Re: WHY should the Railroad do anything???

Skip and anyone else who's interested.
A couple of years ago I had the good fortune to be able to speak with a person who was involved in the McDonald's suit. Apparently, some time prior to the incident you spoke of, the suits at McDonaldland HQ decided to use a new type of coffee maker, which could extract an extra 20% (or so) of coffee from the same amount they currently used. There was just one minor hitch... the coffee maker used water that was at the boiling point, instead of 160^o more commonly used. The bean counters were ecstatic. The suits decided that while there was an increased danger to the general public from the much hotter water (and as any high school physics student can tell you, boiling water holds a LOT of heat), they felt that the extra profit would outweigh the costs of an occasional suit. Mickey D's bean counters prevailed, and the scene was set for the woman (who originally sued for the cost of her medical treatment) who had severe second and third degree burns on her body, which were severe enough to require hospitalization (remember, this was not merely hot coffee, but boiling water.) These facts were brought up in the trial, and of course the court ruled in favor of the woman. In so doing, the court decided that a message should be sent to corporate America that this sort of attitude was irresponsible, and set the award accordingly. So a lot of otherwise well-meaning people decided that the "lawyers" (and I admit there are more than enough greedy lawyers out there) were the "bad guys" and poor Ronald McDonald was the victim.

Of course, you won't hear the full story on the Rush Limbaugh show. And you also won't hear that in appeal, the reward was significantly reduced.

So who was the bad guy here? The Corporate Suits or a woman who was sufficiently severely burnt to require hospitalization (remember, her original suit was to recover her medical costs).

Bill Daniels
Tucson AZ