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Except no that’s not what happened, that’s not why he sued, he sued because when he went to ask for more napkins, the staff started racially harassing him, all over fucking napkins. As for the amount, ut was probably exaggerated by the lawyer so when the court shrinks it, McDonalds would still have to pay at least something.
There are no such things as frivolous lawsuits made by individual people.
McDonald’s (and most businesses) have insanely good pr departments. The woman who sued McDonald’s for being burned by their coffee was turned into the face of “people will sue over anything” because suing over coffee being hot sounds ridiculous, right? Except for she was literally burned to the bone. The pictures are nauseating. What she went through was horrifying.
If you ever find yourself ridiculing an individual on a company’s behalf you’re probably just repeating pr propaganda
READ IT and remember next time someone talks about some “ridiculous” lawsuit that’s just a sign of how supposedly easy it is for individuals to make bucks off suing poor, helpless huge corporations for oh, no good reason at all.
Who wants you to believe that? Who benefits?
Yeah.
more ppl need to watch the documentary “hot coffee”
FINALLY. A POST THAT SAYS IT. Ridiculous lawsuits are not real! It’s SO HARD to escalate in court! It is SO HARD. Think about it!
Yeah ok I feel the need to elaborate on this as an actual lawyer.
CIVIL SUITS ARE VERY EXPENSIVE. Especially if you’re going against a huge Corp. and they can take forever to settle.
You ever seen the movie “a civil action”? There’s this scene like two thirds into the movie where one of the lawyers is at the grocery store and whips out a key chain of credit cards because he’s literally living on credit lines.
Here’s the thing: most personal injury lawyers work on commission. So you might have like an escrow account for expenses but for pro bono cases (which s lot of these high profile cases are, honestly), you don’t have any real significant cash up front to deal with expenses.
BUT HEY LSS, what do you mean by expenses?
Ok so like the first thing you need to realize is that most law suits have stages. There’s some variations in timelines for civil versus criminal cases.
But mostly, civil cases have stages that go like: 1) Filing 2) Discovery 3) Trial 4)concluding the trial and getting your damn ruling.
Filing is just “hey just so you know I’M SUING YOUR ASS.” and you have like a certain amount of time to respond and say something like “right I am entering in my appearance in this case” which is often followed by a “and also I’m suing you for suing me.” Divorce cases are a great example of that–most divorces start with one person filing for divorce and claiming the other person is at fault (it’s quicker than a no-fault divorce), and that’s almost always followed up with the other person getting served and then saying “nope you’re wrong tho.” At this stage, btw, you can always file a motion to throw the case out, like an instant dismissal over a frivolous law suit. Ex: I think that at one point I had to read a case where some lady tried to sue like…god or something? THere are tons of examples of this. YOu can file anything you want. That doesn’t mean the court is gonna hear about it.
ANyways.
DISCOVERY THO.
DISCOVERY IS A MOTHER FUCKING BITCH AND PART OF THE REASON WHY I LOVE WORKING CINA (Child in need of assistance–think foster care) CASES IS WE HAVE RELAXED DISCOVERY THANK MOTHERFUCKING GOD.
Discovery is basically the thing NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT OR SHOWS IN TV. It’s when you exchange information with each other, and you take things like depositions and you answer interrogatories etc. Basically, if you need certain evidence for your case, the other side has to hand it over (there’s a ton of rules and that’s a gross simplification. But basically, that’s what it means). So if you’re suing a hospital or McDonalds, you need to get access to the hospital records, or in this case, McDonald’s policy and possibly camera footage from the store.
Discovery has different rules for civil and criminal, but there’s all sorts of deadlines about “thirty days after receiving this request for records you have to respond or ask an extension etc.”
In the case of these huge cases that involve medical records, or accusations of racial profiling, it gets to be a bitch because RECORDS NEED TO BE CERTIFIED AND YOU NEED TO SPECIFICALLY TAILOR YOUR REQUESTS FOR CERTAIN EVIDENCE.
for medical records: certified means that they’ve been approved and stamped and reproduced with certain seals and personnel signing off to prove that they are accurate. You can’t just come in with a print out of your tests and pictures of your injuries. You need to VERIFY THAT SHIT. That’s to get around hearsay rules (since like, technically, a medical record produced by some orderly at the hospital is hearsay if the orderly isn’t there in court). And you have to tailor that shit to your request because the other side can say “wow that’s too general and we don’t want to expend the resources for it” and the judge can be like “yeah that’s fair.” Discovery hearings are fucking petty, dude. THe other side of this is that the hospital can provide you with like, reams and reams of records knowing that there’s no way you’re gonna be able to go through all of it, especially since you don’t have a fucking building filled with corporate lawyer lackeys. Unless I guess maybe you’re the ACLU?
or for say, security camera footage, you have to specifically tailor your request to the day in question, the specific footage, the time, the amount of footage, and there’s all sorts of issues about confidentiality and permissions etc. In fact, most security cam footage doesn’t have sound because of like…privacy laws.
Anyways, then you’ve got interrogatories which are like pre-trial questions that you answer to the best of your ability. It’s not under oath and it’s by writing. But of course, there’s a limit to your interrogatory questions (as in how many you can ask), what you can ask (it can’t be too general–like you can’t ask “describe any racial-based incidents that happened in McDonalds in the past five years” because wtf what does that have to do with this particular case? something…but not enough of something), and how quickly you can expect them to respond. And then there are hearings on the interrogatories–like if somebody doesn’t want to answer questions or thinks it’s too general etc. So then you have to schedule THOSE hearings and give notice of it to the other party and make sure they have been served properly so they can attend and prepare.
Then there are depositions, which are recorded interviews that occur under oath and are attended by both parties and counsel. These are a bitch to schedule and there’s all sorts of issues with them because like while you might be able to enter in the whole thing into evidence, other parties LOVE using these to pick and choose shit to impeach witnesses at trial. (ex: remember when Kesha got screwed over because at deposition she had to answer “no” to a specific question but we all know that probably she had a lot more to say? like that).
AAAAAAANYWAYS. At any point in time, there can be settlement negotiations as well. And quite frankly, because most people don’t have the time and energy to keep up with a corporate building full of lawyers, most people try to settle ASAP because damn, all this time in court, all these specific requests, filing fees, printing fees, records fees, deposition personnel with recording equipment, all of it is MONEY MONEY MONEY. and a hell of a lot of time. We’re talking years and years here. (no seriously–anyone who knows about divorces can attest to this. in MD we are authorized to make custody decisions for children who are declared CINA or non-CINA and it’s considered expedited because it can take as little as 30 days. ONE MONTH IS VERY VERY FAST, Y’ALL).
So meanwhile you’re dealing with all of these requests and answers and motions and court time and filing fees and it’s all piling up. ANd then there’s an offer to settle.
Why settle? Why sign these stupid confidentiality clauses? Because it’s your best bet at succeeding. Good corporate lawyers can drag out discovery for like…a decade. Maybe more. in the mean time, you’re a lawyer working on commission so you haven’t seen a pay out. And the client themselves, they’ve got to carry on with their lives and pay for shit in the meantime. Which can be tough if you’re literally suing your employer, your doctors, or mcdonalds (because like…you’ve got to constantly be appearing in court and taking time off and dealing with harassment etc.).
So then you get this offer to settle. Which means a LOT of money probably (each big company has like a huge fund for this type of thing), maybe even changing their policies for good (the hot coffee lady got mcdonalds to stop making their damn coffee so hot it melted styrofoam and like…human skin). And it’s QUICKER. So say you’re suing say, a hospital for being a shit hospital. Meanwhile, people are dying in the hospital and you need medical treatment. What do you do? Settle, take the money, and get them to sign a legally binding agreement not to do that shit again.
Unfortunately, because this is negotiations, and settlements are compromises, that may mean you’re not allowed to tell anyone about it and thus they can spin it for themselves. McDonalds got David Letterman to make fun of the hot coffee chick. How? They didn’t sign a non-disclosure. THey have billions and billions of dollars invested in PR and spinning their image. You don’t want them to sign a non-disclosure because that means then they can’t talk about the GOOD shit–like, for example, making it public that HEY OUR COFFEE DOESN’T MELT SKIN ANYMORE AND THAT’S A GOOD THING EVERYBODY SHOULD DO THAT.
So basically…think about it logically. Why would McDonalds agree to settle over a fucking napkin? Because there’s clearly more to the story. Because if it wasn’t instantly thrown out, there had to be SOME MERITS TO IT. And also, hey, corporations have tons of money to pour into their legal and PR departments.
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