I'm tired of hearing about the McDonald's coffee case...

[bunnyjadwiga]

Before the next time you bring up the McDonald's coffee lawsuit, read these:
http://www.atla.org/pressroom/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx
http://caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=facts

Comments

[herveus.livejournal.com]

Those two links go to sites run by lawyers who could be seen to have an inherent bias in their presentations. However, nothing in those articles leads me to question them in particular.

May I also recommend a site that would appear to be less likely to be biased: http://stellaawards.com/

This is run by Randy Cassingham of "This Is True" and "Get Out of Hell Free" fame. Quite edjumicational.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Um. That site/email has been panned by Snopes, I believe:
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

There are outrageous lawsuits out there. But... there are also a lot of Vioxx situations out there, because of the nature of the modern publically-owned company (has to turn a good profit every single quarter).

I read some of the "This is True" stuff and it was definitely biased. Just because someone doesn't get paid to do things doesn't mean he hasn't got a bias.

A lot of the 'oh look what a horrible tort judgement' reports can be traced directly back to the insurance industry. My current favorite is the PA insurers' and PA medical professions' year-long insistence that PA was losing doctors because of high medical malpractice insurance costs, as a result of no tort caps. Turned out to be completely untrue.

On the other hand, it was only after thcre started to be class-action suits against employers and insurance companies that covered Viagra and not The Pill that suddenly my former employer covered The Pill with their insurance.

Still, ask me in person about lawsuits and I think you'll find out that I don't disagree that there are frivolous ones. I just have this theory that if they could kill off the kind of ads that the ambulance chasing lawyers run, it would reduce the amount of those suits.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

Snopes is not panning the True Stella Awards. There are emails that circulate with the outrageous and bogus cases Snopes cites, but they didn't come from Cassingham. Cassingham gives real citations for the cases he brings up.