Cessna sued for skydiving accident.

Jose wrote:
This brings up an interesting hypothesis.[...]
There are several ways this scenario can be parsed.

Since the temperature of the coffee will affect only the receiver and
not the supplier...

Actually, that is not true. The temperature of the beverage (I did not
assume it was coffee) could be at the supplier's convenience.

Is it not the receiver's DECISION to either accept or prove the actual
temperature of the coffee before COMMITTING to an act (drinking)

For drinking, yes. For carrying the drink out to the car, maybe not.
You might lift the cup over the heads of your children to get it from
the counter to the table. You could be bumped when this happens, and it
could spill. If you had ordered warm milk, gotten it in an insulated
container, got bumped, and from the screams found that it was actually
boiling hot milk, is it your fault for not making everyone wait at the
counter while you opened the lid and stuck your dirty finger (or a clean
thermometer) into the drink?

The other side of this equation postulates that the receiver has the
responsibility to ASSUME NOTHING

Nothing? Really nothing? That it's not industrial strength acid? Had
the supplier given me =that= in lieu of orange juice, I think I would
have a case.

The REAL rub is in how we as people choose to live out our lives;
seeking protection from things that can hurt us or taking the
necessary steps to do all we can to insure we don't get hurt.

No, the real rub is how we as a people choose to =think=... whether to
actually consider the facts of an unpleasant and perhaps complex case,
or trumpet the easy thing to ridicule while scoring brownie points on
Usenet.

This is a little different scenario than the coffee cup. There is no
way to "test" the cartridge before pulling the trigger, therefore no
lapse in personal responsibility.

Granted. Well, almost granted... one could subject a representative
sample of cartridges to an analysis, but that would be inconvenient.
When sitting in a take-out car lane, it is also inconvenient (though
somewhat less so) to put the bag of burgers in the back while carefully
balancing the drink in order to open it and ascertain the degree to
which it might (or might not) be unexpectedly hot before taking what
would be a reasonable risk at the expected temperature. It's a matter
of degree. You preflight an aircraft, and I bet you do a more thorough
preflight if you are going to do aerobatics. Do you preflight a car? A
shopping cart?

It should also be noted that one of the purposes of the tort system is
to act as a brake against corporations taking unfair advantage of their
size by making our lives more risky to the benefit of their bottom
line. To that end, it is quite reasonable to take the corporation's
attitude into account when deciding on a verdict.

Jose
As always, there is validity in individual aspects of opposing argument.
I prefer to call this situation "Intelligent use of Usenet"
Best as always.

--
Dudley Henriques

On Dec 3, 12:37 pm, "Matt W. Barrow"
wrote:
"kontiki" wrote in message

...





Morgans wrote:
It is true. Another factor is that so many families today have
both parents working... just to make ends meet and to pay taxes
to support the government programs that are created or expanded
every year (to wit: no idiot left behind [as if better education
can be legislated into reality]). I still can't honestly
come up with something the government does well.... besides
spend other people's money.

I don't buy it. There are always exceptions, though.

Matt is constant, that is one fact. His story never changes away from a
very narrow stance.

Perhaps his story is based on principle. Principles don't
don't change with polls or political expedient.

And facts don't change.

MxMatt, here is a "Fact" that never changes; there are people like you
who try to represent thier opinions as "facts". I like the way you can
have strong totalitarian "Facts" on things you know nothing about. I
really like the way you revise history . Another thing that makes your
posts so special is the use of big words, it slays me when you refer
readers to the dictionary. You are without a doubt the most
entertaining poster in this group. Dont ever change
FB

On Dec 3, 4:37 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:
I can't help but wonder what the situation would produce for a totally
innocent man charged with a crime he didn't commit standing in front of
a judge about to pass sentence on him saying to that judge;
"Judge, you are the most stupid, idiotic, and just plain ugly human
piece of trash I've ever seen in my entire life."

I should mention that often when a jury awards a really large
judgement against someone what the defendant actually has to pay is
less. This can happen either because the judge finds the award too
high and reduces it (as in the Cessna 182 seat rail case) or because
the sides settle to avoid appeals. In the McD's case both happened.
The jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $2.9 million, the judge reduced it to
$650,000 and then the two sides settled for an undisclosed amount.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Dec 3, 4:37 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:
I can't help but wonder what the situation would produce for a totally
innocent man charged with a crime he didn't commit standing in front of
a judge about to pass sentence on him saying to that judge;
"Judge, you are the most stupid, idiotic, and just plain ugly human
piece of trash I've ever seen in my entire life."

I should mention that often when a jury awards a really large
judgement against someone what the defendant actually has to pay is
less. This can happen either because the judge finds the award too
high and reduces it (as in the Cessna 182 seat rail case) or because
the sides settle to avoid appeals. In the McD's case both happened.
The jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $2.9 million, the judge reduced it to
$650,000 and then the two sides settled for an undisclosed amount.

-Robert

It is indeed a cold cruel world out here :-))

--
Dudley Henriques

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Dec 3, 11:46 am, randall g wrote:
On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 12:49:09 -0800 (PST), Jay Honeck
wrote:

This is a perfect example. Upon closer examination, the McDonalds
case
does have merit. But people don't examine it more closely, because of
their jaundiced eye.
I've heard you say this before, Jose, but never understood it. In
your opinion, what merit was there in a woman winning a lawsuit
against McDonalds because she burned herself on hot coffee?
The woman was seriously injured and spent 8 days in hospital getting
skin grafts. That McD's had been selling super hot coffee for some time
and had previous warnings. This case did have merit and I believe the
woman did not get rich from it either.

randall g =%^) PPASEL+Night 1974 Cardinal
RGhttp://www.telemark.net/randallg
Lots of aerial photographs of British Columbia
at:http://www.telemark.net/randallg/photos.htm
Vancouver's famous Kat Kam:http://www.katkam.ca

This was a fun case to study in law class. It was a classic example of
how to perfectly lose a case. There is nothing McD's could have done
better to lose that case. When the lady first got hurt, she wrote a
letter to McD's explaining what happened and asking for her medical
bills to be covered. McD's corporate office wrote back a very, very
nasty letter to her telling her "duh coffee is hot" and expressing
*NO* sympathy. If they had said "Sorry you were hurt, its not our
policy to pay for damages you incurred" or even just ignored her that
would be the end of it.
The lady then showed the nasty letter to her neighbor who showed it to
her attorney son. Her son took up the case soley based on the letter
McD's set back.
So the case goes to trial and they interview the McD's manager. The
attorney had just finished showing the jury images of the deformed
lady's "areas" and had just had shown all the surgeries the woman had
had to repair her damage. The McD's manager got up there and told the
jury "Sorry, coffee is not, get over it". Many scholars believe if he
had said "Damn that looks bad, I feel sorry for her, but our coffee is
hot", then the jury would have found in favor of McD's. In addition
the temp of the coffee was hotter than McD's policy.
-Robert

This is an interesting summation.

Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, what you are saying here is that the
outcome of this trial can be directly laid at the feet of an ill-advised
reply by a single individual and a jury's interpretation of this reply.

What did you expect jurors to base their decisions on? Facts? Rule of law?

If that was the case they would not have been selected as jurors.

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...

You just gotta love the "justice system" :-))

A wise man once said "In the United States justice system, you get just
about all the justice you can afford"

It didn't work for Microsoft and the $$gazillions.

Jose wrote:
It should also be noted that one of the purposes of the tort system is to
act as a brake against corporations taking unfair advantage of their size
by making our lives more risky to the benefit of their bottom line. To
that end, it is quite reasonable to take the corporation's attitude into
account when deciding on a verdict.

His grasp of the tort system is about on par with his other knowledge.

And this guy's a teacher?

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

I do remember them saying that they weren't impressed with it in icing ( I
think it has some problem with it's tail surfaces in icing) but I think it
is legal..

That's exactly what I was told.

"It's legal, but it's damn scary..."n

On 2007-12-02, wrote:
On Dec 2, 2:30 pm, "Blueskies" wrote:

The airplane is NOT approved for flight into *known* icing conditions. So when a pilot finds himself in those conditions
in one of these planes, Cessna is to blame if he/she screws up and crashes...

So, why do so many of them have boots and hot props and all
the rest? It would seem to add a lot of expensive weight if flight
through known ice is forbidden.

It's there to give you more time to escape icing conditions, not so you
can simply fly in known icing conditions.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.

Morgans wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote

I have two problems with this. First, professional educators (read
NEA) are a big part of the problem.

I keep hearing "the union is the problem" mantra. Around here, the
only interaction we have with the NEA is the fact that they have good
liability insurance, and good legal programs if things really turn to
**** for a teacher. That's it. I'm not quite sure how much of an
influence they are, anywhere. They sure are not much, here.


Please note that I wrote NEA as in the NATIONAL organization and as a cover
all for the STATE orgnaizations. Unless NC is different, and it might well
be, they have plenty of lobbiest working full time to protect their rice
bowl.



Second how are you going to have the parental oversite without the
elections? And if you only let parents run for the offices or worse
only let parents vote then you get into the whole taxation without
representation thing.

Yeah, there are things to be worked out, for sure. The thing is, I
don't think parents should have real control over any situation, or
they will end up being a board of education with a different name,
which is not what I would want to see.

The whole point is that professional educators that know education
should be running the show, with parents giving guidance and
sugestions, only. No real power. If everyone says what we have is
not working, why not try something new?


One way or another you are doing to have to have some elected official(s)
with oversight responsibility. There is no way around it.


That is a problem with all elected governments. (talking about new
people
coming on every two years)

Yes, but when the future of our next generation is at stake, we need
something better than what government as usual is giving us, don't you
think? Also, what I see from far too many board of education
members, is that they are there with an ax to grind, and that has no
place in deciding how our children are educated.

We need to see consistancy. The programs come and go so rapidly, no
program ever has a chance to succeed, before it is changed. Things
take time to get going, and see how they work. If they don't work,
then change them, or toss them out. Changing them because a new
group has come on in control needs to be changed.



What if the porofessional educators or at least those willing to serve on
this board, in any given area suck?


Most school administrators come up from the ranks of teachers.

It is remarkeable how quickly they forget what is going on in the
classroom.


And what makes you think that the ones in your new program will be any
different?


It does help when they were a good teacher, I will admit. The very
worst administrators are the ones that went straight through to
administration without ever spending any time in the classroom.

I admit that I do not have all the answers on improving education,
unlike some others that have been spouting their own line of
fertilizer. I do feel I know what some of the problems are, however,
and many other teachers and people that are close to education have
echoed some of the things I have stated. We all can't be wrong, can
we?
If I did have all of the answers, or a majority of them, I would not
be teaching construction in NC, but instead would be upwardly mobile
in the national education scene. I am confident that I know that
some things I have heard will not work, though.


The education problems all boil down to a combination of some bad teachers,
some bad administrators, some bad parents, and state and federal lawmakers
and courts stepping in to make a bad situation worse.

We need to get rid of silly federal and state mandates for student testing
that require teachers teach to a test and little else. We need a system of
getting rid of bad teachers and rewarding good ones. We need a process that
allows us to get kids that cause problems out of the schools but only after
teachers are given the right and responsibility to deal with those on the
bubble in the classroom. And we need to make parents responsible for how
their children act when they are in school.