their coffee was ludicrously hotter than anyone could be expected to expect.

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Hear, hear!
More facts about this case.

Regardless of whether McDonald's kept its coffee hotter than anyone else the simple fact is that nobody from McDonald's caused the woman to spill the coffee into her lap. If that had happened, then of course they're liable. She decided to drink coffee in her car (a bad idea to start with), she decided to remove the lid (an even worse idea). She had nobody to blame but herself for the coffee spilling, even if it was 1000°.

Sadly, while some tout McDonald's lowering the temperature of its coffee as a positive outsome of this case, I personally think a more positive outcome would have been if both McDonald's and the automotive industry took steps to eliminate the root cause of the problem in the first place-namely eating and drinking in your car. Had the drive-thru and cup holders in the car not facilitated a culture of consuming a hot beverages while driving this incident never would have happened in the first place. Ditto for eating while driving. Both are distractions. Both fly in the face of common sense. Furthermore, far too many slobs decide to empty out their drive-thru litter on the lawns of whatever house they happen to be parked next to. Lowering the temperature of the coffee is at best a partial band-aid solution to a much larger problem.

Nobody is allowed to eat or drink on the subway here for safety and other reasons. Why then should they drink or eat in a car which can suffer far higher accelerations than a subway train, and which they may even be operating? Even an infant can last longer than the typical commute without consuming beverages or eating. Nobody is so pressed for time that they can't take an extra 5 or 10 minutes to eat breakfast at home. Nowadays you can program coffee makers to have the coffee ready to drink when you wake up. Pour a bowl a cereal and there's your 5 minute breakfast. You'll even save probably a good $750 a year or more compared to buying breakfast out. Come to think of it, if you count the time it takes to order on a drive-thru, plus any possible diversions from your main route, there may even be a net time savings as well. Honestly, in keeping with the spirit of this thread, if one analyzes everything getting breakfast on the go really seems to fly in the face of common sense.

I forgot to mention that it seems Mr. Common Sense was also preceded in death by his sister Mrs. Planning. It seems the art of thinking before doing has all but died. People can't even do a simple thing like make a shopping list any more instead of asking their spouse on their cell phone what to buy while they're distractedly pushing their shopping cart around.

A very cute and amusing post, sancho - thanks!

James, I'll definitely agree with you on the McDonald's case. I thought it was crazy too until I read the facts.

Jtr, I think James' point is that when the lady bought the coffee from McDonalds, the risk she *expected* she was taking was the possibility of a moderate burn if it spilled. But McDonalds increased the danger without warning her; they heated the coffee to the point where it could no longer be spilled without causing serious burns. So while we're all used to handling normal coffee, she might have been more careful if she'd known she was handling molten coffee. =)

To take a flashaholic's example, we all know that CR123 batteries have a rare (1 in a million?) chance of exploding, and that doesn't stop most of us from using them. But if a new battery manufacturer made a line of CR123 batteries that used a more volatile compound with a 1/100 chance of exploding - but didn't warn you - wouldn't you be unhappy when they blew? After all, if you'd known, you might have bought your batteries somewhere else, or been extra careful when turning on your light...

Just my two cents! I'm always open to reasoned discussion and criticism....

- FITP

FlashInThePan said:

Jtr, I think James' point is that when the lady bought the coffee from McDonalds, the risk she *expected* she was taking was the possibility of a moderate burn if it spilled.

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I think that was the basis for the jury's decision-greater than usual risk compared to most hot coffees. That being said, I still think the real problem wasn't that the coffee was too hot if it was spilled, but rather the whole idea of consuming hot coffee in a car where there is a far greater than usual risk of spilling it.

Maybe the real way to fix this problem if you don't want to take the admittedly draconian step of eliminating beverage consumption in cars is to use cups with molded on non-removeable lids which are filled with coffee, milk, and sugar through a small orifice, and then inserting a straw through this same orifice to consume the coffee. Zero chance of spilling more than a few drops, zero chance of burns, probably very little if any additional cost for the modified cups.

One thing that always bothered me about lawsuits is the whole idea of punitive damages. I would rather that lawsuits just force a fix of whatever problem existed in the first place, with imposition of a fine only in cases where the problem continues to be ignored. Of course, lawyers wouldn't get their 1/3 that way but it might put the legal profession on higher standing in the public mind. Any money spent on punitive damages means less money to be spent on fixing whatever caused the lawsuit in the first place.

Good post, but we're not really talking about an increased _probability_ of explosion, but an increased _payload_.

Imagine if that exploding 123 cell exploded with the force of a 1/4 stick of dynamite.

That (to me) is a better analogy.

Then we could talk about not being allowed to use flashlights while driving, or while not wearing an approved bomb-disposal suit (which has handy pre-molded slots for safe use of flashlights while walking).

FlashInThePan said:

A very cute and amusing post, sancho - thanks!

James, I'll definitely agree with you on the McDonald's case. I thought it was crazy too until I read the facts.

Jtr, I think James' point is that when the lady bought the coffee from McDonalds, the risk she *expected* she was taking was the possibility of a moderate burn if it spilled. But McDonalds increased the danger without warning her; they heated the coffee to the point where it could no longer be spilled without causing serious burns. So while we're all used to handling normal coffee, she might have been more careful if she'd known she was handling molten coffee. =)

To take a flashaholic's example, we all know that CR123 batteries have a rare (1 in a million?) chance of exploding, and that doesn't stop most of us from using them. But if a new battery manufacturer made a line of CR123 batteries that used a more volatile compound with a 1/100 chance of exploding - but didn't warn you - wouldn't you be unhappy when they blew? After all, if you'd known, you might have bought your batteries somewhere else, or been extra careful when turning on your light...

Just my two cents! I'm always open to reasoned discussion and criticism....

- FITP

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I visited a McD's in the same general area where that incident happened. I think I was there about a year after the incident had occurred.

I ordered a cup of coffee and as I carried it over to the condiments table, a little bit of it spilled onto my fingers (those lids aren't perfect) and my fingers were scalded. Not enough to warrant skin grafts but WAY more than what I've experienced anywhere else at any other time. Something was obviously out of whack with those machines.

I walked back to the counter and mentioned it to the clerk. She gave me one of those looks like I was a whacko or something, even though I was calm about the whole thing.

A week later I wound up at the same McD's. Same cup of coffee. Similar spill. Just as $#*! hot. This time I mentioned it to the manager but he left me with the distinct impression that I was keeping him from something more important.

Where's the accountability? This is why this kind of stuff winds up in court.

Your questions will be answered if you read the account of the trial.

McD's policy was to provide coffee at a few degrees below boiling. They had been sued countless times for years and years over scalds, and had never changed their ways.

They thumbed their nose at the jury during the trial.

After reading the documents, you will understand much more about the whole fiasco.

The woman's initial request was simply for medical expenses, about $20k I think. They rebuffed her.

PhotonWrangler said:

I visited a McD's in the same general area where that incident happened. I think I was there about a year after the incident had occurred.

I ordered a cup of coffee and as I carried it over to the condiments table, a little bit of it spilled onto my fingers (those lids aren't perfect) and my fingers were scalded. Not enough to warrant skin grafts but WAY more than what I've experienced anywhere else at any other time. Something was obviously out of whack with those machines.

I walked back to the counter and mentioned it to the clerk. She gave me one of those looks like I was a whacko or something, even though I was calm about the whole thing.

A week later I wound up at the same McD's. Same cup of coffee. Similar spill. Just as $#*! hot. This time I mentioned it to the manager but he left me with the distinct impression that I was keeping him from something more important.

Where's the accountability? This is why this kind of stuff winds up in court.

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Regardless of whether McDonald's kept its coffee hotter than anyone else the simple fact is that nobody from McDonald's caused the woman to spill the coffee into her lap.

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Actually, from a product liability standpoint this is not at all a good policy.

For every product there is a level of danger, but for most things people can gage that danger and use the product safely or be willing to accept the consequences that they understand.

When you strike a match you want it to light, fire is dangerous but you've lit a thousand matches in your life, you know how they behave and you know how to use a dangerous product safely. If you got a box that blew up in your face when you struck it it would be a defective product and not just a matter that you should have known that a match makes fire.

And in this case it is compounded by many people having had similar but less serious incidents with their coffee temperature and their ignoring it. They demonstrated quite clearly in court that they were aware of the danger and ignored it by way of company policy. There is no faster way to a judgement against you than to come into the process with an obvious contempt for the whole process. That is why they gave her so much money, it was a punitive judgement when they refused to settle for her much less medical fees. She did not ask for pain and suffering or any other such thing.

James S said:

...They demonstrated quite clearly in court that they were aware of the danger and ignored it by way of company policy. There is no faster way to a judgement against you than to come into the process with an obvious contempt for the whole process. That is why they gave her so much money, it was a punitive judgement when they refused to settle for her much less medical fees. She did not ask for pain and suffering or any other such thing.

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Well said, James. It was their contempt of the idea of being held accountable for their laziness that set the judge off, and rightfully so. This was more than just a personal injurt case; it served to put corporate America on notice that they can't just do any damn thing they please.

I am a lot less disturbed by McDonald's hot coffee than the furor over the "hot coffee mod." Last I heard parents should be responsible for parenting their children.

BTW giving aspirin to a child with a fever is completely irresponsible due to its known link with Reye's Syndrome. The U.S. Surgeon General, FDA, CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend that products containing aspirin not be given to children under 19 years of age for this very reason.