Most people think they know the "McDonald's coffee case," but what they don't know is that corporations have spent millions distorting the case to promote tort reform. HOT COFFEE reveals how big business, aided by the media, brewed a dangerous concoction of manipulation and lies to protect corporate interests. By following four people whose lives were devastated by the attacks on our courts, the film challenges the assumptions Americans hold about "jackpot justice." Written by Hot Coffee

First amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Keith Gilyard speaking of pragmatism says, “In this view, truth is not gained through deductive reasoning but by means of inductive experimentation and rigorous assessment.”

Warning: this blog could at any time become a rant.

Our group went and saw the documentary Hot Coffee. I have included at the beginning of this document the summary of the film written by the folks who made it. The summary is accurate to what the documentary discussed and includes the filmmakers bias. I remember this case when it made the news. I remember the jokes. I remember the countless headlines about jackpot justice and lawsuit lotteries. At the time, I remember thinking how ridiculous. Then from somewhere, but don’t know where, I found out the extent of the woman’s injuries. It gave me pause and made me wonder if perhaps there was more to this case than what the media had to say about it. However, I never saw any follow-up story. I never knew what happened to her or what ultimately became of her lawsuit. Most people don’t know what happened although they think they do.

As I have been studying Cornel West and pragmatism, I am beginning to come to the conclusion that pragmatism based on a democratic ethic is what this country needs. This documentary exposes how modern media works against such a pragmatic model. In fact, it seems that the power structures in place in this country are actively working against any working democratic model that does not serve the interests of those in power. A model that serves only those in power is diametrically opposed to a democratic model. Keith Gilyard speaks of pragmatism as truth gained through “inductive experimentation and rigorous assessment.” At present, the people who rely on the media to give them information have little to no input on what is being assessed or how rigorous that assessment is being done. As a result, we are woefully uninformed while thinking we know everything.

At the beginning of this blog, I put three different quotes. One is the summary of the movie hot coffee, one is the text of the first amendment, and the last is a quote from Keith Gilyard’s book Composition and Cornel West: Notes toward a Deep Democracy. These three quotes are here because they are informing everything I write in this blog. While the movie is about civil litigation, it is really about freedom of the press and how corporate interests manipulated public opinion in favor of McDonald’s. Usually freedom of the press refers to a press that is not a lap dog of the state. Now, it seems that the press is the lap dog of corporate interests. So, sometimes our press supports what the gov’t wants and sometimes it does not because it really isn’t about what the government wants; it’s about what corporate interests want us to believe.

The movie exposes how the media shaped what people believed about Liebeck vs. McDonald’s, and used that public sentiment that they created to support tort reform legislation. At the end of the day, their actions have made it more difficult to hold powerful companies accountable for mistakes they have made. Now, it does kind of sound like a conspiracy theory and I’m not big on conspiracy theories. However, when you consider how thoroughly misunderstood this case was by the public, it is hard not to point the finger at that corporations who own the media and certainly have an interest in the outcome of this case. They were able to make McDonald’s, the giant corporation with billions and billions of dollars, look like the victim of a greedy old woman who wanted to make millions at 78 years old. Most people still think she received a 2.7 million dollar settlement from McDonald’s and perhaps lived out her life on a lovely island in the Caribbean. The jury awarded her the $2.7 million settlement but the judge reduced that to $460,000. Where was the press to report the realities of this case? Where were the journalists who should have been asking real questions? Why is it that few people know that she suffered third degree burns over 6% over body and had to have multiple skin graft surgeries? Why doesn’t anybody know that there were 700 other complaints about hot coffee served at McDonald’s?

I think this is where pragmatism based on democracy could help. Oliver Wendell Holmes and William James both were committed to providing space for the “weaker argument.” In our modern society how are we ever suppose to hear about the weaker argument if we have a press that is actively shutting out any argument other than the ones their corporate bosses want people to hear? Gilyard says that truth comes out of experience and rigorous assessment. Who comes up with the criteria on which to base the assessment? What criteria are we using right now? I think the criteria that we’re using right now are based on the following questions: “how can this story be used to prop up the status quo?” or, “how can this story be used to increase profit?” Personally, I think the criteria needs to change to may be something like, “what do viewers or readers need to know and fully understand to make a fully informed decision about this story?”

The hot coffee lawsuit led to changes in the legislation that make it much more difficult for regular citizens to hold large companies accountable for their actions. This outcome helps on corporations and all companies of all sizes. It enables them to do business the way they would like to without having to worry about who it hurts. All they need to worry about is their cost benefit analysis sheet. I know there are issues with civil litigation some of those back to my attention by Kate. McDonald’s really never had anything to worry about. The $2.7 million settlement was intended to be punitive. It was reduced to $460,000. The 2.7 figure represents two days of coffee sales. How is that remotely punitive? They didn’t even notice it. Even worse, McDonald’s came out smelling like a rose. Of course, McDonald’s held all the aces in part due to a PR firm that helped them shape public opinion on this case. Years ago I heard about companies producing their own segments to air on local news shows. These segments never disclosed that they were in fact made by the company and dealers were led to believe that it was news. As I said before, I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but when the press is owned outright by corporations who employ PR firms to shape public opinion in the media, it is hard not to suspect them of less than democratic purposes.

The media’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been very interesting to watch. Since these protesters are targeting corporatism, it isn’t really surprising that the mainstream media completely ignore the protests for the first three weeks. Nor is it surprising, that when they did start to pay attention, they tried to characterize the protests as a movement of unhappy, white, middle class, lazy kids. Unfortunately for the mainstream media, they are not the only ones with cameras and access to the Internet. I saw a couple of headlines suggesting that people of color were not interested in the occupy protests. This of course did not fit with the pictures and video I had seen of the protests. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will say that I am in support of the Occupy Wall Street protest and have joined the protesters here in Albuquerque on one occasion. On that occasion, my husband and I arrived 30 minutes before the rally. My husband and I are both 40 years old and we were the youngest there by at least 10 years. The media seems to have dropped the idea that it’s all just a bunch of lazy white kids, and now they are continuously saying that the protesters don’t know what they want even when they make a list of grievances.

The movie, Hot Coffee, and the coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement have convinced me that we desperately need a press that works for the people and not the bottom line of profit.