She's a clumsy slob because she felt it necessary to prepare her coffee in a moving car and was unable to adequately secure the coffee without spilling it. Remember, they did find her at least 20% at fault.
She came to them with reasonable demands, and they declined. That's no reason to reward her with a jackpot award. As I said, I agree that she deserved something, but the original jackpot was absurd.
Industry norms? I completely disagree. Companies, products and services are remembered when they exceed the norms. If McDonalds' coffee tasted the same and was served at the same temperature as Burger King and McDowells, they wouldn't stand out. The temperature did exceed norms to the point of becoming hazardous. For this reason, I agree that she deserved something, but the jackpot was absurd.
It's not your job to tell companies to do things your way, or Stella's way. What if I like 180 degree coffee? Who are you to deny me that??? Let market forces prevail. If the coffee's too hot to drink and their consumers don't approve, they'll stop being consumers. It's not your job to punish companies when they fail to meet your or Stella's standards. It's everyone's job through free market forces.
Highlighted a portion above to illustrate that you've still failed to read all the facts and comprehend them, though you've stated the facts beyond "hot coffee, she spilled it, her fault" are all you need to really know.
Agree about the standing out part, to a point. If you're going to market to the masses, you have to keep it within certain reasonable windows of acceptable norms, especially regarding your consumers physical saftey. There's no, NONE, ZERO logical reason to serve coffee that hot...the reason being is that NOBODY can consume it that hot without injury. Again, we're not talking about "shit that's hot" hot...we're talking about will cause 3rd degree burns with only You physically couldn't "like 180 degree coffee" and the fact that you have to use an aburdity to illustrate your point, makes my point.
I agree with you about market forces to a point. BUT, people shouldn't have to sustain serious injury to find out they aren't partial to and won't ever again consume a certain company's products. I would also say that though I think punitive damages are necessary to punish companies, because all they have is a bottom line (you can't tar and feather a company), you have to hit them where it hurts when they step outside reasaonable boundries. But, I don't think the plaintiffs should recover the vast majority of them. A large percentage of punitive damages should be redirected towards another source, charitable, or something to provide safety measures to prevent future incidents...I'm not smart enough to come up with it, but people shouldn't hit the lottery when injured, they should be made whole, and maybe given some money to compensate for the time and trouble of having to collect their damages. Lawyers, provide a professional service, and like any other profession deserve to get paid, and paid a professional type wage. How much is enough or too much? You're all about free markets right? You want to cap a certain profession's money? What about doctors...do they make "too much money"? Some things are out of whack, like lawyers making millions on class actions, where the class members collect a few dollars, but that's NOT the norm, and you know as well as I do, that it's the cases that are way far and away outside the box used to push tort reform agendas. And, when people with agendas, like "The Stella Awards" have to misinform the public to push their agenda, that tells you something.
Again, the system aint perfect. Lawyers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, moral and ethical make ups. Like society, there's a small minority that reflect badly on the vast majority...you can believe what you want, but all the lawyers AND judges I know do their level best to weed out the bad ones. NONE of us want that stigma. Bad cases, frivolous cases...they're like bad lawyers, not near the norm. Throing the baby out with the bath water isn't the answer in my opinion.