[thechat] rebel without a clause

[deke]

On 29 Oct 2002 at 14:07, aardvark posted a message which said:

> > I sometimes wonder if the harder we try to make the world a safer
> > place the more stupid people become.

> i suspect you fear is accurate... didn't some people just sue fast
> food chains for making them fat?  didn't mcdonald's settle for a
> woman pouring coffee in her lap?

The interesting part of that lawsuit will be seeing them try to prove
that changing your diet results in permanent weight change. Of all the
peer-reviewed studies published to date, exactly *zero* have shown that
you can permanently lose much weight through dietary restriction, and
exactly *zero* have shown that you can permanently gain much weight
through eating too much. There's only a temporary gain or loss of up to
10% of your body weight.

In the McDonald's case, the woman had permanent scarring and
disfigurement, and $20,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses, in
addition to being bedridden and having to be cared for by her family
for months. She asked for the $20,000, and McDonalds refused to pay a
dime.

In the suit, McDonalds not only admitted that the coffee was unsafe,
but that they knew the coffee was unsafe, since over 700 *other* people
had asked them to pay medical bills from coffee burns, and that they
were still at the time of the trial, serving coffee which could not be
drunken.

McDonalds got lucky. Someone *should* have seen the inside of a cell
for criminal assault.

deke




--
99% of lawyers give the other 1% a bad name