Expain To Me How This Could Happen.

A few years back I served on a jury involving a law suit where an elderly man was riding his bicycle on a city street, hit a pot hole, was thrown from his bike, and sadly, died from his injuries. His family was suing the city because the pot hole had not been repaired and caused the accident which resulted in his death. Our charge was to decide if the city was responsible for the accident, and if so, to what extent (percent) they were responsible.

We believed the city had some responsibility for keeping its streets in good repair, but we also thought that anyone using those streets assumed a great responsibility for their own personal safety. While we felt extremely sorry for the man’s family, we believed that the man himself was very negligent of his own safety. It was dark; he was on an unfamiliar street; and he did not have a headlight on his bicycle. Ultimately we decided that all of these factors played a significant role in causing the accident and that the pothole was not the single cause. We further determined that due to his actions the man bore the larger responsibility for the accident. We placed only 20% of the responsibility on the city, but we did have them pay for all the man’s medical bills. The 20% responsibility also gave the widow a little compensation even though we believed the man was mostly responsible for his own death.

I think the McDonald’s coffee incident is similar. The lady chose to buy a beverage that she knew would be hot. In doing so she assumed the responsibility for taking care of that beverage in a manner that would not jeopardize her safety. While McDonald’s MAY have served the coffee too hot, it was her actions that caused the accident. As with the case above I think it would have been reasonable for McD’s to pay all of the medical bills and perhaps something for pain and suffering, but that should not have been in the millions—their responsibility was just not that great.

 

For what it's worth, where I live, the McDonalds have now started adding the cream and sugar to the coffee before they serve it to us. We just tell them how many cream and/or sugars we want and they do the rest. No doubt this was a direct result of this case. Interestingly though, as far as I know, other fast-food places have not adopted this practice. Since I don't want to have the task of adding these items after I leave the window, I would choose McD's over a competitor when I want coffee.
I guess the lesson for all of us business owners is to try our best to stay attuned to what our customers need and want and try to provide that BEFORE a major incident of dissatisfaction occurs.