Coffee, Tea or Sue
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <4/12>

      There is a coming prohibition of coffee. It is not coming because caffeine is addictive. It is coming because coffee is hot. And because it is hot it is dangerous. And if it is dangerous it must be banned.
      I know this is coming because the activist types, the save people from themselves types, the no one is responsible for themselves types are supporting the civil award against MacDonald's for the injury from a hot coffee spill.
      Fact, the coffee was at 180 degrees when the other chains keep it at 160 degrees. The woman put it between her legs and removed the lid provided by MacDonald's. For some reason it spilled and she was injured.
      That sacred place between our legs, regardless of sex, always gets our attention. Let us start with 180 degrees. Who is acting safely in this world?
      Go out to your water heater and open the plate the covers the temperature setting. Yes, it has one. Read the temperature you hot water is set for. It should be 120 if you have a dishwasher and 110 if not or something in between if you don't care. Now run the hot water until it is hottest, take a cup of it and baptize your nether regions.
      OK, we agree 180 degrees is not the issue here. No one is that dumb. Hot is hot, pain is pain and to be avoided, that injury occurred is an consequence of dumbness not temperature.
      As all of us have been burned to some degree it is presumed we all know the difference between a burn and a BURN! It is hard to imagine an adult that does not know the difference. We all know that pain is the indication of pending injury and the greater the pain the greater the injury.
      Let us assume for the moment that you have a car with expensive leather interior or that you are merely normal and do not like a dirty car. You buy a huge sugar sweetened cola drink from MacDonald's. It is given to you with a cover and a straw. Do you immediately put it between your legs and take off the cover in a moving car?
      Maybe you do. I don't.
      Next step. You have been drinking coffee long enough to want to order it rather than having it served to you as a custom. You do not care to know the least about the measure of temperature in degrees. Sometime in this acquaintance with coffee you have learned the word "hot" applies. You immediately take off the cover, put it between your legs in a moving vehicle just to see how long it takes to spill.
      Are you for real?
      Now, despite all knowledge of the effect of moving vehicles on liquids, despite the knowledge of the mess spillage makes, despite the knowledge of the effects of temperatures upon nether regions, despite all knowledge of coffee, you put hot liquid between your legs in a moving vehicle and remove the lid that would inhibit spills.
      And you shout, "They should not have sold it to me."
      What am I missing here? The normal expectation is that adults, defined as old enough to drive, know all about the relationship of pain to injury, know that hot is pain, know the behavior of liquids in moving vehicles and know the response of the nether regions to pain. What am I missing in saying the injured party knew all the dangers of her actions when she did them?
      Maybe this person had never been in a car in her life, had never known coffee, had never knew the risk of hot water. That is all possible. But then, in absence of experience in any of these factors had this person never faced any unknowns such that caution was not a learned response in the face of something new?
      This verdict is more of what one would expect to be awarded a five year old than an adult. Everyone is granted between ten and a hundred lapses in judgement a day but that does not make anyone else responsible for them. What possible grounds are there here?
      Injury is a function of temperature, time and quantity. Every cook has had specks of hot grease hit them twice the temperature of this coffee and no more than a sting. Everyone has pulled away from something hot before there is damage. That all three come into play is true. Focussing upon temperature is unrealistic.
      And quantity is the issue here. The quantity of hot coffee was made possible because the cover was removed. Why was the cover removed? To make it easier to add whatever sugar and cream or equivalents were requested. Can they be poured into the small opening in the lid? Yes. Were they? No. Why? Convenience of the nerf brain disregarding all life experience and being injured because of that disregard.
      You be the judge. Your guest sticks his finger in an empty light bulb socket and you should have known he would do so and you are liable. Your guest sees a glowing hot burner one your stove and leans on it with his hand and you are liable.
      You trust an attorney and you lose and he is liable.
      Don't we wish.