http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/04/legend.html
Indeed, there was nothing outlandish about the jury award in the myth Williams described at the link above, since it was smaller than actual awards given by other juries in cases that were just as ridiculous — like the $2.86 million dollar award to Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself (that award was later settled out of court for a reduced, but undisclosed amount), or the $65 million dollar award for the death of Karen Norman, who drowned while drunk in the back seat of a Honda (an autopsy showed a blood alcohol level of 0.17), because she couldn't release her seat belt (that award was thrown out on appeal).
Here's a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, giving a positive reference to a post denouncing Walter Williams — as if the details of the myth that fooled Williams had no similarity to many other product liability jury awards in recent years, and the problem Williams was trying to describe is just an absurd fiction, completely without plausibility —
http://delong.typepad.com/egregious_moderation/2009/10/walter-williams-the-fact-that-i-am-completely-wrong-is....html
https://archive.is/KRE9m
Here's the actual post denouncing Williams --
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2009/06/01/the-fact-that-i-am-completely-wrong-is-just-more-proof-how-right-i-am/
https://archive.is/pHHQ8
This little anecdote, included in a list of “outrageous lawsuits,” just came to one of my email lists:
Sure, I’ve now learned that X is not actually happening, but the fact that I believed that X could be happening is not, as one would think, a commentary on my foolishness and gullibility, but rather it is a scathing indictment of our societal decline.
We need to come up with a fashionable name for this, and I’m sure you all have your own examples.
I thought the “PLUS a new motor home” was such a nice wingnutty touch to a long debunked tale, one that I even talked about in 2005, that I decided to check the intertrons to see if it was still flying around the tubes and found this old Walter Williams post that made me laugh out loud:This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an OU football game, she, having driven onto the freeway, set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.
Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
This is a particular example of wingnut argumentation that I find rather amusing, and it always takes the following form:Literally hundreds of readers informed me that in last week’s column, “Some Things I Wonder About,” my reference to a Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City — who set his 32-foot Winnebago on cruise control, left the driver’s seat to brew a cup of coffee, crashed, then sued Winnebago for not having a warning against the dangers of doing so and received a jury award of $1,750,000 plus a new motor home — was an urban legend and as such totally false.My having fallen for this “urban legend” points to more due diligence to fact-checking. Without making any excuses whatsoever for my lapse in due diligence, let’s look at it.Thirty, 40 or 50 years ago, no one in their right mind would have believed the Merv Grazinski urban legend possible, but not so today. Personal responsibility has taken a back seat in our increasingly immoral and litigious society. Consider some actual lawsuits researched at (www.overlawyered.com).
Sure, I’ve now learned that X is not actually happening, but the fact that I believed that X could be happening is not, as one would think, a commentary on my foolishness and gullibility, but rather it is a scathing indictment of our societal decline.
We need to come up with a fashionable name for this, and I’m sure you all have your own examples.
To make this description of what Williams wrote seem believable — 'I've now learned that X is not actually happening' — the author of that post must leave out the relevant examples Williams included to support his belief — the ones also described at www.overlawyered.com. Of course, the 'X' here is frivolous lawsuits and absurd jury awards, and that Walter Williams (or anyone else) was fooled by a false description of such a case, is no indication that they are not actually happening, regardless of how much this writer would like to pretend.
What's amusing here is not that Walter Williams wrote an 'example of wingnut argumentation', as the post author put it, but that someone would just ignore the obvious and numerous examples Williams provided, and expect everyone else to be just as dishonest. And it's sad, though not surprising, that a professor at a major university would help to fulfill that expectation.
To further undercut the absurd statement that 'X is not actually happening', consider the now infamous case mentioned above: 'Liebeck v. McDonald's'.
Back in 1992, a then 79 year old woman named Stella Liebeck was badly burned when she spilled a fresh cup of McDonald's coffee in her lap, while seated in the passenger seat of her grandson's car (which was parked). Liebeck's attorneys successfully argued that the McDonald's requirement (at that time) to hold coffee at 180-190°F was inherently dangerous, and that coffee should never be served hotter than 140°F.
The problem with this argument is that, even if it were implemented, it wouldn't prevent burn injuries — it would reduce their severity, while still leaving people a grounds for bringing personal injury suits (maybe the attorneys thought of that). The only way to eliminate the risk of burn injuries from hot beverages, is to prevent them from being served — which obviously no one would accept.
And notice that the 'National Coffee Association' recommends brewing coffee at around 200°F --
http://ncausa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=71
Water Temperature During Brewing
Your brewer should maintain a water temperature between 195 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction. Colder water will result in flat, underextracted coffee while water that is too hot will also cause a loss of quality in the taste of the coffee. If you are brewing the coffee manually, let the water come to a full boil, but do not overboil. Turn off the heat source and allow the water to rest a minute before pouring it over the grounds.
And here's a recommendation from a former Starbucks manager that 180°F is the optimum temperature to serve coffee — more indication that the McDonald's temperature requirement was not unusual. Coffee is served very hot, because people like it that way --
http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-drink-extra-hot-2013-12
Alecia Li Morgan worked at Starbucks for five years, first as a barista and later as a store manager.
"Back when I first started working at Starbucks, the acceptable range for beverage temperature was around 145-165 degrees," she wrote. "That's not really all that hot."
The perfect temperature for a coffee, she learned through extensive trial and error, is 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
Morgan offered these tips and tricks for when and how to order a drink "extra hot:"
1. When it's cold outside. "When I worked at Starbucks in North Dakota, the temperatures would reach -30F plus wind chill, so drinks cooled down QUICKLY if taken outside/ordered in a drive thru," Morgan wrote.
2. When you are ordering a milk-based drinks. Creamers, even when steamed, can cool down the temperature of a coffee. Tell the barista you want the milk steamed to 180 degrees, and it won't negatively affect the taste of the espresso or coffee.
3. When you don't plan to drink the coffee right away. If you want to enjoy your coffee at work but there's a convenient Starbucks location closer to home, ordering it extra hot will keep it warm during the commute.
Stella Liebeck's injuries were severe and tragic, but it makes no sense to make others pay for the risk she decided to take.
If this sounds too harsh, consider the case of 'McMahon v. Bunn Matic Corporation', which is almost identical to 'Liebeck v. McDonald's'. This case came about because Angelina McMahon spilled a hot cup of coffee in her lap while in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle. But unlike Liebeck's case, McMahon's case was dismissed.
Here's the closing paragraph from that verdict --
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1365042.html
It is easy to sympathize with Angelina McMahon, severely injured by a common household beverage-and, for all we can see, without fault on her part. Using the legal system to shift the costs of this injury to someone else may be attractive to the McMahons, but it would have bad consequences for coffee fanciers who like their beverage hot. First-party health and accident insurance deals with injuries of the kind Angelina suffered without the high costs of adjudication, and without potential side effects such as lukewarm coffee. We do not know whether the McMahons carried such insurance (directly or through an employer's health plan), but we are confident that Indiana law does not make Bunn and similar firms insurers through the tort system of the harms, even grievous ones, that are common to the human existence.
affirmed.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.
Many may wish to believe that Angelina McMahon was victimized by this court decision, but the simple truth is, the judge in this case refused to victimize others, for an accident that happened as a result of an activity that people routinely engage in with full consent, however risky.
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