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Burglar's family awarded $300,000 in wrongful death suit

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I don't think you appreciate the difference between never and improbable. In fact, your buddy AdamT was just arguing with Ikari about this difference being significant. Ikari pointed out that, based on statistics, it's wildly improbable that your McDonald's Coffee is hot enough to severely burn you. AdamT says that even though this probability is approximately 0.0, the fact that it's not is a big deal.

You seem to have misunderstood the argument. McDonalds coffee was *always* hot enough to burn you. It happened on average 70 times a year.
 
Those engaged in felonies should have no recourse in either criminal or civil courts for damages they suffer in the course of their illegal transactions
 
You seem to have misunderstood the argument. McDonalds coffee was *always* hot enough to burn you. It happened on average 70 times a year.

Happening 70 times in a year is a far cry from *always*, unless McDonalds sells only 70 coffees that year. Do lawyers think *sometimes* means *always*?
 
Happening 70 times in a year is a far cry from *always*, unless McDonalds sells only 70 coffees that year. Do lawyers think *sometimes* means *always*?

Now you seem to misunderstand the context of the word always as used above. Do mathematics students always have trouble understanding English?

The coffee was always hot enough to cause third degree burns but coffee was not always spilled on flesh.
 
The coffee was always hot enough to cause third degree burns but coffee was not always spilled on flesh.

In fact it was exceedingly rare for it to be spilled on the flesh long enough to cause third degree burns.
 
In fact it was exceedingly rare for it to be spilled on the flesh long enough to cause third degree burns.

Yes, on a per-coffee basis. Not rare at all on an annual basis.
 
Now you seem to misunderstand the context of the word always as used above. Do mathematics students always have trouble understanding English?

The coffee was always hot enough to cause third degree burns but coffee was not always spilled on flesh.

You actually believe that every single cup of coffee served by McDonalds was hot enough to cause third degree burns? Give me a damn break! Common sense suggests there are customers who have complained their coffee is too cold, and thus third degree burns could not be caused even if it was poured on your sensitive areas.
 
You actually believe that every single cup of coffee served by McDonalds was hot enough to cause third degree burns? Give me a damn break! Common sense suggests there are customers who have complained their coffee is too cold, and thus third degree burns could not be caused even if it was poured on your sensitive areas.

Well, it seems like you're running into that problem discussed above, where you don't know the facts so you can't formulate an informed opinion. If you did have a better command of the facts you would know that McDonalds conceded this point. All of their coffee makers were set to a temperature such that coffee could induce third degree burns.
 
Those engaged in felonies should have no recourse in either criminal or civil courts for damages they suffer in the course of their illegal transactions

Would you extend this opinion to murderers? Such as the defendants in this particular case?
 
Yes, on a per-coffee basis. Not rare at all on an annual basis.

A non-zero number of people win the lottery too...doesn't make it a good bet.
 
A non-zero number of people win the lottery too...doesn't make it a good bet.

It's a pretty safe bet if the wager is how many winning tickets there will be.
 
since none of us are involved in the jury process, and since there were no criminal proceedings, and since none of us had a relevant bearing on whether or not there WOULD be criminla charges, ALL that remains is opinion. My personal opinion is that a meth addict armed with three knives including one strapped to his leg is a dangerous human being. Meth addicts are not exactly famous for their mental stability and capacity for reasoned rational choices...especially when they are specifically on a mission to get money to score more meth. Id be a little interested in seeing the autopsy photos and just how much brain damage he had suffered. Wicked beastie, meth is.

I disagree...it ISNT about whether or not laws were broken. The county prosecutor and grand jury spoke pretty clearly on that issue. Opinion on if the law should change...well...isnt that what everyone is expressing? their opinion? As to the civil award...its not really relevant to what the girl needs...what is relevant is what she was deprived of and what the father could reasonably be expected to provide. Anything over a jury award of say...12 bucks...Id say that was stretching things a bit.


How do you not see the hypocrisy in your own post? On the one hand you think the fact that there was no grand jury proves the innocence of the killers, then the next paragraph you go on to say that the jury award was a stretch. The jury is only right when it suit your arguement, doesn't it?

After noting that you yourself were not on the jury, and thus not privy to the information they do, you then go on to give your opinion as if it means anything.

You claiming that they didn't break any law is part of the debate of whether or not law were broken - if someone were to disagree with the jury (which you do when the decision is not to your liking).

If you think that what she was deprived is of more relevance than what she needs - that's good - it's a fact that she was deprived of a living father by the killers, whether she might want or need him or not, so I think that you at least, should stop using the argument that he was a meth-head dad anyway as a reason against the jury's decision.
 
It's a pretty safe bet if the wager is how many winning tickets there will be.

That's never the wager though. It's a good bet that 3000+ people will die from driving each year too, but what's the chance you'll die.

See if you skip the statistics, you skip information which is important. Now someone on this thread was raving about flimsy lids or whatever for McDonald's cups. But is 0.000007% really indicative of a design flaw? You can cite the absolute number and say 70/year, it would be a good idea to turn the temp down on that. Not unreasonable. But if you look at the 0.000007% you see that this was not a design failure on McDonald's part, but rather more indicative of operator error.
 
That's never the wager though. It's a good bet that 3000+ people will die from driving each year too, but what's the chance you'll die.

See if you skip the statistics, you skip information which is important. Now someone on this thread was raving about flimsy lids or whatever for McDonald's cups. But is 0.000007% really indicative of a design flaw? You can cite the absolute number and say 70/year, it would be a good idea to turn the temp down on that. Not unreasonable. But if you look at the 0.000007% you see that this was not a design failure on McDonald's part, but rather more indicative of operator error.

The chances that any individual will die driving are slim; does that mean that we shouldn't worry about traffic safety? Of course not.
 
The chances that any individual will die driving are slim; does that mean that we shouldn't worry about traffic safety? Of course not.

And as I said (you were so smarmy against others when they didn't read things you wrote, maybe you should keep that in mind), lowering the temp of the coffee is fine. Taking them to court over the temp of the coffee is fine. But when you go to award a plaintiff, you should keep in mind the proper probabilities since there is information in those. Was it truly a problem is McDonald's cups? No. If they had a real problem, it wouldn't be a .000007% report rate. People in the end must understand a bit of math and statistics, these are important things when trying to quantify a system. You seem like you are most willing to skip over that and completely ignore it. It's unfortunate that one would advocate purposefully the denial of information in such a manner. It is a symptom of what I believe to be the big problem particularly in our judicial system. No one is thinking.

We should be nominally concerned for traffic safety, but also because of the probabilities involved; I wouldn't freak out about it. It's relatively safe, even though cars kill more people in the US than terrorists.
 
I've known someone who was struck by lightning too. Does that mean we should force the populace to stay indoors on days even remotely overcast?

Oh by the way, the chances of getting struck by lightning? Much higher than someone spilling hot McDonalds coffee on their dumb selves.
 
And as I said (you were so smarmy against others when they didn't read things you wrote, maybe you should keep that in mind), lowering the temp of the coffee is fine. Taking them to court over the temp of the coffee is fine. But when you go to award a plaintiff, you should keep in mind the proper probabilities since there is information in those. Was it truly a problem is McDonald's cups? No. If they had a real problem, it wouldn't be a .000007% report rate. People in the end must understand a bit of math and statistics, these are important things when trying to quantify a system. You seem like you are most willing to skip over that and completely ignore it. It's unfortunate that one would advocate purposefully the denial of information in such a manner. It is a symptom of what I believe to be the big problem particularly in our judicial system. No one is thinking.

We should be nominally concerned for traffic safety, but also because of the probabilities involved; I wouldn't freak out about it. It's relatively safe, even though cars kill more people in the US than terrorists.

I'm not ignoring it at all. I'm saying that it is beside the point when they knew that on average 70 people were getting seriously injured every year as a result of their too-high coffee temperature. That's the point that you are ignoring.
 
I've known someone who was struck by lightning too. Does that mean we should force the populace to stay indoors on days even remotely overcast?

Oh by the way, the chances of getting struck by lightning? Much higher than someone spilling hot McDonalds coffee on their dumb selves.

No, but it does mean that, e.g. public pools should not allow kids to swim in electrical storms. It's also a bit easier to lower the temperature of a coffee pot than it is to prevent lightning.
 
It's also a bit easier to lower the temperature of a coffee pot than it is to prevent lightning.

and then you'll get some retard suing for false advertizing because the coffee isn't "hot" and some jury of idiots will award them $$$$$$$
 
I'm not ignoring it at all. I'm saying that it is beside the point when they knew that on average 70 people were getting seriously injured every year as a result of their too-high coffee temperature. That's the point that you are ignoring.

No, I'm NOT ignoring it. Are you reading what I write, or are you just cherry picking and then making up the rest? I have said, please read because this is getting annoying, the people is cause enough for concern. That it was grounds to bring lawsuit against McDonald's and that it is fine to take them to court because of it. The woman did have valid reason to go to court. I even previously state (near to when we got on this tangent) that I would not have absolved McDonald's completely of wrong doing. There would be no market response since the probability of this happening was in the noise, you can use the courts to force the response. That's not a bad thing. I need you to pay attention, to read, and to think because some of you more emotional type seem to believe I'm saying something I'm not.

The absolute value is fine, it too has information and was pertinent to the court case as it demonstrated that McDonald's has known that at least on rare occasion their coffee was so hot that it could cause significant damage. I'm not ignoring that number. My contention was the initial award because that was completely out of line with the rest of the case. The judge had to in a sense "fix" it. That number was an emotional response, not a rational decision. A jury must above all be rational. And it is in this last and final stage in which that probability is really going to come into play. It does have information, and it does have information that is related to LIABILITY. And that's what these courts try to decide, yes? So it's not beside the point. Some people are spouting problem with flimsy lid or whatever. Is it a problem? Is it McDonald's fault? This is where that ratio is really becoming important because it can demonstrate fault. But what that ratio said is that there was no structural problem with the cup/lid and that the vast majority of people are able to consume McDonald's coffee unharmed. There were limited reports of people burning themselves, it's in the noise. So rationally, do you believe that McDonald's should have moved, that it should have had some form of market response to the noise? No, it's not reasonable to assume that. Therefore, while McDonald's does bear fault because they did now that on RARE occasion people burned themselves, it is unreasonable given the occurrence of that related to the amount of coffee sold that they would on their own change that behavior. Furthermore it demonstrates that the burn rate is dominated by operator, not equipment.

See how both come in? See how I'm using both, not ignoring one? This is assimilation of data into a logical and reasonable argument process. This is what needs to go on. People need to think.

I'm not ignoring those 70 a year. I'm saying that because of the injuries sustained, that there are multiple cases of this happening; there is more than enough reason to bring this case to court. I do not advocate legislating away a person's ability to access the courts, nor limits on awards from juries; I believe the woman had ever right and reason to bring this to court, that McDonald's seriously f'ed up on this one. I even agree that McDonald's shares fault. Now I think because of the probabilities as stake here, it should have been clear that they hold the minority fault; but whatever. But we need to keep juries rational, instruct them well, tell them to think. My contention is that we are losing rational thought in the process, and the original McDonald's award is proof positive of that. Damages were 10,500. McDonald's rationally should have had to share a fraction of that. What we got instead was emotional response by the jury to the tune of what was it like 2 million or something? It can't be excused. You can't get that value from 10,500.

Do you understand what I am saying now? When Texas passed (was it Texas? I think so) the loser pays law; I spoke out against it. I think it is absurd and damaging to the system. I like the system, I like the jury standard. I want to maintain the system at the high standard it deserves. But it requires rational, logical, emotionless thought. That is essential to weigh fact and fiction and to quantify a case; even more so in criminal case when jury needs to weigh crime and law together. What makes me mad is that I do believe that lawyers currently monkey with the system to produce the exact opposite. It may be the procedure is the same as always, but I think the intent has most certainly changed on the behalf of lawyers. If I were to advocate anything, it would be in this dynamic to limit how much lawyers can engineer juries.
 
and then you'll get some retard suing for false advertizing because the coffee isn't "hot" and some jury of idiots will award them $$$$$$$

If you knew anyone with special needs you might choose your words a little more carefully. Not that I've come to expect anything less than utter immaturity from you.

PROTIP: If you're going to deride people with intellectual disabilities, you might want to learn how to spell "advertising" correctly.
 
If you knew anyone with special needs you might choose your words a little more carefully. Not that I've come to expect anything less than utter immaturity from you.

PROTIP: If you're going to deride people with intellectual disabilities, you might want to learn how to spell "advertising" correctly.

a single tear rolls down my cheek.
 
Ikari said:
Do you understand what I am saying now? When Texas passed (was it Texas? I think so) the loser pays law; I spoke out against it. I think it is absurd and damaging to the system.

Can you elaborate? Is it strictly that if you lose in any case you may be found financially liable by the court, or is it just plaintiffs in frivolous suits? Obviously it would be a bad idea to send a bill to a legitimate loser of a case just on the basis that they did not get a favorable judgment for any number of reasons. However, making frivolous cases (and lawyers) liable for ambulance-chaser cases would be good. It'd decrease the bogus litigation we get running through our system every day. It would also force more burden of proof on "victims" to make sure that their inconvenience is genuine and, at least mostly, the fault of the other party.
 
Would you extend this opinion to murderers? Such as the defendants in this particular case?

Again these men are not murderers. If what these men did was murder then they would have been tried and convicted. You seem to forget that murder is nothing more than a legal technicality. Those poor shop owners did not meet that definition of that legal technicality. The fact they have an open and shut case that they shot the burglar but did not have a trial and did not even attempt to plea bargain proves that what these shop owners did was not murder.
 
And as I said (you were so smarmy against others when they didn't read things you wrote, maybe you should keep that in mind), lowering the temp of the coffee is fine. Taking them to court over the temp of the coffee is fine. But when you go to award a plaintiff, you should keep in mind the proper probabilities since there is information in those. Was it truly a problem is McDonald's cups? No. If they had a real problem, it wouldn't be a .000007% report rate. People in the end must understand a bit of math and statistics, these are important things when trying to quantify a system. You seem like you are most willing to skip over that and completely ignore it. It's unfortunate that one would advocate purposefully the denial of information in such a manner. It is a symptom of what I believe to be the big problem particularly in our judicial system. No one is thinking.

We should be nominally concerned for traffic safety, but also because of the probabilities involved; I wouldn't freak out about it. It's relatively safe, even though cars kill more people in the US than terrorists.

This goes back to one of my arguments about requiring some top notch math skills to be on a jury. Regardless of whether it's a criminal or civil trial, many things (including the verdict) are based on probability. Calculus may not be necessary, but a sound understanding of probability is crucial.
 
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