509 points
*

Always remember what really happened with the McDonald’s lady who sued because her “coffee was too hot”.

McDonald’s themselves started the campaign that the issue was laughable, and seeded the notion that it’s ridiculous, how could she not know coffee hot?

What really happened was that the coffee was:

  • Served well above safe ranges to maximize profits, so the coffee could be served longer
  • Was served near boiling temperature
  • Was so hot that it FUSED HER LABIA requiring extensive surgery to repair.

She sued only for her hospital bills.

They started a smear campaign against her to convince the public that she was a moron and she just wanted a payday.

Don’t trust corporations. Ever.

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225 points

Not to mention they were warned many times before about serving coffee that’s too hot. The woman got such a huge settlement because the judge was tired of McDonald’s crap

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102 points

Also they calculated the cost of lawsuits like that and decided they would make more money selling it that hot than they would lose in lawsuits over how hot the coffee was.

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116 points
*

What’s that old quote? “A lie can make it around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”, or something like that? I believe that was pre-internet too.

It also happens with politics. I constantly see provocative headlines get lots of attention in one circle, and then the later corrections only get passed around in the opposite circle, if at all.

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21 points

Look at just yesterday. One clickbait site said Beyonce was going to perform at the dnc, and by the time the truth and correction made it around it was already past time

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31 points

We desperately need a return of journalistic ethics and bland, just-the-facts news.

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14 points

Plus those corrections only show up as a footnote on articles without it being altered or removed. Its laughable.

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1 point

That’s weird. Ideally you should put it right next to the title, that there has been an addendum and the following might be incorrect/outdated.

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13 points

Its even worse in science. Lots of crazy headlines that are later debunked quietly

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10 points

those headlines can also be debunked loudly and yet, anti-vaxxers still exist, somehow

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5 points

Generally that’s news media misconstruing science.

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63 points

Also, she got second degree burns, and she was not the first person to be injured by the coffee, and McDonald’s was told multiple times that they served their coffee too hot.

During the trial, McDonald’s showed zero care for the the people they injured, to the point that most of the fine that McDonald’s ended up paying was punitive damages

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51 points
Deleted by creator
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1 point

Tbh, I don’t get it. How can a coffee, that can be max 100°C cause such burns? I would have never believed hot/boiling water is that dangerous, without that story.

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I’m sorry, it fucking welded her pussy shut???

the news did not report on that part

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23 points

Yes. Yes it did.

No, they did not report that in media.

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22 points

I knew about the story, did not know about that detail… I can feel my own cunt quivering in pain imagining that.

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14 points

The media are corporations also.

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10 points

Of course it didn’t.

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-12 points
*

I dont understand this, coffee is generally made with near boiling hot water. Many coffee machines make the coffee in front of your eyes. Of course its served boiling hot, no?

I mean her accident is extremely unfortunate, but her needing money for medical bills is a problem with society, not mcdonalds.

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19 points
*

Coffee is brewed near boiling, but the hottest it should be served is 60 degrees C, or around 140 degrees F. Basically her temperature was the same as it was literally coming out of the machine, no one takes a big gulp of coffee the second it comes out of the machine.

McDonalds kept their coffee as hot as possible to give the illusion it was fresher than it was. By keeping the coffee at 190-200F then they believed that customers would feel that the coffee was fresher, even though they knew it was unsafe to serve coffee that hot.

Larger places follow the same rules here, while coffee is brewed extremely hot it usually rests for a bit before serving unless a customer explicitly asks for it. In restaurants it’s served for you. Even Starbucks most of their drinks are milk based which cools the coffee, except for Americanos which are just espresso and hot water, and you’ll usually see those with an insulator cup to highlight that

Found this, which explains serving coffee better than I can. https://mtpak.coffee/2022/08/takeaway-cups-coffee-temperature-ideal-serving/

https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts

McDonald’s admitted it had known about the risk of serious burns from its scalding hot coffee for more than 10 years. The risk had repeatedly been brought to its attention through numerous other claims and suits.

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1 point

Many places here you get your coffee straight from the machine that brews it (as in you press the button yourself), far too hot to drink immediately.

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206 points
*

You can legally kill anyone related to someone who has had Disney+.

Iirc, the wife died, the husband sued, and they tried to say the husband can’t sue because HE had had the subscription a long time ago.

Each subscriber loses the right to sue for any of their loved ones.

After all, if they’re dead, they can’t sue you anyway

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44 points
*

If it really boils down to this, how can one fight back? I don’t wanna sit here and see these sad articles blow by, what can I do to tell Disney to fuck off. I did not sign up for this, I wanted to watch funny cartoons and superheroes like a normal person, and this is my reward? If suing them is futile, is storming their office and yelling at their corporate head about this any better? I’m pissed, and I can’t sit here and wait for other legal heads to shut this stupid clause down.

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59 points
*

If it really boils down to this, how can one fight back?

Historically? Guillotines in the village square, and/or Molotovs through the front windows of the overlords’ house. The rich learned a long time ago that when no other recourse is left, people will eventually turn to violence. And they learned that keeping the poors placated is a matter of life or death. Because money and fame won’t stop an angry mob, and even trained soldiers will get overwhelmed by sheer crowd size.

I believe Sun Tsu wrote something applicable in The Art of War, along the lines of “Always leave a surrounded army a way out. Show them a way to life so they will not be compelled to fight to the death. Because even an exhausted army will fight to the death if they have no other option.” So the rich and powerful set up systems that are heavily skewed in the rich’s favor, but at least attempt to appear fair on the surface. They set up a visible “way to life” so that people could at least feel like they had a viable way of fighting back without resorting to violence.

But recently, the rich and powerful seem to have forgotten that, and have dropped all pretext of fairness. Now it’s just blatant “you’re going to be killed and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Which means that the people are eventually going to be forced to fight to the death, because they’re cornered and see no other option. And I genuinely believe that if things carry on this same trajectory that people will turn to violence as a means of recourse, because it’s quickly becoming the only effective recourse that is within reach.

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13 points

I love this comment and Sun Tzu reference, thank you so much for posting it!

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47 points

As time goes on, I am more and more convinced that media piracy is morally acceptable.

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21 points

Always has been… none of this shit is new, just the audacity is amped up.

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12 points

I think media piracy is not only acceptable, but something that should be actively promoted by everyone. Piracy is the only way to preserve media for future generations.

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12 points

It’s a small thing, but for me it’s refusing to support them as much as I can. I don’t use Disney+ and try not to buy merchandise from their IPs. Admittedly this is both difficult since they own so. many. things. while also being a drop in the bucket for such a large company, but if enough folks feel the same, it can move the needle a small amount.

I also shared this message out on all my platforms (that of their shady practices) which influenced at least a few people to say they were distancing themselves from the mouse.

Ultimately though, corporations will always do what is best for their shareholders, and in this case, that means doing anything possible not to pay out, PR nightmare be damned. Meaningful legislation is really the only thing that puts guard rails on this behaviour, so my last recommendation really comes down to being vocal with your representatives that these things matter and voting accordingly. I recognize again this is a small thing but on-mass action like this is how change happens.

My two cents at least.

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10 points

Stop giving them money is about the only thing the average person can do.

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2 points
Deleted by creator
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22 points

It is a moral imperative for anyone who considers themselves to be a protector of their family to just pirate Disney shit instead

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21 points

He only had a free trial which makes it even crazier. Also I don’t know who thought an arbitration demand would apply to food vs a streaming service, but as insane as our court system is with judges siding with money I can’t see a judge feeling a TOS could be THAT fluid is like Nike refusing to return a pair of sneakers because you’re cousin owned a copy of NBA JAM in the 90’s, although you never played it.

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-60 points

This case has awful optics but it isn’t as insane as it is presented here. First, it’s just resolving things by arbitration not dismissing the suit completely. Second, Disney didn’t own the restaurant in question, it was on their property, and they promoted it on their website. Its reasonable that an arbitration agreement for something like disney+ could be extended to the use of their website.

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75 points

Binding arbitration is terrible for consumers:

“This is not like having judges, who get paid the same no matter what happens,” says Stanford Graduate School of Business finance professor Amit Seru, who collaborated on the study with Mark Egan at Harvard Business School and Gregor Matvos at the University of Texas at Austin. “Here, you only get paid if you’re selected as an arbitrator. They have incentives to slant toward the business side, because they know that those who don’t do so won’t get picked. Everyone knows what’s happening.”

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58 points

No, it is insane. I don’t know of other countries that allow a corporation to just not allow you to sue them and force you into arbitration.

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42 points

It is as insane as it sounds. Yes, alternative dispute resolution is perfectly commonplace and indeed in many countries - such as mine - there is an expectation that you attempt ADR before bringing a matter to court, unless there is some reason why you couldn’t.

That’s fine. That’s not an issue.

Disney claimed that due to the terms and conditions of the Disney+ video streaming service, anyone who has or had a subscription agrees to resolve any and all disputes with Disney through mediation and they therefore waive any recourse through the courts. For absolutely any form of dispute, even a wrongful death.

That is absolutely insane and evil to even attempt and there is no justifying it.

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35 points

it isn’t as insane as it is presented here

Arbitration aside, I think you’re forgetting these are terms from the streaming service.

If tomorrow I attack you, break your spine and you lose mobility for life, then I come back saying in 2011 you purchased an indie game I made and waived your right to sue me in the terms of service, that wouldn’t be insane? Suuure.

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20 points
*

They also agreed to a similar arbitration clause again when purchasing the park tickets. It is insane that the disney lawyers even mentioned disney+. They had a more recent and relevant agreement right there.

Either way, I hope they lose. Fuck disney and forced arbitration.

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9 points
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The restaurant in question wasn’t located in the park, so that clause was just as irrelevant.

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128 points

Always remember it’s morally ethical to yar har Disney content

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27 points

It is by far the best reason they could give anyone for being pro piracy. Forget the morality of it anymore, when the alternative is signing your life away it would be stupid to pay for it.

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4 points

we have killed satire and threw a dance party on its corps. How is this whole situation not just a funny article by the Onion

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2 points

Oh no, you’re not signing your life away. You’d be dead

You’re signing away the right to get any justice for those you care about

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1 point

I would say its both. You can’t have someone sue for you when you die, but even if you were severely harmed and lived, it implies you can’t sue then either. So I would say we are both correct.

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79 points

The restaurant was directly responsible for the woman’s death. The husband went after Disney because it was in Disney Springs and the website said the restaurant worked with allergies. It’s more the ghoulish lawyers

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38 points

It doesn’t change what Disney tried to do to get out of it.

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5 points

If I recall, Disney Springs is outside of the parks, basically an outside mall-type area with a bunch of third-party shops and restaurants. Disney is plenty evil, but they’re just the landlord in this situation.

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14 points

A landlord that owns a streaming service who tries to argue that usage of that streaming service allows them to not be sued by fucking up your food order.

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-1 points

Their other legal argument made more sense… They have nothing to do with food preparation done by one of the tenants.

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11 points

And I can’t think of many things more evil than a landlord

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2 points

I have less issues with landlords with commercial tenants… A lot of retailers do not want to own real estate or maintain properties. Residential landlords, on the other hand…

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8 points
*

I don’t know any other landlords that advertise and vouch their clients on their website.

I bet cafeterias or food courts have gotten sued for the same thing.

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0 points

You don’t? The malls, outlets, and high-end shopping centers around here certainly maintain a website as well as signage for their tenants.

If someone stopped at a Rest Stop and Baskin Robins errantly put tree nuts in their dish, I don’t of any legal precident making the Rest Stop owner liable.

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73 points

You are more physically, financially, mentally, and psychologically safe by pirating Disney content than legally renting it.

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