Hot Coffee (2011)

The story of the New Mexico woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald's was widely viewed as the stuff of comedy, but it turns out that the story goes way beyond that. Using bumper sticker phrases like "tort reform" -- often conceived by the likes of Frank Luntz and Karl Rove -- the special interests sensationalized stories of "frivolous lawsuits" and convinced state legislatures to make it harder to sue, while also placing caps on damages, installing business-friendly judges, and often creating mandatory arbitration (signing away your right to sue).Susan Saladoff's documentary "Hot Coffee" looks at these issues. Saladoff organizes it like Michael Moore's documentaries (interviews with the subjects interspersed with cultural icons). Among other things, people often voted for tort reform without realizing that they were the ones getting screwed. Not only that, people often don't even know what a tort is.The point is that our justice system has gotten completely manipulated. See if you don't feel a chill run down your back while watching this.

I watched "Hot Coffee" today and was looking forward to it. I enjoy documentaries a great deal. It started off on solid note by giving the full back ground on the famous McDondalds hot coffee case. Unfortunately it goes downhill from there.We are shown a family in Nebraska that had twins. One is born with severe brain injury due to a lack of oxygen because of one umbilical cord instead of two. The family is awarded 5.6 million but Nebraska's cap law limits the award to 1.25 million dollars. While a sad story I think many people would argue that it was a birth defect medical condition that caused the injury not malpractice by the doctor and hospital. The movie makes a point about the doctor having been involved in two previous law suits. OK, but tell us how many case the doctor has been involved with in total. Is this doctor 3 for 3 or 3 for 13,289?? It makes a difference in the overall credibility of the movie.The next case up is a Democratic Mississippi lawyer/politician named Mr. Diaz that ran for the state supreme court in 2000. He won the race but was out spent by outside political groups according to the movie. Mr. Diaz then obtained personal loans guaranteed by a lawyer friend that practiced cases in front of the state supreme court. Mr. Diaz was then indicted on Federal charges of bribery and tax evasion. He was found not guilty. Does this film maker really think a judge should be taking personal loan guarantees from a law firm that does business in front of him?? He then lost his 2008 re-election bid. We are now told that Karl Rove scary right wing groups are behind the money against Mr. Diaz. I am still not sure what the problem was here other than a Democrat lost a race. Oohh.We are pretty much off the tracks by now. We are treated to Presidents Bush and Reagan talking about frivolous lawsuits. Of course, they are portrayed in a condescending manner. We are then, shown a brave President Obama standing up to the American Medical Association group. We keep getting shown edited snippets of President Bush saying bad things about tort reform over and over. At this point the movie has really become a little unhinged. But, lets continue..The last case involves every lefties favorite boogeyman "Haliburton" A woman named Jamie Leigh Jones claims that she was brutally raped while housed at a Haliburton housing area in Iraq. I had not heard of this case until I was watching the film. Lets say it didn't really pass the smell test. The gist is that she signed an employment contract the limited her legal recourse to binding arbitration. Of, course this didn't work out well. Ms. Jones also has a history of untruthfulness. Her case has since been lost at two different court levels. But, her case is taken up by Minnesota Senator Al Franken. Enough said.The film also harps on the right wing "outside" money spent to promote tort reform. The gist that this money is bad, wrong, and evil (show Karl Rove again). No mention of any "outside" left wing groups supporting non tort reform. Even though just about every person interviewed that supports the films view is from "outside" groups with names like "Judicial Justice for all" (I made that up) but you get the point.After the film, I decided to find out who Susan Saladoff is and was. She practiced as a trial lawyer on the behalf of injury victims, medical malpractice, and product liability. No bias here. Wow. How can this film be even called a documentary? It is an info-mercial for left wing trial lawyer groups.One parting thing I would love to know, who funded this one sided mess of a movie. Wanna bet it is outside left wing groups pouring money into non tort reform??? Ya think. Remember the cornerstone of the film is the outside money being spent on tort reform is bad, really bad, really really bad.One other side note. Instead of capping the victims awards, how about capping the lawyers cut to maybe 3%. Just a thought.

Let's get a couple of facts out of the way that this "documentary" never bothered with. From a taste standpoint, coffee has to be brewed just off the boil, which means at 195 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and you can not find anyone serious about good coffee who will disagree with that. Secondly, when someone hands you a cup of hot coffee, it's your responsibility to deal with it, to avoid injuring yourself with it. If someone hands you a loaded gun, and you shot yourself in the face, who's fault is that?Yes, this woman screwed up, she dumped a cup of very hot coffee in her lap. How the hell is that McDonald's fault? Because they sold coffee that is hot? Hells, bells, their customers EXPECT hot coffee.My brother when he was two years old, pulled a freshly brewed cup of hot coffee my dad had just set down for a second onto to himself and was hospitalized with burns all over his body. Gosh I wish we could have thought of someone to sue, because we'd be rich forever. This stupid woman poured hot coffee all over herself and sued the pants off McDonalds. And won.And this STUPID PIECE OF PROPAGANDA tries to make us believe that's justice. It's not justice. It's a set of tragedies. This woman was burned beyond belief and spent months in pain for a mistake SHE made. That's the first tragedy, but there's only one person who could have prevented it. The second tragedy is that a court of law inexplicably gave this woman millions of dollars of OTHER people's money for making a mistake that none of those other people could have prevented.And yet this film tries to convince us that's justice.It's not justice. It's extortion.

the movie is presented in 4 chapters showing 4 cases. chapter 1 explains the (in)famous McDonalds hot coffee case. chapter 2 explores caps on liability. chapter 3 presents a "claim" of drugging and brutal gang rape that necessitated reconstructive surgery and the relation to binding arbitration and alternate dispute resolution. The section of the movie says what will then happen in the dispute. After the movie was released the person involved has been found to have made false claims. she eventually had a trial and it was found there was no evidence she was raped or suffered reconstructive surgery, her lawsuit was dismissed as baseless. Ergo, this entire section of the movie is untrue. chapter 4 explores judicial elections and/or judicial activism.chapters 1,2,4 are interesting but chapter 3 is so horrendously falsified that the entire work of the director should be discarded.