Comments on: Whip It! Day 4

By: Cynthia Kouril

Cynthia Kouril — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:21:50 +0000

I used to teach the McDonalds case to the students in my business law class. The reason the damages were so huge is that they were PUNITIVE damages.

McDonald’s had the gall to argue that is would cost 4X millions to install thermostats in the coffee urns and that it was cheaper to let the occasional customer get burned b/c the damages were not as expensive as the cost of the thermostats and staff training.

The admitted that the lady’s injuries were preventable and that they chose not to prevent it and that her permanent injuries were just a “cost of doing business” for them. Only she never consented to being a cost of business, she innocently bought a cup of coffee.

So the jury awarded an amount of punative damages that would make it cheaper for McDonlads to install the thermostats and train their staff than it would be to burn another customer.

By: jackie

jackie — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:08:26 +0000

:) lol…

By: Jane Hamsher

Jane Hamsher — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:02:53 +0000

Liberty Lee, is that you?

By: BargainCountertenor

BargainCountertenor — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:51:06 +0000

DL appears to be getting economic theory from Atlas Shrugged and the rest of the Randian fairy tale.

By: Synoia

Synoia — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:44:21 +0000

Becasue Nuclear is neither clean nor inexpensive when complete life cycle costs are included.

Just as coal is not cheap if ash disposal is included in the life cycle costs.

By: marymccurnin

marymccurnin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:15:11 +0000

Thank you, again Scarecrow. Well said.

By: Scarecrow

Scarecrow — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:05:16 +0000

There is no defensible theory of capitalism that endorses the irresponsible notion that if corporations take a risk, they earn the rewards of success but the public bears the costs of failure. To the extent that capitalism works in the public interest, it is only because the risk takers also bear the costs of mistakes and failure.

Moreover, when corporations do not bear the costs of their actions, they hurt other capitalists/businesses and the economy generally. The death the Hudson River is a good example of how corporations were free to reap profits but excused from bearing the costs of their pullution, which then killed the river, but countless businesses downstream out of business, not because their market/business decisions were wrong but because the upstream polluters were not held accountable for the costs they imposed on others. No capitalist theory can survive on such an irresponsible premise. I have not idea where you get your economic theory, but it’s not any form of sustainable capitalism; it’s more like looting, which is why there are criminal statutes and civil penalties to deal with it.

By: BargainCountertenor

BargainCountertenor — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:00:35 +0000

You don’t have a clue about what Liebeck v. McDonald’s was about, do you?

McDonald’s lost because the facts were overwhelmingly against them. When you’ve ceased being a tool (whether willful or duped I neither know nor care) for the corporatists, maybe we can talk. Until then, there’s no point.

And just for the record, I believe you were correct when you said that people are not often willfully negligent. Unfortunately, corporations are often willfully negligent, and the only way to punish a corporate entity is monetarily.

For now, I’m going to go fix some supper. Later, ‘pups.

By: PJEvans

PJEvans — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:58:02 +0000

That’s pretty much the way the conservative side seems to work: put up a poster with some equations and some pictures, and tell people watching that the evil liberals are going to raise taxes (or take away guns, or whatever the boogieman of the hour is), and half of them fall into line automatically. Thinking hurts their brains, I guess. (That’s probably why they need everything dumbed down, too.)

By: Bluetoe2

Bluetoe2 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:55:19 +0000

It’s obvious your view of the world is from a rear view mirror.