Do People Think Before They Comment?

I visited RETROREPORT yesterday following a link to a post titled, "Taking the Lid Off the McDonald’s Coffee Case."

It's about the 1992 lawsuit in which McDonald's lost a $2.9 million dollar judgement to Stella Liebeck, a 79 year-old lady burned by a cup of hot coffee. 

I was struck by this comment within the post:

(Jurors) also learned that McDonald’s had received nearly 700 complaints about hot coffee burns in the almost 10 years before Stella’s trial. But those details went mostly unreported ...

Whoa!  That fact was in the papers.  I could remember it from 21 years ago - I couldn't have recalled the exact number, but I knew there were plenty.  I know I pointed it out to lots of people at the time.  Off to Wikipedia.  Yes, the Wikipedia article cites the 700 complaints.  Where did they find it?  On the front page (p. A1) of the Wall Street Journal for Sept 1, 1994.  Not exactly hidden.

Think nobody reads the Journal?  Well, it's not as popular among young folks as Jon Stewart.  But it does have the largest circulation of any paper in the country. And, it beats almost everything else in the 18-49 demographic.

So, having knocked down the main premise of the post, let's go the comments section.

You have to love someone who says this:

Liebeck argues this coffee was a defective product under federal code because it was way too hot. ...

OMG!  Is there a federal code for the temperature of coffee?  If so, who enforces it?  How do they enforce it?

But wait a minute.  Even with over 700 complaints about hot coffee, we don't read of any fatalities.  Not so with this activity.  So, shouldn't there be some federal regulation to control the intensity of lap dances?  It seems like something the coffee inspectors could do in the evenings when there is little coffee to inspect.  Perhaps they could monitor the pulse of the patrons for danger signals.

And just to put your mind at ease, from that earlier Wikipedia article we learn this:

Retailers today sell coffee as hot or hotter than the coffee that burned Stella Liebeck.