Insane Legal System - was SR22 Crash

"Jim Logajan" wrote

Look, the jury noted the facts, including multiple other injuries and
complaints regarding the temperature of McDonalds' coffee and concluded
that it was above that which they considered a reasonable expectation.
To continue to argue their decision is to essentially contend that
either _you_ are a proper example of a "reasonable person" and _they_
are not or that you are in possession of facts that they were not.

A jury can be wrong - consider the OJ case, or on the other side of the
coin, any number of prison inmates who are innocent of the crime they were
convicted of.

With that in mind, another possibility is that the jury felt bad for the
injured woman and decided to give her some of a large corporation's money,
figuring that the large corporation would hardly be affected. They made an
emotional decision rather than one based on fact, and it happens all the
time in personal injury cases (much to the delight of the plaintiffs'
lawyers).

BDS

"BDS" wrote:
"Jim Logajan" wrote

Look, the jury noted the facts, including multiple other injuries and
complaints regarding the temperature of McDonalds' coffee and
concluded that it was above that which they considered a reasonable
expectation. To continue to argue their decision is to essentially
contend that either _you_ are a proper example of a "reasonable
person" and _they_ are not or that you are in possession of facts
that they were not.

A jury can be wrong - consider the OJ case, or on the other side of
the coin, any number of prison inmates who are innocent of the crime
they were convicted of.

All true. But in this case the jury did find the woman was 20% responsible.
There are those who believe the woman was 100% responsible and those of us,
upon considering the published information, would have said she was less
than 100% responsible.

With that in mind, another possibility is that the jury felt bad for
the injured woman and decided to give her some of a large
corporation's money, figuring that the large corporation would hardly
be affected. They made an emotional decision rather than one based on
fact, and it happens all the time in personal injury cases (much to
the delight of the plaintiffs' lawyers).

The only problem I see with that possibility is that in looking at what has
been published and I was on the jury, then I would probably have said the
woman was no more than 50% responsible for her own injuries. I would have
come to that conclusion even had the entity serving the coffee been a sole
proprietor working out of a small corner shop (we have a lot of those up
here in the Pacific northwest!) In other words, I do not believe my own
opinion is influenced in the way you suggest. But I've been wrong before!
:-)