Our justice system is way less impartial
than we like to think.
Adam, I'm serious!
Kendra's freedom is on the line. Please stop scaring her.
Nope, I knew it.
The system is gonna screw me.
They throw innocent people in jail
while some old lady who spills hot coffee
on herself gets a million bucks.
Ah, yes, the famous
McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit.
That case was terrible,
but not for the reason you think.
In fact, everything you've heard about it is wrong.
(sighing)
Tell me,
what do you think happened in that case?
So, there was this greedy lady,
and she was all...
I want money. My ethics are questionable.
So, she gets a coffee
at McDonalds, but she's like...
I'm too dumb to know that coffee is hot.
And she's driving all crazy.
And she spills a little on her lap.
(screams loudly)
Then she's all like...
Boo hoo! I'm suing McDonalds!
I deserve money for being stupid.
And now, she's a millionaire,
and probably owns the Clippers or whatever.
Oof! Sorry, all of that is wrong--
the facts, the outcome,
and especially that voice.
Hey!
A strong choice is better than no choice at all.
Here's what actually happened.
Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old woman
whose grandson drove her to McDonalds.
She was in a parked car holding hot coffee
in her lap when it spilled.
Now, Stella openly admitted
that the spill was her mistake,
but the results were horrifying.
She had third degree burns on her legs and genitals,
and she went into shock.
She had to undergo painful skin graft operations,
and her surgeon said it was one
of the worst cases he had ever seen.
Stella was permanently disfigured and nearly died.
Third degree burns? How is that possible?
No one serves coffee that hot.
You're right. Only a clown would.
The reason Stella's injuries were so severe
is that McDonalds was serving coffee
at up to 190 degrees.
That's almost boiling!
McDonalds themselves even admitted that
at that temperature, their coffee was a hazard.
In fact, in the decade prior,
over 700 people notified McDonalds
that they had been burned by their coffee.
Holy crow!
The real irony is,
Stella didn't even want to go to court.
She just wanted McDonalds to help pay
her $20,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.
But after making her wait for six months,
they only offered her 800 bucks.
Stella tried to get McDonalds to settle.
She even agreed to mediation.
But McDonalds wouldn't budge.
They gave her no choice but to go to court.
So when the jury heard Stella's story,
they found that McDonalds had acted so irresponsibly,
they had to be punished.
They burned 700 people?
This has gotta stop!
Let's fine them two days' coffee sales.
That's 2.7 million.
That ought to teach 'em a lesson.
It does. Robble-robble.
And, it worked.
In the end, Stella settled for less than 600 grand.
But that was enough to get McDonalds
to lower their temperature and stop burning people.
This was an incredibly rare case where
a working-class victim actually beat
a huge team of corporate lawyers
and made the world a better place.
Wow, how do I not know about this?
Because those corporate lawyers
are really good at their jobs.
They spent years running a disinformation campaign
to convince Americans that there was
"an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits."
And the media bought it.
It seems she was holding a cup
between her legs while driving.
Now she claims she broke her nose
on the sneeze guard at the Sizzler
bending over looking at the chickpeas.
You get me one coffee drinker on that jury,
you're gonna walk out of there a rich man.
(clicks tongue)
♪ Plasma getting bigger, Jesus getting smaller ♪
♪ Spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars ♪♪
And because of this false narrative,
the witch hunt against "frivolous lawsuits"
continues to this day.
(all) Coffee's hot, suing's not.
Lawsuits never should be brought.
Coffee's hot, suing's not.
Wow, they're really mad.
Except that that anger is not real.
These protests have been organized and sponsored
by large corporations.
Kendra, this Michael McCann,
he's a professor of law and politics
at the University of Washington
and a co-author of distorting the law.
Kendra, for the last several decades,
large corporations afraid of being sued
for making unsafe products
create front groups like "Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse"
to try and turn public opinion against lawsuits.
This included companies like Pfizer and Texaco
and big tobacco companies like Philip Morris.
Philip Morris?
Yeah, and by spreading this false story,
they got everyone to believe
that silly lawsuits were rampant.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
The best social science evidence
shows that the number of personal injury lawsuits
in recent decades has declined.
And the median payout is only $55,000.
Uh-oh! They smell the money.
I better get out of here. Bye.
Thanks, Michael.
These mother falcon companies
dragged an old lady through the mud
so that we won't be able to sue them anymore?
Yeah. This story is insane.
McDonalds had a policy that almost killed someone
and it took Stella's lawsuit to change it.
She should be considered a hero.
But because of the companies, we treat her like a punch-line.
Okay, are you two done talking about civil court cases?
Because Kendra's case is in criminal court.
It's a completely different system,
the one I happen to know quite a bit about.
She has a great case
and a jury is gonna be very responsive to it.
Oh, they're a ton of problems with jury trials.
If you do another act, I swear to gull...
Sorry, it's happening. We'll be right back.