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What's the most painfully obvious thing you've seen have to be written out? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago by lemuria@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Things along the range of:

"Checklist - 1. Ensure that the thing is on."

I've seen stories of people who just don't get it and need their hands held all the time, so what are things where you kinda feel that things are a bit too "hand-holdy"?

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[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To give a quick highlight, because this case is often politicized and misrepresented:

The plaintiff, Stella Liebeck (1912–2004), a 79-year-old woman, purchased hot coffee from a McDonald's restaurant, accidentally spilled it in her lap, and suffered third-degree burns in her pelvic region. She was hospitalized for eight days while undergoing skin grafting, followed by two years of medical treatment. [...]

Liebeck's attorneys argued that, at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C), McDonald's coffee was defective, and more likely to cause serious injury than coffee served at any other establishment.

So, the lawsuit never demanded McDonald's to put a warning that you're not supposed to spill hot coffee on yourself. It argued that it's an unnecessary safety hazard, because the coffee was served at hazardous temperatures.
No matter how many warnings you put down, it can happen that someone spills coffee on themselves and they shouldn't need to be hospitalized from that.

[+] sunbeam60@feddit.uk -9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

IMHO you didn’t make it sound less mad.

If coffee is made by pouring boiling water over coffee beans grinds, I would expect the temperature of the final product to be scalding hot. I would even go so far as to call it a feature.

Warning: Knives may cause injury. Well, yes, the whole point of them is to be sharp enough to cut something.

I’m glad I live in a less litigious society.

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are food safety standards for a reason. Coffee isn't supposed to be served at that high of a temperature. McDonald's intentionally broke the standard by serving coffee hotter than they were legally allowed to.

You prefer living in a place that McDonald's can internationally, and repeatedly violate safety standards with no recourse? That's a weird flex.

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk -3 points 2 days ago

No of course I wouldn’t prefer living in a place where legal safety standards are ignored or non-existent. But that isn’t what I said either, so I refute your false dilemma argument :)

I don’t know the details of the lawsuit. I was merely commenting that the description of the case from the post I replied to didn’t make it make more sense. Your post did, though, so thank you for that. For what it’s worth in the UK and Denmark, the two countries I know well enough, the temperature of hot drinks don’t have a legal maximum and any liability would fall under “protecting customers from foreseeable harm” broad health and safety regulations.

So the question, at least from a legal perspective is what is foreseeable. Can coffee made with boiling water be foreseen to be scalding?

Certainly in the UK, case law suggest exactly that a hot drink should be foreseen to be scalding and therefore it is not negligent to serve it at scalding temperatures; see Bogle v McDonalds (2002) - https://cms-lawnow.com/en/ealerts/2002/05/recent-case-on-the-supply-of-hot-drinks

[–] Anti_Iridium@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

I'm glad I live in a less litigious society.

So are all the companies that have reason to fear litigation.