funny government/lawyer/judicial/political stories

[Dark Moth]

Saw this story in an e-mail I got today! Read it and see what you think.

 

"A Charlotte, NC lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire, among other things. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

 

In his Claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost in a series of small fires. The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

 

The lawyer sued

Edited August 27, 2005 by Hydrogen

[Petay]

great story, and your right; only in America

[BattleCookiee]

Does this happen every month in the US?

 

Or does a single event gets repeated all the time.

 

Must be the 10th time I heard it (all on different places)

[Volourn]

That is just... I ... uhh.. eh.. H E L P!

[alanschu]

[metadigital]

He really should have thought it through, being a lawyer.

 

The best part is he won't be able to practise law, because he now has a criminal conviction.

[kumquatq3]

link?

 

what to make sure it's real

[Calax]

That should go to the Stella awards for review.

 

For those who don't know the Stella's are an award for the most friolous lawsuits in the world. They came from the woman who burned herself on McDonalds Coffee

 

and the link

http://www.stellaawards.com/

 

and a rebuttal to the stella awars by the ATLA (by my guess a bunch of lawyers) because they feel that

Urban myths like the "Stella Awards" aren't just cute or harmless jabs at trial lawyers and our legal system. They clearly are part of a massive disinformation campaign designed to undermine Americans' confidence in our legal system and to benefit powerful corporate interests at the expense of average people harmed by corporate wrongdoing and indifference

http://www.atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx

[kirottu]

Great Stuff, Mothman! :D

[Reveilled]

Y'know, the McDonalds coffee lawsuit actually wasn't frivoulous. McDonalds had reduced the amount of real coffee in their coffees, and so they heated the coffee well beyond industry standards with the intention of burning people's tastebuds so that they wouldn't be able to taste the difference. Had the coffee been heated to a normal temperature, the woman would have suffered no worse than superficial burns, when she suffered third degree burns instead.

[Calax]

Y'know, the McDonalds coffee lawsuit actually wasn't frivoulous.  McDonalds had reduced the amount of real coffee in their coffees, and so they heated the coffee well beyond industry standards with the intention of burning people's tastebuds so that they wouldn't be able to taste the difference.  Had the coffee been heated to a normal temperature, the woman would have suffered no worse than superficial burns, when she suffered third degree burns instead.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

actually the industry standard set by the National Coffee Association of America recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit". (Source: NCAUSA.)

[Reveilled]

Y'know, the McDonalds coffee lawsuit actually wasn't frivoulous.  McDonalds had reduced the amount of real coffee in their coffees, and so they heated the coffee well beyond industry standards with the intention of burning people's tastebuds so that they wouldn't be able to taste the difference.  Had the coffee been heated to a normal temperature, the woman would have suffered no worse than superficial burns, when she suffered third degree burns instead.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

actually the industry standard set by the National Coffee Association of America recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit". (Source: NCAUSA.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sorry, poor phrasing. WHat I meant was "well beyond the temperatures to which other establishments heat their coffee", but couldn't think of another way of phrasing it that wasn't cumbersomely long. I didn't even know there was an official industry standard.

 

Either way, that sort of temperature would burn your throat if you drunk it immediately.

[Volourn]

The McDonalds case was frivilous. And, so is the cigar-fire cases. Both the cigar company, and the lawyer should be ahsamed. As if the guy was thrown in prison for smoking cigars.

 

Whatever.

[Guest Fishboot]

It makes me uncomfortable that anyone believed the original post for even a moment.

 

And put me in the "not frivolous" camp for the coffee suit - McDonalds demonstrated negligence - they just made the coffee too damn hot. I'm not sure if people really grasp what third degree burns mean - the skin was destroyed all the way down to the fatty layer. People who are too young (or too foreign ) to remember how ridiculously hot that coffee was should listen to their elder say that, yes, it was extremely dangerous for no apparent reason. The apple pies they sold also used to be filled with apple magma that would turn the roof of your mouth into strings of burned meat if bitten into.

 

I often wonder if the popularization of the "frivolous lawsuit" meme is the work of some force bent on removing the last vestige of power individuals have over corporations.

 

Edit - For people too stupid to see how transparently false the original post was, Snopes.

[Volourn]

If the coffee was 'too damn hot' the woman should use her brain i.e her common sense... ie. her intelligence... ie her IQ (all 10 points of it) and not drink it until it cools down. Or not spill it. She wa sbrain dead. She deserved to suffer the burns.

 

It was a frivilous lawsuit deisgned to STEAL money from a business. People don't care though because hey it's only McDonalds. They have billions of dollars anyways.

 

Meh.

[Oerwinde]

If the coffee was 'too damn hot' the woman should use her brain i.e her common sense... ie. her intelligence... ie her IQ (all 10 points of it) and not drink it until it cools down. Or not spill it. She wa sbrain dead. She deserved to suffer the burns.

 

It was a frivilous lawsuit deisgned to STEAL money from a business. People don't care though because hey it's only McDonalds. They have billions of dollars anyways.

 

Meh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And thats why they put cup holders in cars. If it had been in the cup holder instead of between her legs, then maybe she could have avoided being burned.

[Cantousent]

I don't disagree with the lady taking McDonalds to court. Nor do I disagree with a monetary award. I disagree, most strenuously, with the amount she received. She did, after all, have a hand in her own accident, carrying a cup of hot coffee between her legs. Corporations, evil thought they are, should not be accountable for every risk the consumer takes. So, the coffee was too hot? Undoubtedly. Did the lady deserve to win the lottery as a result of her own indiscretion? Absolutely not.

[metadigital]

Perhaps the punitive award might have been donated to a charity of her choice, rather than given to her?

[Calax]

well it's better than the guy who took winnabego to court because he used his cruise control as an autopilot on a windy road. I think that one has been debunked but... there was also a kid who got taken to court for getting 1million through fraud and ended up getting thrown from the baseball team for it. He then sued the school because he said he was going to become a Pro Baseball player but now he can't becaue he got tossed from the team and no scouts would see him. He promply sued the school for 50 million

[metadigital]

Sounds like crap, to me.

 

I do know that burglars who have been injured, in flagrant delicto, by the homeowner have successfully sued their "victims" for compensation in the UK.

[Calax]

one of the debunked stellas is a guy who was stealing sombody's hubcap and got his hand run over for his trouble and ended up winning an exorberant amount of money for the damage to his hand. Another is a guy who got locked in the garage of the house he was burgling and survived on Dogbiscuts and pepsi then sued the owners of the house because the garage door wouldn't open (it was automatic and the burgler cut the power to the house).

[Gabrielle]

Only in America can people get away with stupid sh*t.

[Judge Hades]

Well, this lawyer didn't. (w00t)

[Gabrielle]

I recall a neat quote from a Shakespeare play, forgot which one but it goes something like "kill all the lawyers.."

[Dark Moth]

I did some snooping on Google, and the 'arson' story has appeared in numerous places. From what I gathered, it might be an urban myth. But hey, even if it's fake, I still got a kick out of reading it. That's why I posted it in the first place.

 

 

Only in America can people get away with stupid sh*t.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sadly, yes. There was this one case where two obese girls sued McDonald's for making them fat. Thankfully they didn't win, but there have been cases like that popping up everywhere.

 

Hmm...maybe I should change this to a "frivolous lawsuit" thread?