the fabled sixteen sided die

[Gertwise]

So I'm out at http://www.dozensofgames.com/16sideddice.html
and I notice that they are having a sale where you can buy said d16 for not $5, but you can get them for the unbelievable price of only $4. That's right boys and girls (if there are any on here) $4 and it's all yours.

Well $4 and another $5.50 for shipping unless you're hard up and you wanna do next day shipping for $20.

[falconeyed]

Gratuitous plug for my local shop, but they've got a whole tray of d16s in the counter. Just got one today. Endgame in Oakland, California.

[JJB]

Back to the action against McDonald's, there are roughly two main ways you can see that:
- An action under the contract of sale between McDonald's and the customer. I suspect the relevant American states have laws comparable to England or Scotland imposing, for consumer sales (by opposition to business-business sales where it is viewed that both parties have the same bargaining power), "implied conditions" in the contract including appropriateness and basic quality of the goods.
If that is not respected, in English law (and I suspect similarly in Scottish or US law), the extent of damages can go as far as the courts deem it reasonably foreseeably forseeable to the one who broke the contract. That includes loss of profits etc. So that can go quite far.

- An action for negligence. It's part of that super-broad thing called tort law - non-contractual civil responsibility - which includes things as varied as some trademark infringement ("passing off"), even actions like assault and battery (i.e. the state/country can prosecute for crimes, but some of those crimes have a civil equivalent for which the alleged victim can sue for damages (not-imprisonment of the accused though...), damages which can be well higher than what a victim would obtain in criminal law - so shoplifters cannot get away by saying they spent the money of the stolen goods they sold for example).
If, among other things, the plaintiff/claimant can prove that there was a duty of care from the part of the defendent toward him/her, that this duty has been breached and that it caused the injury/harm to him/her, then the court would award damages "to put the claimant back into the position he/she would have been in had the tort not been committed". So that does not include losses of profit, and the awards granted are not as stratospheric as they appear to be in the headlines, although the notion of punitive damages (very rarely awarded) can bloat the amount.

Going back to the coffee, if one gets partly disfigured as a result of boiling hot coffee spilt on you chin and neck, how would you, as a judge, quantify that?...
And if that's not the first time lids have opened accidentally, but the manufacturer/seller did nothing about it in spite of its means to remedy the defect without incurring proportionally huge costs, even by putting some clear warnings?...

[sean newboy]

As for the hot coffee, caveat emptor, she knew it was hot, it should not be their fault she did not have a cup holder. I seriously do not believe stupidity should be rewarded in court, not people that burn themselves with coffee, or criminals that hurt themselves doing B&E.

[falconeyed]

Yeah, but the consumer generally, and this Plaintiff specifically, could not have known of a design defect in the cup tops. Designed goods are reasonably supposed to be able to perform in their intended fashion, and should they fail and cause injury, the designer is held liable for its failure to live up to its standard of care.

Also remember that the designers make money off of the consumers.

As for the hot coffee, caveat emptor, she knew it was hot, it should not be their fault she did not have a cup holder. I seriously do not believe stupidity should be rewarded in court, not people that burn themselves with coffee, or criminals that hurt themselves doing B&E.

[MattShepherd]

How much you think I could get out of GW if I manage to gouge an eye out with a mino horn?

[Lahatiel]

As for the hot coffee, caveat emptor, she knew it was hot, it should not be their fault she did not have a cup holder. I seriously do not believe stupidity should be rewarded in court, not people that burn themselves with coffee, or criminals that hurt themselves doing B&E.

The whole point on this thread has been that it was not that simple. Again, I used to dismiss this case in the same way, before I learned the facts. We're talking third-degree burns that formed within a matter of seconds; burns do not come worse than that. Seriously -- the particular parts of the lady's body that were burned would not have been burned worse if they'd been hit with a flamethrower. We're talking 8 days of hospitalization, skin grafts, permanent scarring.

This wasn't about her not having a cupholder -- she was a passenger, not the driver, in a vehicle that was parked at the time. It also was not about a faulty cup/lid; that's not correct: hot coffee actually was the issue. But at the same time, I've since double-checked and found that yes, some of the things I've said previously, while I've been close, haven't been 100% accurate either. I mentioned "thousands" of prior cases for McDonalds on this issue; it was ~700. I also said McDonalds had "ignored" those past cases, whereas they had actually settled out-of-court in many previous cases for small amounts, but then refused this particular plaintiff's request to settle for the mere $20,000 to cover her medical expenses (remember: 8 days hospitalization, skin grafts, etc.). So, without any further inaccuracies:

The jury based their punitive award of $2.7 million on that representing a mere two days' worth of McDonalds' corporate coffee sales, as a punishment to McDonalds as I'd said -- remember, the punitive and compensatory damages are two different things. Even so, the judge still, as is in his power, later reduced that punitive amount to $600,000. But even after the trial, the lady still ended up settling with McDonalds for less than that $600,000 that was ruled to be hers. The facts:

McDonalds coffee and the Liebeck lawsuit

McFacts about the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit

McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit: McDonald's Callousness Was Real Issue, Jurors Say, In Case of Burned Woman

McDonalds Hot Coffee Lawsuit and Beyond: The Tort Reform Myth Machine

MythBuster! The "McDonald's Coffee Case" and Other Fictions

Is the American legal system in need of some tort reform? Yeah, I think so. But I've learned that this case has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[Chairface]

How much you think I could get out of GW if I manage to gouge an eye out with a mino horn?

Nothing if you sue in Canada. 20 mil if it happens in the states.

[falconeyed]

As for the hot coffee, caveat emptor, she knew it was hot, it should not be their fault she did not have a cup holder. I seriously do not believe stupidity should be rewarded in court, not people that burn themselves with coffee, or criminals that hurt themselves doing B&E.

The whole point on this thread has been that it was not that simple. Again, I used to dismiss this case in the same way, before I learned the facts. We're talking third-degree burns that formed within a matter of seconds; burns do not come worse than that. Seriously -- the particular parts of the lady's body that were burned would not have been burned worse if they'd been hit with a flamethrower. We're talking 8 days of hospitalization, skin grafts, permanent scarring.

This wasn't about her not having a cupholder -- she was a passenger, not the driver, in a vehicle that was parked at the time. It also was not about a faulty cup/lid; that's not correct: hot coffee actually was the issue. But at the same time, I've since double-checked and found that yes, some of the things I've said previously, while I've been close, haven't been 100% accurate either. I mentioned "thousands" of prior cases for McDonalds on this issue; it was ~700. I also said McDonalds had "ignored" those past cases, whereas they had actually settled out-of-court in many previous cases for small amounts, but then refused this particular plaintiff's request to settle for the mere $20,000 to cover her medical expenses (remember: 8 days hospitalization, skin grafts, etc.). So, without any further inaccuracies:

The jury based their punitive award of $2.7 million on that representing a mere two days' worth of McDonalds' corporate coffee sales, as a punishment to McDonalds as I'd said -- remember, the punitive and compensatory damages are two different things. Even so, the judge still, as is in his power, later reduced that punitive amount to $600,000. But even after the trial, the lady still ended up settling with McDonalds for less than that $600,000 that was ruled to be hers. The facts:

McDonalds coffee and the Liebeck lawsuit

McFacts about the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit

McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit: McDonald's Callousness Was Real Issue, Jurors Say, In Case of Burned Woman

McDonalds Hot Coffee Lawsuit and Beyond: The Tort Reform Myth Machine

MythBuster! The "McDonald's Coffee Case" and Other Fictions

Is the American legal system in need of some tort reform? Yeah, I think so. But I've learned that this case has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I stand corrected. I thought I had heard a different factual scenario than the one listed in these sites.

The thing that seems amazing to me is that the punitive award was basically a day's profits. Punishing McD's by penalizing them a day's profits from their coffee seems, if anything, too lenient, based on the extent of the injury, time required to heal / repair the injury, and MdD's already-noted cavalier attitude about the whole thing.

Although ... given that MdD's corporate policy was to have the coffee at the mentioned temperature, it's far beyond a product liability or negligence suit. The act seems almost criminal to me.