Janine Arslanian alleges “extensive and gross second and third degree burns to her right hand and arm” from a spill of Starbuck’s coffee. Gee, it couldn’t possibly be the case that the plaintiffs’ bar misled us when they said the Stella Liebeck v. McDonald’s coffee case (which we discussed Dec. 10) was unique because it was only McDonald’s coffee that was hot enough to cause serious burns, could it? (Jamie Herzlich, Newsday, Dec. 30).
Archive for 2004
Anthrax vaccination pseudoscience
Possum party poopers
The Appalachian town of Brasstown, North Carolina, had a tongue-in-cheek tradition of celebrating the new year by lowering, instead of a ball, a captured and fattened possum in a plexiglass cage, followed by a release of the animal. This New Year’s Eve, however, the hundreds of attendees were disappointed when, hours before the event, a PETA member threatened legal action against the organizer, who was sufficiently frightened off by the possibility of needing to hire lawyers to back off the annual event. (Jeffrey Gettleman, “A New Year’s Tradition Lives, but the 4-Legged Star Doesn’t”, New York Times, Jan. 2; Jeffrey Gettleman, “Keep Your Ball. We’ve Got the Possum.”, New York Times, Dec. 31). I suppose PETA wasn’t deterred by the anti-tort-reform propaganda going around the blogosphere that falsely implies that volunteers are protected from lawsuit (Dec. 12).