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Off-Topic BEWARE: Chicken Nugget
- Thread starter Empirical Cane
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Porque? It appears to be a frivolous lawsuit
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I would assume because a mother should have a reasonable expectation that getting a happy meal for their kid means the food won’t be so hot as to burn the kid.
The only McDonald’s SOP for McNuggets I could find was for the Philippines, and it notes maximum times in the warming tray (post fryer), but does not mention minimum times to my knowledge. That sort of surprised me.
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Why? Because they still go to McDonald's?
My boss at ISC/NASCAR, his daughter was at an arena football game and got hit in the face with a football, had to have surgery. They paid him a settlement.
His daughter still goes to football games.
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The McNuggets are usually picked up with tongs, not bare hands. And the mother passed the Happy Meal to the girl while it was in a box.
I have no idea why the nugget was so hot, whether it was hotter than normal, or anything. I just know that the facts say it lodged between the seatbelt and the skin. So however hot it was, it was stuck there for a period of time before anyone could dislodge it.
A similar thing was true in the "hot coffee" case, the old woman was in a "bucket seat" with her seatbelt on. The hot coffee had nowhere to go and it scalded her for a period of time before anyone could open the door, unlock the seatbelt, etc.
Bottom line, I don't think these cases are "frivolous" (cases with NO justification), though the argument can be made that the damages might be too high given the facts of the case. McDonald's, and any other "drive-through" fast food joint, has a fine line to walk, and should have good insurance for these kinds of things.
Like it or not, we have NO IDEA how hot things are that are being handed to us through a window. We just don't. And we also have to be honest, sometimes the "tops" on these things are not great. Just met my brother's family yesterday at Chipotle while they were driving through, and when I went to put the top on my soda and lift it, the top was as flimsy as could be. I immediately spilled half the soda. It is VERY easy to for fast foot to spill/leak, and drive-through doesn't make the process any easier.
I do sympathize with both the restaurant and the customer. Let's not forget, one of the pieces of evidence that was played at trial was a recording of the girl screaming. Like it or not, that has an impact on the jury.
Mickey D's needs to get its insurance, negotiation, and settlement game on-point. Not sure why they keep low-balling people and then losing the PR battle when these cases go to court.
Two wrongs dont make a right
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Nothing frivolous about the lawsuit whatsoever, they deserved every penny.
You know I respect your opinion, but you havent explained why it wasnt frivolous.
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The injury happened. We can all disagree as to the AMOUNT of the damages, but the underlying event took place. A frivolous lawsuit would involve a slip-and-fall that did not happen, or that was exaggerated.
I don't think anyone is saying that the little girl was not, in fact, burned by the chicken nugget, thus the lawsuit is not frivolous. A doctor diagnosed second degree burns. That is meaningful.
I will caveat this with a couple of points.
(A) As a basic point, I've always had an issue with the whole argument "but there was no written warning on the packaging", which is just a joke IN THIS SITUATION.
First, it was a drive-through scenario, and one cannot possibly envision a world in which people read warnings on packaging being handed to them through a drive-through window.
Second, the person injured was a little girl, I believe she was 4 at the time. There's no way a written warning on the packaging would have impacted HER understanding or assumption of risk. I wish we could just be honest and say that if a piece of food is SO **** HOT that it does not cool down (a) while being put into a box, (b) while being put into a bag, (c) while being passed out of a drive-through window, and then (d) being passed to the back seat of a car...then you have a bad situation. That chicken nugget caused second degree burns. Something is not right here.
We've all watched cooking shows. You're supposed to REST your steak before cutting and eating it. Maybe McDonald's needs to figure out how to rest the McNuggets. I'm not saying they can't be hot AT ONE TIME, but maybe there should be more time in between "fryer" and "child's lap". The McNugget is not suddenly going to contract listeria in that one minute of cooldown.
(B) As a settlement point, McDonald's offered 156K, the lawsuit asked for $15M, the verdict was for $800K, and the family's lawyer still views it as a win. Maybe, just maybe, we need to figure out an arbitration system or some other methodology that is something other than "ridiculously low offer and ridiculously high claim". We've got to have a better system for what is likely a common situation, which is "damage or injury caused by drive-through misadventure".
That is all.
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Point B is spot on and the only way that frivolous lawsuits will be discouraged. FL has a pre-lawsuit process for medical malpractice claims for this reason.
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I believe declining a very reasonable $20K pre-suit demand was a mistake. The $156K settlement offer before trial seemed much more reasonable to me, but I haven't seen her meds.
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