It's hard to believe people like this lady really exist:

http://www.break.com/index/burger_king_911.html

This is the type of person who would sue an establishment after spilling hot coffee on themselves. This is just sooooo pathetic.

911 should have hung up on the crazy bitch less than 1 minute into this.

Hahahaha! Hilarious. I really had to check this wasn't genuine comedy. This sort of abuse would've put the Monty Python team out of business, had it been commonplace 30 years ago.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Okay, that woman is clearly a raving idiot, but the coffee woman has gotten a bad rap that she doesn't deserve. The coffee was so ridiculously hot that she required extensive skin grafts to repair the damage from third degree burns to her groin. She was in the hospital for more than a week. Her lawsuit was more than justified.

Sorry Chip.... coffee is made with near boiling water, and water cant get hotter than 100 degrees centigrade at normal atmospheric pressures. Hot coffee is hot coffee is hot coffee.

SHE spilt it, and she sues the shop, sorry thats just a symptom of this fucking ridiculous compensation culturewe live in now.

If you're too stupid to drink coffee without spilling it, you should stick to Coke of somesuch.

Some handy info on that story:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/media/arc/1995%20archive/95-04-05-McDonald's-coffee.gif

Mari

http://www.vanfirm.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm

"Before trial, McDonald's gave the opposing lawyer its operations and training manual, which says its coffee must be brewed at 195 to 205 degrees and held at 180 to 190 degrees for optimal taste."

omg what a waste of taxpayer money! Those 9-1-1 operaters have more important things to do. I'm sure she was laughing after she hung up though. Unbelievable the sense of entitlement some people have.

They should have sent this guy

OMG Kendra! <3

doesn't this woman resell freebies in SL?

This thread reminded me of a recent story about a local woman who also placed an inappropriate 9-1-1 call: Lonely Aloha (OR) woman arrested after using 911 for love line.

The self-centeredness and poor judgment of some people is just amazing.

Anything over 140 degrees causes burns to the inside of your mouth. Serving it a full 40-45 degrees above what will cause severe injury is a pretty stupid recommendation. If you followed it to the letter, served your coffee that way and then drank it immediately you would be a very unhappy camper. If I order a cup of coffee I want it at a temperature that actually can be drank immediately without a subsequent trip to the emergency room.

pretty much the same reasoning as why it is recommended to keep your hot water heater set at 120 degrees at maximum if you have children in the home. anything too far above that is a scalding hazard.

I hate when people bring up this case as a 'frivilous lawsuit'. Sure there are frivilous lawsuits, but I don't view this as one of them.

McDonald's was aware of the problem and negligent in correcting it,
prior to this case, it only took 700 claims in 10 years to finally get them to bring the temp of their coffee down to something normal.

(If I recall correctly, the exact amount Liebeck got was never disclosed because in the end it was appealed and they settled out of court.)

--
I prefer my coffee iced.

She sought to settle for $20,000 but McDonald's refused. Presumably that was what she needed to cover the week in the hospital.

It was. The 20K was to cover her medical expenses, which included skin grafts to her groin area.

only slightly more offtopic than half of these posts, but still in the area of 'its hard to believe people like this exist'...

Did you hear about the boat owner who is suing a guy who commandeered his precious boat in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and subsequently saved the lives of 200 people for taking it without permission? Nice.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/9742880/detail.html

He should offer to return the boat in the condition it would have been in had it been left in the path of Katrina.

--
*HULK SMASH*

(finally listened to the clip)

I'm 99% convinced this is a spoof.

I can't imagine anyone at 911 wasting that much time or suggesting a course of action, once, much less twice.

The few times I've heard that anyone inappropriately dialed 911 for non-life threatening issues they were told to call the police department at their non-emergency number.

It is still rather funny though.

--
You're here to protect me!
I pay taxes, therefore you work for me!

I still don't buy the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit. Every time I've gotten coffee anywhere, it's always really hot, and I've always known that spilling it on myself could cause burns. I expect coffee to be just under boiling temperature. If it had been an employee that spilled it on the person, I'd say a lawsuit would be totally called for, but it wasn't, the person spilled it on themselves.

There are things that people just know are going to be hot, and coffee is one of them.

Maybe people should sue mexican restaurants if they burn themselves on the sizzling fajita plate.

How about people suing the tobacco industry for getting cancer from cigarettes?

How about a woman suing Target because an employee made a comment about her breastfeeding in public?

How about people suing becuase someone said a derogatory slur towards them (didn't make a threat, but just said something derogatory)?

How about someone trying to sue a fireworks stand because their kid did something stupid with a firecracker?

How about forcing the discontinuation of 3-wheeled off-road vehicles because someone 5 years old hurt themselves on one, and they were too young to ride it in the first place?

How about the FCC suing over the Janet Jackson's breast "incident"?

When I'm served a beverage I expect to be able to consume it immediately without suffering grievous injury.

It's like getting served fish in a sandwich with all the bones still in it but not being told, and then claiming it's the consumers fault for choking to death on it. I mean, it's not like it's the restaurants responsibility to provide a safe product, right?

So, every time as a kid I burnt my mouth on a cup of hot-cocoa served at a place that wasn't where I lived, I should have sued?

I think people need to take more responsibility for their own actions. If you're eating fish, you should expect that unless they specifically said that it absolutely has no bones in it or your money back, that it could have bones in it. It doens't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, nor does it take rocket scientists to figure out that coffee might be hot. These are the types of lawsuits that have made things like "warning, flammable" be written on lighters and matches. These are the types of lawsuits that make some entrepreneurs afraid to start their own businesses--the fear of "What if someone does something stupid and then blames it on me?" We need to stop blaming everyone else for our stupidity--like I said, it's not really any different than someone suing the tobacco industry for getting cancer from smoking for 20 years.