Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 167. The McDonalds Hot Coffee Case

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167. The McDonalds Hot Coffee Case · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
0:05
Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not your history class with me
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Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history Harlotte and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: Part of me is really tempted to just get like
0:17
Speaker 1: a bunch of my friends and acquaintances and mutuals from
0:20
Speaker 1: all across the globe to just do their own little
0:23
Speaker 1: who did what now? Like what it? Just like have
0:28
Speaker 1: that and snippet that in in the beginning of every episode,
0:30
Speaker 1: because like that would amuse me. Nobody else probably, but
0:34
Speaker 1: I'd find it funny and I wouldn't tell you whose
0:37
Speaker 1: voice is who, so like if it was somebody, you'd
0:40
Speaker 1: be like, do I do I know that voice? It's
0:44
Speaker 1: just my own amusement and I might never do it,
0:46
Speaker 1: but I think it's funny. But it is my birthday month,
0:50
Speaker 1: because apparently that's a thing, and so I decided to
0:53
Speaker 1: use that as an excuse to make the theme of
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Speaker 1: this month stuff Katie likes to talk about. And considering
1:03
Speaker 1: my official area of expertise, my speciality, some might say,
1:08
Speaker 1: is the rise of sensationalism and the use of print
1:11
Speaker 1: as propaganda in the late modern period, one would assume
1:14
Speaker 1: that misinformation disinformation, sensationalism and propaganda in history would be
1:20
Speaker 1: something I'm interested in and you would be correct. And
1:24
Speaker 1: so that's like this week's particular theme. Now it is
1:30
Speaker 1: my birthday months. My birthday is later on in the month,
1:32
Speaker 1: so I will be one year older and one year
1:35
Speaker 1: closer to death. And I've had people dming and asking
1:38
Speaker 1: like do I want something? Can I send you a thing? Listen,
1:41
Speaker 1: if you want to send me a card or whatever.
1:45
Speaker 1: My care of address is on the website. It's there.
1:49
Speaker 1: You can go look at that and do what you
1:51
Speaker 1: want to do there if you want to do some
1:53
Speaker 1: good and put some like good in the world out there.
1:56
Speaker 1: I have a fundraiser on my Instagram which is linked
1:58
Speaker 1: to a food case in LA. There's also a link
2:04
Speaker 1: for the Burless Call of Fame if you want to
2:06
Speaker 1: donate there. If you really want to get me something.
2:10
Speaker 1: If you really want to get me something, one my
2:12
Speaker 1: PayPal is there. You can donate to my Smitty Little
2:15
Speaker 1: Dress fund. But if you do particularly want to get
2:19
Speaker 1: me something specifically that isn't a weird copy of Frankenstein
2:23
Speaker 1: you've discovered somewhere, because I collect copies of Frankenstein. If
2:28
Speaker 1: it's not that give vouchers for like what Katie did,
2:31
Speaker 1: butterers and snatch glam use. You know. I'll put links
2:35
Speaker 1: for all of this stuff in the description down below,
2:38
Speaker 1: and you guys can do what you want with that.
2:42
Speaker 1: And remember, this is a dark time of year for
2:44
Speaker 1: a lot of people, Like it's tough, like a lot
2:48
Speaker 1: of shit's going on in the world. And I'm not
2:50
Speaker 1: telling you to be nice, but I am suggesting the
2:53
Speaker 1: ab kind and chicking on your pals make sure they're
2:56
Speaker 1: doing okay. There's a lot of people out there right
2:58
Speaker 1: now that are barely Try and water. And if you
3:01
Speaker 1: can be there for someone, do that. And if you
3:06
Speaker 1: need to reach out to people, do that too. Like
3:10
Speaker 1: your friends are more considerate and caring than you're worrying about. Anyway, news,
3:19
Speaker 1: I have news. Also, that's enough human emotions for a moment.
3:23
Speaker 1: The London Show. There are still a couple of tickets left.
3:26
Speaker 1: If you haven't got your tickets for the London Show
3:29
Speaker 1: this Saturday, get them, come see me. We'll have a
3:33
Speaker 1: fun time. I may even have fun facts in the
3:37
Speaker 1: bosom again. It's now become a thing when I talk
3:41
Speaker 1: about anything sad, and it's all about a great imposter
3:45
Speaker 1: this week, so it's going to be super super fun. Yes,
3:49
Speaker 1: and other shows. The Dublin Show information should be coming
3:53
Speaker 1: out soon. And again, if you're listening to this at
3:57
Speaker 1: the day of release, then the Belfare Show will have
4:01
Speaker 1: just been announced as well. When I know what you're thinking,
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Speaker 1: you're thinking, Katie, it's been four full minutes. Quite your jibble,
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Speaker 1: Jabba in fact me, in fact you I will. But
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Speaker 1: first we've got to get our sourceng Our sources are
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Speaker 1: Urban Legends and Stella Libok and The McDonald's Coffee Case
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Speaker 1: by Ted Frank. The McDonald's Coffee Cupcase, Separating mcfacts from
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Speaker 1: mcfiction by Fine Law, Distorting the Law, Politics, Media, and
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Speaker 1: the Litigation Crisis by Michael McCann and William Halden Kramer.
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Speaker 1: Versus javel World by Mark B. Greenley, Lessons from Libeck
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Speaker 1: by Denny G. Rutherford. The twenty eleven documentary Hot Coffee
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Speaker 1: A Matter of Degree How a jury decided that the
5:04
Speaker 1: coffee spill is worth two point nine million by Andrea Gerlan.
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Speaker 1: We also have articles from the American Museum of Tort Law,
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Speaker 1: the Legal Information Institute, the Journal of Consumer and Commercial Law,
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Speaker 1: and the poll Lag group. I used it doing comfortably good.
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Speaker 1: Then let's begin. So I was Hammond and Holland over
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Speaker 1: what exactly I was going to cover this week of
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Speaker 1: for like misinformation, because I knew I wanted to talk
5:35
Speaker 1: about something that had been misrepresented not only through history
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Speaker 1: but also in like popular culture and the media and
5:43
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and something I heard about when I
5:47
Speaker 1: was younger and that I had been misinformed about and
5:52
Speaker 1: then learned about it a later stage. That's what I
5:54
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And I wanted to do something a
5:56
Speaker 1: bit more modern, because we'd been in sort of the
6:00
Speaker 1: Middle Ages and the early modern era like for a
6:04
Speaker 1: good bit. You know, we haven't gone much further than that,
6:07
Speaker 1: and so I thought, let's jump. It's time jump a
6:11
Speaker 1: little bit. And I also have a soft spot for
6:15
Speaker 1: women who have been misrepresented in history. And it also
6:21
Speaker 1: led to this concept that America was full of frivolous lawsuits.
6:29
Speaker 1: And yeah, so this is when I wanted to talk
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Speaker 1: to you about still alibic versus McDonald's, Like this was
6:38
Speaker 1: huge when I was younger, Like I remember this being everywhere,
6:42
Speaker 1: like even across the pond, even where I was from.
6:45
Speaker 1: I held a bit this also forgive me my voice
6:48
Speaker 1: is a bit scraggly at the minute. I am drinking
6:52
Speaker 1: my throat coat, Sahar. If you're listening and being good,
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Speaker 1: so yes, still alibic. The women who sued McDonald's for
7:01
Speaker 1: coffee being hot sounds frivolous, doesn't it. And that is
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Speaker 1: by design. And this is from an era when comedy
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Speaker 1: is still punched down right. This was commonplace and countless
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Speaker 1: jokes were made at this woman's expense. The women who
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Speaker 1: sued McDonald's for their coffee being hot. It's ridiculous, it's silly.
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Speaker 1: It's something very easily mocked. But the truth behind the
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Speaker 1: matter a story more shocking than the headline would lead
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Speaker 1: you to believe. And this is a story about Stella Libic.
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Speaker 1: Stella Libek was a seventy nine year old retired department
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Speaker 1: store clerk and lifelong Republican. This conservative, geriatric granny is
8:03
Speaker 1: in the passenger seat of a nineteen eighty nine Ford Probe,
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Speaker 1: driven by her grandson Chris. It's the twenty seventh of
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Speaker 1: February nineteen ninety two in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the
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Speaker 1: duo pull into the drive through window of a McDonald
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Speaker 1: on five zero zero one Gibson Boulevard Southeast. She orders
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Speaker 1: a forty nine cent cup of coffee and an egg
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Speaker 1: McMuffin forty nine cents coffees. I mean, it's still a
8:37
Speaker 1: bad coffee because it's from McDonald's, but also a forty
8:41
Speaker 1: nine cent coffee in flesh and inflesh lads. So she
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Speaker 1: orders her coffee, she orders her McMuffin, and her grandson, Chris,
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Speaker 1: he parks the car the Ford Probe so that his
8:55
Speaker 1: gran can add her milk and sugar to the coffee. Now,
9:01
Speaker 1: something about the Ford Probe is that it did not
9:05
Speaker 1: have cup holders. Car manufacturers had started putting cup holders
9:10
Speaker 1: in automobiles from about nineteen eighty three, but even into
9:15
Speaker 1: the nineties these were shallow. They were poorly placed, or
9:21
Speaker 1: i'm gonna say frail, poorly constructed, with some even being
9:28
Speaker 1: like these wobbly things that you attached to the side
9:31
Speaker 1: of the car door. Now, the Ford Probe it did
9:35
Speaker 1: not have cup holders of any fashion. So like it
9:39
Speaker 1: was made in eighty nine, but still hadn't quite made
9:42
Speaker 1: its way there yet, right, and it's nineteen ninety six anyway,
9:47
Speaker 1: before cup holders were probably considered by the majority of
9:51
Speaker 1: car manufacturers, especially in the US. So Chris he parked
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Speaker 1: the car. He's in the parking lot of the McDonald's
10:01
Speaker 1: and Stella. She's got her coffee cup and she puts
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Speaker 1: it between her legs, like many of us have done
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Speaker 1: with a beverage when we're trying to stuff with our hands.
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Speaker 1: We've like slotted it between our thighs, holding it in
10:15
Speaker 1: place so that we can, you know, use her hands.
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Speaker 1: So she's got the coffee cup between her legs, McMuffin
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Speaker 1: in one hand, and she's using her free hand to
10:28
Speaker 1: remove the lid of the coffee cup so that she
10:31
Speaker 1: can add her milk and sugar, because they would just
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Speaker 1: give you the coffee black and you had to add
10:37
Speaker 1: like the bits and pieces. And so she pulls a
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Speaker 1: little too hard and the lid is off, but the
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Speaker 1: coffee cup flips, spilling the entire contents over her thighs.
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Speaker 1: And this coffee was hot, and not just oh dear,
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Speaker 1: that's some hot coffee. This is scolding hot. The temperature
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Speaker 1: was one hundred and ninety degrees fahrenheit, which is ninety
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Speaker 1: degrees celsius. Now water boils at one hundred degrees celsius,
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Speaker 1: so it is very nearly boiling hot. It's simmering hot.
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Speaker 1: It's scolding, and unfortunately for Stella, she's also wearing sweatpants
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Speaker 1: because she's an American in America, so that's what they're
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Speaker 1: called there. So I suppose for anyone not from that
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Speaker 1: area who doesn't know what sweatpants are, it is a
11:42
Speaker 1: athleisure trouser. It's soft and full, it's not form fitting,
11:48
Speaker 1: sort of like we'd call them tracks, two bottoms, tracky bottoms,
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Speaker 1: joggy bottoms, joggles. I don't know another name for them.
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Speaker 1: If you know a name for them, just add it
12:00
Speaker 1: in the comments, because I think that's all I know.
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Speaker 1: And the thing about sweatpants, especially sweatpants made back then,
12:09
Speaker 1: is they were made of cotton, the purpose of which
12:13
Speaker 1: was to absorb like the natural juices from the body,
12:17
Speaker 1: so it was to absorb sweat. That's why they're worn
12:21
Speaker 1: in athletics and other sporting stuff. So yeah, the cotton
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Speaker 1: fabric absorbs the coffee soaking the sweatpants and holding that
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Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety degree fahrenheit coffee to her skin,
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Speaker 1: Stella unsurprisingly screams. It is a sound that her grandson
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Speaker 1: Chris had never heard. Before like out of her mouth
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Speaker 1: or anyone else's. And it first he thinks she's just overreacting,
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Speaker 1: that is, until she gets nauseaated, goes into shock and
13:02
Speaker 1: passes out from the pain in this young fella right,
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Speaker 1: he's there. He's just been driving his grandmother about. He
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Speaker 1: pulls in to the McDonald's car park so she can
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Speaker 1: have her coffee. Next thing you know, she lets out
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Speaker 1: an ungodly scream and then passes out in the passenger
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Speaker 1: seat of his car. So like like he's already in
13:28
Speaker 1: an unknown situation, he manages to leap out of the
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Speaker 1: car and pull her unconscious body from the vehicle, and
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Speaker 1: like quick as fuck thinking, pulls her sweatpants off, like
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Speaker 1: pulls the bottoms off, and he's got like towels in
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Speaker 1: the boot of his car, the trunk of his car,
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Speaker 1: and he ends up wrapping her in it. Like quick thinking,
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Speaker 1: he manages to wrap her in the towels, gets her
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Speaker 1: back in the car, and he drives to the hospital
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Speaker 1: like hell for leather. And when Stella gets to the
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Speaker 1: hospital and she is like she's brought into the emergency unit,
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Speaker 1: she's seen by the doctors, and one of the doctors
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Speaker 1: he says that it is the worst burn case that
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Speaker 1: he has ever seen, like in all of his tenure
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Speaker 1: right in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now, now I'm fairly certain
14:31
Speaker 1: that doctors there are used to burns. I just but yeah,
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Speaker 1: this doctor says they are the worst he's ever seen.
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Speaker 1: And you can see the photos, by the way, and
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Speaker 1: the photos are horrific. Like I've seen skalds and water burns.
14:49
Speaker 1: I've had. I had one when I was a kid, actually,
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Speaker 1: when my dad was supposed to be looking after me.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't doing that. And I was in the kitchen
15:00
Speaker 1: and the kettle was boiling, so an electric kettle. So
15:04
Speaker 1: there's a plastic kettle, it has water in it, it
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Speaker 1: is boiling. It has been left unattended with me. So
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Speaker 1: I climb up onto like the counter. Sort I'm sidebarring
15:21
Speaker 1: here for a second. So I climb up onto the
15:23
Speaker 1: counter and I go to get something. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Maybe I was trying to help make a couple of
15:31
Speaker 1: woozy Maybe I was looking for cookies hymns to say. Anyway,
15:38
Speaker 1: one thing led to another and I fall off the
15:40
Speaker 1: counter with the kettle on top of me, and I
15:44
Speaker 1: end up like with a big skald like down my
15:47
Speaker 1: leg and I remember going to the hospital because my
15:54
Speaker 1: gran actually used to work in a pediatric buns unit,
15:57
Speaker 1: like she'd retired at this point, but she was always
16:00
Speaker 1: the one who took me to the hospital. I remember
16:03
Speaker 1: this many times, so like for all my stitches and
16:05
Speaker 1: every dodgy thing that I managed to get myself into.
16:09
Speaker 1: I was a sick kid but also accident prone, so
16:13
Speaker 1: the hospital knew me well now I were sitting there
16:17
Speaker 1: and all I can remember about that specifically is I
16:23
Speaker 1: remember telling, like I don't know my brothers that my
16:30
Speaker 1: leg looked like lasagna and that was the only way
16:34
Speaker 1: I could describe like what my skin looked like at
16:39
Speaker 1: the time. I don't remember much after that, but yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: that was that was a moment. So anyway, back to Stella,
16:50
Speaker 1: the seventy nine year old grandmother with the worst burns
16:54
Speaker 1: the doctors in this hospital have ever seen, and she
16:57
Speaker 1: spends a grand total of eight days there. And the
17:03
Speaker 1: reason she spends only eight days there is because she
17:08
Speaker 1: cannot afford to stay there any longer. A woman who
17:12
Speaker 1: has worked her entire life, yeah, her daughter basically becomes
17:18
Speaker 1: her career in order to get her to and from
17:21
Speaker 1: the hospital for like three weeks of skin grafts, which
17:27
Speaker 1: are excruciating. By the way, Like this is a painful procedure.
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Speaker 1: She should have stayed in hospital for the length of this,
17:35
Speaker 1: a procedure that she required because of the damage done
17:39
Speaker 1: to her body, right, but she couldn't afford to. Like
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Speaker 1: that is shocking, like on its own, before we get
17:48
Speaker 1: into the rest of this, that's fucking shocking. Stella Libec
17:55
Speaker 1: had third degree burns over six percent of her body,
18:00
Speaker 1: with second degree burns over sixteen percent. That's twenty two
18:05
Speaker 1: percent of her body. Twenty two percent of her body
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Speaker 1: is burned from a cup of MacDonald's coffee. So, okay, burns,
18:20
Speaker 1: I should probably give you some context if you don't
18:24
Speaker 1: know how the burn degree works. So, first degree burns,
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Speaker 1: they are superficial, so they're red, there's no blistering. It
18:34
Speaker 1: affects like the epidermis, like the outer layer of skin.
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Speaker 1: It's painful, but it heals like three to seven days,
18:42
Speaker 1: and there's there's no scarring. So things like like light
18:45
Speaker 1: sunburn would also be considered like a first degree burn. Now,
18:50
Speaker 1: the second degree burn, it affects the epidermis and the dermist,
18:56
Speaker 1: so like the first and the second layer. It's sort
18:59
Speaker 1: of like you've got these shiny red blisters. There's a swollen,
19:03
Speaker 1: painful you've got blanches with like pressure. So if you
19:07
Speaker 1: touch it, it goes from like red to white and
19:11
Speaker 1: it can go yellow or white actually, and that lasts
19:17
Speaker 1: like three to eight weeks, like maybe maybe a little
19:22
Speaker 1: bit more. And this can scar like you can get
19:25
Speaker 1: scarred from a second away burn, and there's a lot
19:30
Speaker 1: more depth through it, like it goes deeper through the layers,
19:34
Speaker 1: and third degree burns they go even deeper still, So
19:39
Speaker 1: this affects the epidelmas, the delness and the deeper tissue.
19:44
Speaker 1: So you've got white brown sort of coloring of the skin.
19:48
Speaker 1: There's no blanching, it's kind of leathery. It does scar,
19:56
Speaker 1: you've got scarring, you've got the skin contracting, and it
20:00
Speaker 1: really requires skin graphs, so like you need this in
20:05
Speaker 1: order for that to heal because it is so deeply
20:09
Speaker 1: damaged and so over the course of her treatment, so
20:15
Speaker 1: three weeks, over the course of three weeks, still a
20:18
Speaker 1: Libeck lost twenty pounds, which is kilogram's nine point one kg,
20:26
Speaker 1: which was nearly twenty percent of her body weight. And
20:32
Speaker 1: she was permanently disabled for two years. Now. I don't
20:39
Speaker 1: mean to be a negative nelly, but health and safety
20:43
Speaker 1: exists for a reason, and there is no valid reason
20:48
Speaker 1: for it to be procedure to make a beverage that
20:51
Speaker 1: is so hot that it would permanently disfigure someone and
20:55
Speaker 1: paralyze them for two years. Still, a libec writes a
21:00
Speaker 1: letter to McDonald's saying that they should check their coffee
21:04
Speaker 1: machines because maybe it's just that specific location in Gibson
21:09
Speaker 1: Boulevard Southeast, but it's probably best to check out the
21:14
Speaker 1: rest of their machines, as McDonald's is standardized by design,
21:20
Speaker 1: you know, just to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
21:24
Speaker 1: Which I'm pretty sure we can all agree that, you know,
21:27
Speaker 1: that's quite reasonable, Like, yeah, let's please make sure that
21:32
Speaker 1: no other people have to get skin grafts on their
21:34
Speaker 1: thighum buttocks, you know, and are permanently disfigured and paralyzed,
21:39
Speaker 1: you know, because of this, So stella. She also requests
21:44
Speaker 1: that the multi million dollar corporation cover her medical bills
21:49
Speaker 1: and the time her daughter had to take off work
21:51
Speaker 1: to care for her, you know, so again, fairly reasonable.
21:57
Speaker 1: It was like ten and a half grand cover like
22:00
Speaker 1: the medical bills that she'd had, and like another two
22:03
Speaker 1: and a half for the future ones, and then you
22:07
Speaker 1: know the additional salary that her daughter had lost, so
22:11
Speaker 1: like eighteen thousand dollars altogether, like I think it added
22:16
Speaker 1: up to. And so she was like, please, now, McDonald
22:22
Speaker 1: the multimillion dollar corporation respond to her letter, and guess
22:28
Speaker 1: what they offer her the large, large sum of eight
22:33
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. And so the seventy nine year old grandmother
22:38
Speaker 1: and retired department store clerk said fuck this for a
22:43
Speaker 1: game of soldiers and gets herself an attorney s read.
22:49
Speaker 1: Morgan was an attorney in Houston who had worked on
22:53
Speaker 1: a case of another woman severely burned by McDonald's coffee. So, yeah,
22:59
Speaker 1: another case. Yes, So clearly this has happened before. This
23:04
Speaker 1: is a non incident. So they're aware that this is happening,
23:10
Speaker 1: and he's dealt with them before, and so Morgan he
23:13
Speaker 1: reaches out to McDonald's to try and settle, and so
23:18
Speaker 1: he initially throws out the offer of ninety grand, so
23:23
Speaker 1: ninety thousand dollars to settle that covers medical bills, pain
23:27
Speaker 1: and suffering loss, of work, and of course his sweet
23:31
Speaker 1: sweet lawyer's fay Am McDonald's ignores them, and so the
23:39
Speaker 1: day before the lossuit he reaches out again. For this
23:44
Speaker 1: time he's up to the antic because he's like, no, no,
23:47
Speaker 1: you had your chance to go on the lower end
23:49
Speaker 1: of the scale, but now three hundred thousand, right, So
23:54
Speaker 1: he'd thrown out three hundred thousand for them to settle,
23:57
Speaker 1: expecting they'd come back, and so they've had a wee bit, right,
24:01
Speaker 1: and like afterwards he said, like he would have settled
24:06
Speaker 1: for one hundred and fifty grand, right, he would have
24:09
Speaker 1: gone for one hundred and fifty k done, right. He
24:14
Speaker 1: was putting the big number out there to get lesser
24:17
Speaker 1: because he knows what these people are like. And again
24:22
Speaker 1: Morgan's offer is ignored, and so on the eighth of
24:28
Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety four they go to trial. And it's weird,
24:34
Speaker 1: like it's a weird trial because normally there's one person
24:38
Speaker 1: being like guilty not guilty. This didn't happen. There's no
24:45
Speaker 1: disputing the facts of the case, right, This is why
24:49
Speaker 1: it's strange. The facts are A. McDonald's coffee is too
24:56
Speaker 1: hot and b still alone. Ibex spilled coffee on herself. Right,
25:03
Speaker 1: that those are the main facts of the case. No
25:07
Speaker 1: one is disputing those facts. Both the prosecution and the
25:12
Speaker 1: defense are agreeing that those happened. So the prosecution discovered
25:18
Speaker 1: that McDonald's required all franchises to hold coffee between one
25:24
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty and one hundred and ninety degrees fahrenheit,
25:30
Speaker 1: and they argued, again quite reasonably, that there was no
25:36
Speaker 1: reason for coffee to be warmer than one hundred and
25:41
Speaker 1: forty degrees fahrenheit sixty degrees celsius, which anyone who's ever
25:46
Speaker 1: done a food hygiene course will tell you that's the
25:50
Speaker 1: temperature that safely kills off bacteria. So one hundred and
25:57
Speaker 1: forty degrees fahrenheit sixty degrees celsius. Yes, so when you're
26:01
Speaker 1: washing your hands, you should be washing your hands in
26:04
Speaker 1: sixty degree water, because you know, if you're going to
26:07
Speaker 1: be prepping food or I don't know, scrubbing in for surgery,
26:11
Speaker 1: those are the two things you need. Right, So there's that,
26:15
Speaker 1: So there's no reason for anything to be hotter than that.
26:20
Speaker 1: And so the prosecution, right, they traveled around testing temperatures
26:27
Speaker 1: of theirs and other establishments. Right, So they're going round
26:32
Speaker 1: and they're checking the temperature of like the takeaway coffee,
26:36
Speaker 1: the coffee to go. They'll checking the temperature in like
26:39
Speaker 1: all these different like businesses because they want to contrast
26:44
Speaker 1: to compel so that they've got you know, the comparison, right,
26:50
Speaker 1: So they do that and they're like, yeah, one hundred
26:53
Speaker 1: and forty degree fahrenheit doesn't need to be any hotter
26:55
Speaker 1: than that. That's what X, Y and Z do. So
27:00
Speaker 1: during the trial, like it is discovered that Mickey D's
27:06
Speaker 1: had settled over seven hundred burns cases, Like you have
27:15
Speaker 1: seven hundred burn cases. You have settled seven hundred burn cases.
27:20
Speaker 1: So if seven hundred cases have come forward, just imagine
27:25
Speaker 1: the ones that didn't, who didn't think to hire a lawyer,
27:29
Speaker 1: who couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, who couldn't come forward,
27:34
Speaker 1: who maybe you know, suffered from their injuries and didn't
27:39
Speaker 1: think there was another option. Like your company received seven
27:44
Speaker 1: hundred burn cases and you don't think, maybe I'll just
27:49
Speaker 1: reduce the temperature, like what So one of the execs
27:57
Speaker 1: is questioned on why, like why have coffee at a
28:03
Speaker 1: dangerous temperature in the restaurant, Like why would you do that,
28:09
Speaker 1: which again, I mean, I feel like a broken recade heil,
28:12
Speaker 1: But I feel like that is yet another reasonable question. Hey,
28:18
Speaker 1: why have you got this product for human consumption that
28:22
Speaker 1: you are keeping in a temperature that is dangerous to humans,
28:27
Speaker 1: especially if it comes into contact with their body, which
28:32
Speaker 1: is fairly important for human So yeah, and so this
28:42
Speaker 1: motherfucker right. His response is just like, well, there are
28:47
Speaker 1: more dangerous things in the restaurant, Like, are there? I'm sorry,
28:53
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Is the hamburgler gonna leap over the counter
28:56
Speaker 1: and beat me with a bag of frozen hash browns? Like? No,
29:01
Speaker 1: that's not a risk when you buy something from a
29:04
Speaker 1: McDonald's restaurant. Now, the direct quote is, actually, people don't
29:13
Speaker 1: drink coffee straight away. They drive for twenty minutes then
29:17
Speaker 1: drink it. No, simply put, no, that's not a thing. Right.
29:27
Speaker 1: I leave a coffee shop. I go to a little
29:31
Speaker 1: independent coffee shop called Brosof. It's very good. It's run
29:34
Speaker 1: by two brothers, hence the name. One of the brothers
29:38
Speaker 1: makes better coffee than the other. I will leave it
29:40
Speaker 1: for them to argue amongst themselves who it is. I
29:43
Speaker 1: don't get. They don't listen to this, but buy your
29:47
Speaker 1: coffee and brossof if you're in letter Kenny donego by
29:49
Speaker 1: the way, shout out product placement. No, I fuck anyway,
29:57
Speaker 1: it's not it's not an ad. They just make my
30:00
Speaker 1: coffee four days a week, five of a have to
30:03
Speaker 1: do things on a Sunday. But yeah, I am drinking
30:06
Speaker 1: that coffee as soon as it is in my hand. Now,
30:09
Speaker 1: I am drinking that coffee as soon as it is
30:11
Speaker 1: in my hand. Now, I'm old enough and ugly enough
30:13
Speaker 1: to know better, and so I know by the feel
30:17
Speaker 1: of the cup if that's gonna take me a minute
30:20
Speaker 1: before I can drink it. Like, I am drinking that
30:23
Speaker 1: coffee as soon as it is in my hand. Well,
30:26
Speaker 1: that being said, right, I'm old enough and ugly enough
30:29
Speaker 1: to know better, so I know that it gets to
30:31
Speaker 1: a point where I can feel the cup and know
30:33
Speaker 1: if the liquid inside roughly is safe for me to consume.
30:38
Speaker 1: Because listen, a scolded tongue is going to do me
30:40
Speaker 1: no good, right or anyone for that matter. But yeah,
30:46
Speaker 1: people buy the coffee to drink the coffee like Otherwise
30:49
Speaker 1: I would just make coffee at home and consume it there,
30:55
Speaker 1: even though I drink tea at home. But that's neither
30:57
Speaker 1: here nor there. So yeah, people the coffee to drink
31:01
Speaker 1: the coffee. Now, another one of these motherfuckers swere to
31:06
Speaker 1: christ one of the McDonald's lawyers. He's interviewed in Newsweek
31:12
Speaker 1: and on the record, he says, first person accounts of
31:18
Speaker 1: Saundry women whose nether regions have been scorched by mcd's
31:22
Speaker 1: caffe might be well worthy of Oprah, but they have
31:26
Speaker 1: no place in a cord of law like this is
31:29
Speaker 1: very much using the media to twist public opinion, to
31:35
Speaker 1: sort of paint her as like a silly woman, and
31:39
Speaker 1: to make fun of the fact that her growin her thighs,
31:44
Speaker 1: her buttocks, right, that these have been damaged and disfigured,
31:49
Speaker 1: and that she's had to suffer painful skin grafts. You know,
31:53
Speaker 1: she's been paralyzed for two years and this very we're pugnant.
32:02
Speaker 1: I'd call them a demon, but I feel like demons
32:05
Speaker 1: would have much better manners. Oh, they just make me
32:09
Speaker 1: so angry, right, So in court, right, another shitty thing
32:14
Speaker 1: they do is in court they tried to argue that
32:19
Speaker 1: she wouldn't have had such severe burns if she had
32:23
Speaker 1: younger skin. I'm sorry you're shitting me. If her skin
32:29
Speaker 1: was younger, she wouldn't have been as damaged. So that's
32:33
Speaker 1: that's okay, even if that was the case, Right, even
32:37
Speaker 1: if that was the case. One, how much younger are
32:41
Speaker 1: we talking here? Like, I'm sorry, but how many ten
32:43
Speaker 1: year olds do you have in nineteen ninety two that
32:46
Speaker 1: are drinking black coffee from McDonald's, right? First of all. Secondly, right,
32:55
Speaker 1: even if being younger is relevant to how severe the
33:03
Speaker 1: damage was to her body, you're basically just admitting that
33:07
Speaker 1: you don't care if elderly people are hurt because of
33:11
Speaker 1: your actions, right, Like, oh, it wouldn't been as bad
33:15
Speaker 1: if she was younger, but we're not going to try
33:17
Speaker 1: and do anything to protect this elderly person. And that's
33:21
Speaker 1: the thing when it comes to her injuries. Right. So again,
33:26
Speaker 1: like we had a doctor in the hospital saying that
33:28
Speaker 1: it was the worst burn case that he had ever seen. Right,
33:33
Speaker 1: And one of the jurors like, after seeing the images
33:38
Speaker 1: of her injuries, it had such an impact on him,
33:43
Speaker 1: Like after seeing this, when he gets home, he tells
33:48
Speaker 1: his wife and daughter to stop drinking coffee. Right. So
33:57
Speaker 1: the jury they deliberate for four hours, so they go
34:01
Speaker 1: they do their deliberation and they come back with a
34:05
Speaker 1: two point nine million dollar settlement. That's two hundred thousand
34:10
Speaker 1: for medical expenses and pain and suffering. But this is
34:15
Speaker 1: reduced by twenty percent because she spilled the coffee. So
34:20
Speaker 1: this is reduced from two hundred thousand to one hundred
34:24
Speaker 1: and sixty thousand dollars because, like, she spilled it. But
34:29
Speaker 1: even if she spilled it, it should not have caused
34:32
Speaker 1: this much damage. So, like there's this whole health and
34:36
Speaker 1: safety thing. Like how health and safety works for like
34:39
Speaker 1: products and goods is they're designed in a way that
34:45
Speaker 1: they're meant to be idioproof is the best way to
34:47
Speaker 1: describe it. It's so that even someone who doesn't know
34:50
Speaker 1: what they're doing should be protected. So, like I saw
34:54
Speaker 1: a thing recently and it was a jar of matches,
34:58
Speaker 1: all right, So it was a jar matches and had
35:01
Speaker 1: like a little like flat lid, and the striker is
35:04
Speaker 1: on the side of the jar. Now, if the striker
35:09
Speaker 1: is on the side of the jar and they've taken
35:11
Speaker 1: the lit off the jar to strike the match, as
35:14
Speaker 1: they strike it, a spark comes off the lip, match
35:18
Speaker 1: falls into the jar full of matches and the whole
35:21
Speaker 1: thing goes a flame, right like, Now, that shouldn't happen.
35:28
Speaker 1: One if you're going to have something that's an open top,
35:31
Speaker 1: the striker should be on the bottom. But I don't
35:34
Speaker 1: have that here. As someone who lives who used to
35:37
Speaker 1: live quite rurally, but now I live in a house
35:38
Speaker 1: that also has like a stove, I have bottles of matches.
35:45
Speaker 1: And the reason they sell them as a bottle and
35:47
Speaker 1: not a jar is because you know, it's harder to
35:52
Speaker 1: put it in, and a lot of these will have
35:54
Speaker 1: the the striker right at the bottom so that you
35:58
Speaker 1: have to turn it upside down, you know, and therefore
36:01
Speaker 1: won't get near any of the other matches. So it's
36:04
Speaker 1: supposed to like, even if you do the silly thing
36:07
Speaker 1: and you strike it a certain way, you should not
36:10
Speaker 1: ignite the stuff inside. So it's again idiotproof. So even
36:14
Speaker 1: if you do the wrong thing, it should still be fine.
36:20
Speaker 1: But anyway, on top of the one hundred and sixty thousand,
36:25
Speaker 1: McDonald's is to pay two point seven million in punitive damages.
36:33
Speaker 1: Why two point seven million dollars, Well, I'm glad you asked,
36:38
Speaker 1: because I'll tell you so. How they came up with
36:42
Speaker 1: this money, and I feel like this is what took
36:46
Speaker 1: most of the deliberation time. I think they were just
36:49
Speaker 1: doing math. So this is based on two days of
36:55
Speaker 1: coffee sales, you know by McDonald's in the US, Like
36:59
Speaker 1: that is where they came up with this number. Now,
37:04
Speaker 1: the New Mexico District Judge, Robert H. Scott, he's like,
37:11
Speaker 1: that's too much, right, and he reduces the punitive damages
37:16
Speaker 1: down to four hundred and eighty K. So yeah, he's like,
37:22
Speaker 1: you can't give her this much money. And this is
37:24
Speaker 1: where like this hits the headlines because the jury suggested
37:30
Speaker 1: that she get like two point nine million, and so
37:34
Speaker 1: everyone's like, she's off for two point nine million for
37:36
Speaker 1: spilling coffee, and it makes her the butt of a joke. Right.
37:42
Speaker 1: So the judge he's like, reduced this down to four
37:46
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty k, and both sides appeal this right
37:51
Speaker 1: and they end up settling out of court. Castilla's side
37:57
Speaker 1: is like, no, make this more, because that's what the
37:59
Speaker 1: jury said it should be. It should be higher. And
38:02
Speaker 1: of course you've got McDonald's going no, this should be lower.
38:07
Speaker 1: So this whole thing, this led to a massive mockery everywhere.
38:13
Speaker 1: Woman sues McDonald's for coffee being hat like she is
38:18
Speaker 1: painted as some grafta who's abusing the legal system when
38:24
Speaker 1: she was fucking paralyzed for two years, left disfigured and
38:30
Speaker 1: disabled because of the shitty practices of a corporation. And
38:36
Speaker 1: in all of these articles and all of these reports,
38:40
Speaker 1: no one ever reached out to stell Alibic, right, No
38:46
Speaker 1: one reached out to her, not to her, not to
38:49
Speaker 1: her family. They just kept pushing this narrative like they
38:56
Speaker 1: were running with the story because you know, it's it's
39:03
Speaker 1: like rage bait, really, you know, it's like the ye
39:07
Speaker 1: I say the yield as if it's like ninety four.
39:11
Speaker 1: But like this is just being snowballed, and she's just
39:18
Speaker 1: an item of mockery, right, And instead of like contacting
39:26
Speaker 1: her in any way or anyone trying to hear what
39:30
Speaker 1: has happened because of the way this story is pushed.
39:34
Speaker 1: A woman who initially just wanted her medical bills taking
39:37
Speaker 1: care of, right, and just for her daughter to be
39:40
Speaker 1: compensated for her having to take the time like three
39:44
Speaker 1: weeks for three weeks of being off work. So instead
39:52
Speaker 1: of communicating and trying to find the real story, there's
39:56
Speaker 1: this push about frivolous law suits because deeming it frivolous
40:03
Speaker 1: protects the corporations. And this ends up perpetuating this American stereotype. Oh,
40:13
Speaker 1: you know those sue over anything, and like it becomes
40:17
Speaker 1: a global joke, like it spreads across the world where
40:22
Speaker 1: it becomes this this idea of what an American is
40:27
Speaker 1: like not only that you know all those sue over anything,
40:31
Speaker 1: but also that you know they'll make up things and
40:34
Speaker 1: create situations in order to sue, like all the time,
40:37
Speaker 1: just so they can steal money from like these big corporations.
40:43
Speaker 1: And because it's pushing this narrative, right, it's mocking the victim.
40:49
Speaker 1: And because it's mocking the victim, and remember seven hundred
40:52
Speaker 1: previous cases, by making fun of this, by belittling it
40:57
Speaker 1: and demeaning the very idea of it, by mocking the victim,
41:02
Speaker 1: it stops others coming forward. And like when it came
41:09
Speaker 1: to Stella Liibeck, the settlement that she received covered the
41:14
Speaker 1: cost of a live in nurse. The last ten years.
41:18
Speaker 1: She had no quality of life. She didn't go out anymore,
41:22
Speaker 1: she didn't socialize, She lived a life in pain. She
41:28
Speaker 1: was disabled, she was disfigured, she was uncomfortable, she was
41:32
Speaker 1: a butt of a joke, and even if the people
41:35
Speaker 1: closest to her knew the truth, she faced ridicule, whispers
41:40
Speaker 1: and sneers and Snyder remarks being a point of mockery
41:47
Speaker 1: because she was permanently injured, and because she dared to
41:52
Speaker 1: stand up to a company whose business practices were deliberately
41:57
Speaker 1: harming others. Right, and so for the last ten years
42:02
Speaker 1: of her life she didn't really have one. And so
42:07
Speaker 1: on the fifth of August two thousand and four, at
42:10
Speaker 1: the age of ninety one, Stella Liibeck passed away, and
42:17
Speaker 1: so ends the story of Stella Libec versus McDonald's. Now,
42:23
Speaker 1: I know it's like fairly recent history, but it's one
42:29
Speaker 1: of those moments where it's fairly easy to recognize how
42:34
Speaker 1: the narrative was twisted and how this victim was, you know,
42:40
Speaker 1: bullittled and mocked and publicly discredited in order to absolve
42:47
Speaker 1: this big business of wrongdoing even though they knew they
42:54
Speaker 1: were wrong. And it's just like the way that it's
42:59
Speaker 1: spread read over the news and across the world. It's
43:03
Speaker 1: very easy to see how the propaganda spreads and how
43:07
Speaker 1: easy it is for it to be churned out. But yeah,
43:12
Speaker 1: that is my retelling of this story. If you liked
43:15
Speaker 1: it written review of five stars. If you didn't like it,
43:18
Speaker 1: give it to yourself. I don't want to hear it. Yeah.
43:22
Speaker 1: So I've had a few people question me about transcripts actually,
43:28
Speaker 1: and i've I should be transcribed. I have it like
43:33
Speaker 1: on the actual like on the actual hosting platform, it's
43:40
Speaker 1: like transcribed, and then also on like Spotify should be transcribing.
43:46
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's not if it isn't, because
43:50
Speaker 1: I've pressed all the buttons and it's saying it is.
43:54
Speaker 1: So at this point, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah,
44:01
Speaker 1: get your tickets to see me this weekend or see
44:06
Speaker 1: me in Belfast or Dublin when those dates come up,
44:10
Speaker 1: and happy birthday month to me, I suppose. Yeah. I
44:19
Speaker 1: saw a thing the other day, said bar before we end,
44:23
Speaker 1: where a mutual of mine had said that they were
44:27
Speaker 1: sort of going nineteen nineties in their media consumption. Yeah,
44:33
Speaker 1: and so they were watching like slow TV shows and
44:37
Speaker 1: movies and less time on social media, how they were
44:39
Speaker 1: calling their friends instead of messaging them and stuff like that.
44:44
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, that's really good. So I
44:49
Speaker 1: really want to get nice stationary. I've been thinking about
44:52
Speaker 1: this for a while because I wanted to get like
44:54
Speaker 1: really nice stationary and start writing letters because you all
44:56
Speaker 1: know I love letters. I love them, and so so
45:00
Speaker 1: I'd love to just start writing to people again. I
45:04
Speaker 1: just think it be quite nice. Something slow, like my
45:09
Speaker 1: media consumption. I've tried to make it slower because it's
45:14
Speaker 1: supposed to be really good for your mental health, and
45:16
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it ever to actually hang out
45:19
Speaker 1: with friends and stuff. More like I'm organizing more stuff
45:24
Speaker 1: for next year to try and give myself that option
45:28
Speaker 1: to go and like see people and hang out and
45:30
Speaker 1: do fun stuff. But yeah, but do all the good stuff.
45:35
Speaker 1: Have a great time. And it is recommendation time already,
45:41
Speaker 1: so okay, it's November as well, so like people are
45:47
Speaker 1: growing mustaches and shaving mustaches and there's a mustache situation happening,
45:53
Speaker 1: and in light of that and also the slow media
45:57
Speaker 1: consumption is for watching, I'm gonna recommend Magnum Pi, the
46:07
Speaker 1: original TV show with Tom Sella and his magnificent mustache
46:12
Speaker 1: and dany diny shorts, like like the very first episode
46:17
Speaker 1: he's in like these short shorts, and I find them
46:23
Speaker 1: so funny. So yeah, that's fun. So couple costume one year,
46:29
Speaker 1: if I'm ever in a couple, Jessica Fletcher and Magnum Pi,
46:33
Speaker 1: they did two crossover episodes. I've seen neither, but I
46:38
Speaker 1: now own both both of those collections, and so I'm
46:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to it when who's to say, but
46:47
Speaker 1: I am? So that's that. For listening the Spice Girl's discography, right,
46:56
Speaker 1: that's I'm sorry, that's how it is now, nineteen nineties
46:59
Speaker 1: girl pop, spice Girls, go for it, go to town.
47:04
Speaker 1: And for reading The Boyfriend by R. L. Stein. It's
47:09
Speaker 1: a point horror book, if you can get your hands
47:11
Speaker 1: on it, I honestly don't know if I can. Did
47:15
Speaker 1: I recommend this in the last episode, I don't remember.
47:18
Speaker 1: It's like one of my favorite books I read as
47:21
Speaker 1: a teenager. Point Horror was like a series of of
47:25
Speaker 1: like horror books for young adults teenagers, if you will,
47:30
Speaker 1: And so R. L. Stein of Goosebump's fame, he had
47:34
Speaker 1: written this one called The Boyfriend. I also remember the Girlfriend,
47:39
Speaker 1: but to a lesser extent, but I can still smell
47:46
Speaker 1: the Boyfriend, like that's that's how good it was. I
47:49
Speaker 1: can I can still like, if I think about it,
47:54
Speaker 1: I can remember exactly what the boyfriend smelled like, which
47:58
Speaker 1: is is good right if you can trigger that response.
48:04
Speaker 1: But yeah, that is my that is my recommendation for yeah,
48:08
Speaker 1: for today, and so I shall vet you all. Good night,
48:13
Speaker 1: Adios au revoir of What is There? My friends, Bye
48:17
Speaker 1: bye