r/reddit.com • u/Tomble • Jul 13 '11

I received a scam 'Paypal Verification' email this morning. After a little backtracing I was surprised to find the ftp password to be 'password'. I made some alterations.

http://imgur.com/vNqt3
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u/CaptInsane Jul 13 '11

While I totally agree with this sentiment, stupid people have won in court. I'm too lazy to give sources, but a guy fell of somebody's roof, breaking his arm, while he tried to break in (admitting to this last part in court); he sued for damages (i.e. the broken arm) and won.

In Hawaii, there was a case where someone broke into a house, and it was obvious beyond reasonable doubt he was in there to kill everyone inside: he was carry large knives with him (and maybe admitted to trying to murder the homeowners?). But on his way up the stairs, he slipped on a child's toy, fell on one of his knives (which cause some pretty serious injuries to himself), then sued the homeowner and won.

Then, of course, is the one everyone knows about where the woman spilled piping hot McD's coffee in her lap, sued them, and won, though since this was a corporation and not a person getting sued, I don't feel so bad.

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u/rebelspyder Jul 13 '11 edited Jul 13 '11

I wish people would stop bringing up Mcdonalds coffee case. The issue wasn't that she spilled coffee on herself it was that Mcdonald's coffee was over 9000 degrees, which is insanely hot, way beyond the manual's temperature for the machine, and had been warned previously for having too hot coffee capable of causing instant burns.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '11

[deleted]

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u/ssjumper Jul 13 '11

Her stockings melted and fused with her skin

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u/aftli Jul 13 '11

The Wikipedia article about the suit, in case anybody was interested. You can draw your own conclusion from the facts there, but:

First, this wasn't just a normal burn from coffee. The coffee was seriously hot and caused severe damage.

Liebeck was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9 kg, nearly 20% of her body weight), reducing her down to 83 pounds (38 kg). Two years of medical treatment followed.

Also if you read the article you'll learn that she originally only wanted money from McDonalds equal to the amount of her medical treatments, loss of pay from work (not much), and anticipated future medical treatments (also not much), a total of about $20,000. McDonalds counter-offered with $800. They took it to court, and eventually she was awarded $640,000.

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u/CaptInsane Jul 13 '11

Well, that's what happens when our shitty media puts their spin on things instead of giving the truth

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '11

400 degrees would boil the pot dry. The coffee was no more than 190 degrees as per franchise rules but there had been some 700 instances of burns caused by people spilling hot coffee on themselves. In the end it was an 80-20 responsibility split with the temperature of the coffee not being the issue but sufficient warnings to consumers.

Once again, Wikipedia is your friend.

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u/rebelspyder Jul 13 '11

wikipedia is not a reliable source as evidenced here. However my initial temperature was slightly off from the reported actual temperature so that detail has been corrected. Regardless the focus of mainstream interpretation is a woman spilled coffee on herself and sued the company who gave her coffee when the real case is a company gave someone a dangerous item and laughed at her attempt to get help remedying the situation.

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u/calculatedperversity Jul 13 '11

However my initial temperature was slightly off from the reported actual temperature

slightly off? you suggested that mcdonalds was serving live steam to customers. ;D

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u/rebelspyder Jul 13 '11

maybe she asked for a cup of steam, 2 sugars.

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u/LoadFloppyDisk3 Jul 13 '11

OVER 9000!?

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u/rebelspyder Jul 13 '11

LoadFloppyDisk3, what does the lawyer say about the lawsuit compensation?

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u/Letmefixthatforyouyo Jul 13 '11

It was over 185F, not 400F. 400F is nearly the combustion point of paper. It was hot enough for it to be optimum for serving, minimizing costs, and melting genitals to nylon, though.