Posts Tagged ‘McDonald’s’

McDonald’s coffee still hot in Oregon

Aurora Hill alleges that McDonald’s coffee is “extremely hot in the extreme” and caused nervous shock, pain, and scarring when it spilled on her. (Aimee Green, The Oregonian, Feb. 4).

You may recall that part of the trial lawyer fiction about the merits of the infamous Stella Liebeck suit was that it supposedly successfully caused fast food restaurants to lower the temperature of coffee so that no one would ever be burned again.

My faith in humanity is encouraged when I see that the poll of Consumerist blog readers on the topic marks 86% for the option “Hot coffee is hot. Deal with it” on a blog that usually is reflexively pro-trial lawyer. Ironically, I wouldn’t count this suit as entirely meritless: Hill alleges that McDonald’s workers failed to adequately affix the lid to the cup, causing the spill as they handed her the coffee in the drive-through, which, if true, would strike me as actionable.

Filed under: eat drink and be merry, hot coffee, McDonald's, Oregon

Update on Ogborn v. McDonald’s

Those of you who have attended my “Law of McDonald’s” talks in California and Florida may recall the case of the strip search hoax. A Florida man who was unusually persuasive would call dozens of fast food restaurants until he could find someone who would believe he was with the police and who would disrobe employees (or themselves) at his instructions; though there have been other lawsuits seeking to blame the fast food restaurants for this, courts have generally thrown them out. One exception was the case of Ogborn v. McDonald’s, where two targets of the hoax successfully sued for millions. On Friday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals largely affirmed the lower court judgment, though it reduced the punitive damages received by Donna Summers (who gave an Alford guilty plea for her role in the strip search) from $1 million to $400,000. McDonald’s hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court. (Andrew Wolfson, “Appeals court upholds $6.1 million strip-search verdict against McDonald’s”, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Nov. 20, via ABA Journal).

Filed under: criminals who sue, deep pocket, failure to warn, Kentucky, McDonald's, personal responsibility, punitive damages, strip search hoax, third party liability for crime, workplace

October 10 roundup

Greenwich, Connecticut real estate board may discipline member whose blog (often linked in this space) regularly pokes fun at overpriced houses. Antitrust/First Amendment problem? [Chris Fountain, For What It’s Worth]
“Religious group sued for allegedly inciting harm through prayers” [USA Today]
Legally driven waste of water in parched California should reopen Endangered Species Act debate [Max Schulz, American Spectator] “More Unintended Consequences — Endangered Species Edition” [Ronald Bailey, Reason; related AEI panel]
“Apple v Woolworth re Apple Logos In Australia” [Trademark Blog]
Speaking of Australia, Consumers Union’s Consumerist site publishes fake “Aussie McDonald’s fraud plot” memo as real — revises post later, but without mentioning it was taken in by hoax [HardArticle]
Pennsylvania couple learns about squatter’s-rights law the hard way [Hazleton Standard Speaker]
Maybe Saratoga Springs, N.Y. will let middle schoolers bike — or even walk! — to school [Albany Times-Union, Lenore Skenazy/Free Range Kids, Patrick at Popehat, Doug Mataconis/Liberty Papers]
Milberg, the disgraced class action firm of Mel Weiss and Bill Lerach fame, is hot again [NLJ]

Filed under: Apple, Australia, Bill Lerach, California, churches, Connecticut, endangered species, McDonald's, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, Pennsylvania, real estate, schools, trademarks, urban legends about lawsuits

October 2 roundup

Update: “Cash4Gold Drops Consumerist From Lawsuit” [its report; earlier] Unrelatedly, the same Consumers Union publication was taken in by a fake memo in which Australian McDonald’s supposedly plotted to defraud its customers [its revised post]
“You just killed the homeowner. The bad guy is in there.” [Courthouse News and Scott Greenfield, Phoenix]
“Reporter Who Survived Midair Crash Now on Risky ‘Libel Tourism’ Journey” [ABA Journal, Krauss/Point of Law, earlier; Joe Sharkey, Brazil]
Permanent disbarment sought for “too drunk to join fen-phen conspiracy” Kentucky lawyer Mills [Courier-Journal]
“Woman Blames Study Abroad Program for Rape in Mali” [OnPoint News]
Ninth Circuit reinstates prosecution of Nevada lawyer, surgeon and consultant in injury-case furor spotlighted by Fortune mag [Legally Unbound, which by coincidence has just hosted Blawg Review #231; Las Vegas Review Journal; earlier]
Punch line ad lib.: “Former terrorist wants to be lawyer” [Toronto Star] More: Lowering the Bar.
“Is It So Crazy For A Patent Attorney To Think Patents Harm Innovation?” [Michael Masnick, Techdirt, Against Monopoly (Stephen Kinsella)]

Filed under: Australia, Brazil, fraud, Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud, libel slander and defamation, McDonald's, Nevada, Ninth Circuit, patent law, Phoenix, police, third party liability for crime

“Hot coffee is back!”

In an op-ed in the Examiner last week, I express curiosity why the trial bar continues to insist that the infamous McDonald’s coffee case came out correctly decided, to the point that trial lawyer blogs express excitement that a documentary is going to be made about the subject. Of course, if the movie just parrots the urban legends trial lawyers have spread about the case, that would be something else—the fact that the filmmaker was fundraising at the AAJ convention but hasn’t shown her face around any of the tort reform conventions suggests a certain direction about the film.

Speaking of McDonald’s, I’ll be in the Bay Area next week at a couple of law schools giving a presentation called “The Law of McDonald’s: Hot Coffee, Obesity, and Prank Phone Calls” : Golden Gate University Law School on September 10, and UC-Davis on September 11. I’ll also be at UC-Berkeley Law on September 8, and Santa Clara University Law on September 9 talking more generally about tort reform and patent reform specifically.

Filed under: AAJ, hot coffee, McDonald's, Stella Liebeck, Ted Frank, urban legends about lawsuits

Homeless man beat her after she offered cheeseburger

So a Tennessee woman is suing McDonald’s, saying it should have known its outlet was attracting a criminal element. She’s also suing a nearby liquor store and the attacker himself. [Nashville Tennessean]

Filed under: McDonald's, restaurants, Tennessee, third party liability for crime

Will your lunch violate intellectual property laws?

In Patent Application No. WO/2006/068863 (h/t The Browser), McDonald’s claims:

A method of making a sandwich composed of at least a bread component and sandwich garnish comprising: placing sandwich garnish material on a sandwich assembly tool, the sandwich assembly tool comprising a region for holding sandwich garnish material to be applied to a bread component of a sandwich, the member comprising at least one cavity; placing the bread component over and adjacent the cavity; and thereafter inverting the sandwich assembly tool and the bread component while the bread is adjacent and covering the cavity to cause the sandwich garnish to be deposited from the cavity to the bread component.

Filed under: McDonald's, patent law, patent quality

March 15 roundup

“Intellectual Easter egg hunt”: great Michael Kinsley column on Wyeth v. Levine and FDA drug preemption [Washington Post]
Negligent for the Port Authority to let itself get bombed: “Jury Awards $5.46M to 1993 WTC Bomb Victim” [WINS, earlier]
“How following hospital quality measures can kill patients” [KevinMD]
Owner of Vancouver Sun suing over someone’s parody of the paper (though at least it drops the printer as a defendant) [Blog of Walker]
Court dismisses some counts in Billy Wolfe bullying suit against Fayetteville, Ark. schools [NW Arkansas Times, court records, earlier here and here]
Law bloggers were on this weeks ago, now Tenaha, Tex. cops’ use of forfeiture against motorists is developing into national story [Chicago Tribune, earlier here and here]
Can hostile blog posts about a plaintiff’s case be the basis for venue change? [IBLS]
Calls 911 because McDonald’s has run out of chicken nuggets [Lowering the Bar]

Filed under: bullying, forfeiture, free speech in Canada, McDonald's, parody, Port Authority, preemption, terrorism

February 27 roundup

Long Island man fails badly in bid to make his estranged wife compensate him for kidney he gave her [NYLJ, earlier]
McDonald’s denies negligence in case of nude photos on customer’s left-behind cellphone [Heller/OnPoint News, earlier]
Role of union corruption in NYC crane collapses. Best tidbit: strippers offered apprenticeships [New York Times]
Because the Big Three need another millstone around their necks: states moving to entrench auto dealers’ nontermination/buyout rights yet further [Detroit Free Press via Mataconis, background]
Microsoft claims former employee “applied for a job at the company under false pretenses and then used his role at Microsoft to gain access to confidential data related to patent litigation he is now waging” [Seattle P-I, Andrew Nusca/ZDNet]
Settlement ends lawsuit by Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. against Mississippi’s Farese law firm and Ocala, Fla. attorney Bruce Kaster arising from leak of disparaging employee affidavit to press [Patsy Brumfield, NEMDJ, ABA Journal]
Mule drivers at historic tourism park must register for antiterror biometrics as transportation workers [Ken @ Popehat]
Lawyers advise defendant on trial for murder to go off his antipsychotic medication so he’ll come off as madder to the jury [nine years ago on Overlawyered]

Filed under: auto dealership protection laws, Long Island, McDonald's, Microsoft, Mississippi

By reader acclaim: “Nude Photos on Lost Cell Phone Lead to Suit”

“Here’s some food for thought: If you have nude photos of your wife on your cell phone, hang onto it. Phillip Sherman of Arkansas learned that lesson after he left his phone behind at a McDonald’s restaurant and the photos ended up online.” Sherman says restaurant employees had promised to secure the phone until he returned to pick it up; the story does not make clear (assuming it is known at all) how or by whom the pictures were posted. He and Tina Sherman are now suing the restaurant for damages that include the cost of moving to a new house, saying that she received threatening and harassing text and voice messages related to the pictures. (AP, Nov. 23; Northwest Arkansas Times).

Filed under: damage theories, McDonald's, privacy