Question for the legal types. May know someone who may or may not have been burned at a business due to an employee spilling coffee on them. This person suffered first degree burns and may or may not have been told by a company representative that the business, "did not follow protocols", when dealing with the injury, but asked the person to not contact an attorney until the companies "Insurance division" contacted the person.

So, what is the best avenue to pursue here? Contact the PI lawyer that people have suggested, or what would be an expected return for damages in this case? This imaginary person has not talked to anyone from the company yet, but this person does know quite a bit about potential long term damage given the sensitive nature of where the burns happened, so wondering what type of settlement would be high or low?

Just asking hypothetically of course and to generate a "General Discussion" per the title of the section.

Venue? Which county/counties could the plaintiff reasonably file this claim in and not get dismissed for improper venue

Let's just say purely for the continuation of hypothetical discussion it would be Winnebago County.

KRAMER: So ya know, my friend and I we were going to the movies and we stopped off and bought this cafe latte.

JACKIE: (Agreeing) Hm Hm. Oh what is that like Italian coffee?

KRAMER: Yeah that's right.

JACKIE: Half milk, half coffee?

KRAMER: Yeah.

JACKIE: Hm Hm. You take a sip?

KRAMER: Yes I did.

JACKIE: Now when you took a sip, did you notice it was hot? Were you able to sip it in your normal fashion?

KRAMER: No I wasn't able to sip it in my normal fashion.

JACKIE: Hm Hm. All right, all right. You take big sips?

KRAMER: Well I think I take a normal sip.

JACKIE: O.K. You take normal sips. Nothing wrong with that. Then what happened?

KRAMER: Well you know ahh, they don't allow outside drinks in the movie theater. So I had to put it in my shirt and sneak it in.

JACKIE: Yeah, see they like to sell their own coffee.

KRAMER: Yeah, now is that going to be a problem?

JACKIE: Yeah that's going to be a problem. It's gonna be a problem for them. This a clear violation of your rights as a consumer. It's an infringement on your constitutional rights. It's outrageous, egregious, preposterous.

KRAMER: It's definitely preposterous.

JACKIE: So. Then what happened?

KRAMER: Well ahh. I was trying to get to my seat and I had to step over someone and I kind of got pushed and it spilled on me.

JACKIE: Was there a top on it?

KRAMER: Yeah.

JACKIE: Now did you put the top on or did they put the top on for you?

KRAMER: No. They put the top on.

JACKIE: And they made the top. You didn't make the top did you?

(Kramer motions that he did not make the top)

JACKIE: (To secretary over intercom) Suzie. I want you to go down to Java World.

Get me a cafe latte with a top. (To Kramer) We're gonna run some test on that top. Have you been to the doctor?

KRAMER: Ah No no, I haven't.

JACKIE: (To secretary over intercom) Suzie. Call Dr. Bison. Set up an appointment for Mr. Kramer here. Tell him it's from me.

KRAMER: So ah, what do you think Mr. Chiles.

JACKIE: Jackie.

KRAMER: Jackie. I mean, we have a chance?

JACKIE: Do we have a chance? You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you gonna walk outta there a rich man.

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One of my favorite Score memories was the Heavy Fuel Crew talking about the 80-yr old woman who sued McDonald's when she spilled hot coffee on her crotch. Boers said something to the effect of, "she probably hadn't had heat like that down there since the Hoover administration."

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This hypothetical person may or may not have had an eerily similar thing happen to them in a drive through, and that hypothetical person may or may not have pics of first degree burns on their inner thigh, but that fake person will attest that it was quite painful.

https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts

Here are some details from the McDonald’s case. The fact that they said the coffee was out of protocol May actually be limiting for the person this did or didn’t happen too.

McDonald’s coffee was following procedure to be poured around 185 degrees and they had previously settled many lawsuits over the temperature being to hot and caused third degree burns.

Also the original suit just called for 20k to settle medical expenses and skin grafs on her legs. McDonald’s pushed the case to a jury.

The protocols that may or may not have been broken were not handling coffee properly, not checking on the person or filing an incident report, and coffee temp, so there may or may not be numerous policies that were not followed. The person said that personnel were disciplined, and an internal review was done, so it will be interesting to see what happens, there are certainly any number of people that may or may not be advising this person to engage the services of a PI Lawyer, but this person is still weighing options at this point.

Future medical expenses could easily be six figures into half a million dollars even, depending on how many skin grafts they have to do to restore the area to its pre-injury condition. Unfortunately the plaintiff's system favors lump-sum payouts and doesn't really accommodate a defendant picking up the tab for on-going medical treatment very well. So plaintiffs need to avoid the temptation to jump on the first six-figure offer from the defense.

Plenty of actual damages in the medical bucket, plus pain and suffering, eudaimonic and economic damages from lifestyle changes and missed work and pain and suffering. Unless the injury is not substantial enough to require grafts or the victim is going to live with permanent disfigurement (which would be a different calculation), any lawyer talking about settling for under $500K should be kicked to the curb. And that should be $750K or whatever to cover the lawyer's fee and still leave plaintiff with the funds to cover worst-case future medical.

For the sake of continuing the discussion only, lets say there were first degree burns, obviously quite a bit of pain and suffering, may still be long term internal urological issues, but those would not present themselves for a period of time, not quite sure what that would merit?

So heinous. Reminds me of the coal miner black lung days.

Guys, when management puts employees in a situation to work in unsafe conditions, I get pissed

We have a role to play in our communities. I'm having my team inspect this place right now. If we find black mold, we're done!

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I don't embrace excuses. I embrace solutions.

Find the discussion interesting because my experiences as being deposed as a plaintiff's witness in malpractice stuff were basically having the plaintiff's lawyer try to get me to cite instances where people did not follow accepted protocols or procedures, so the fact that a company rep would admit that written protocols were not followed leads me to believe there is at least somewhat an avenue here despite the level of injury.

internal urological issues? Did she try to douche with the hot beverage?

Plaintiff's lawyer would hire a medical expert to map out of the potential future medical costs based on worst case scenarios. Given the insane cost of medical care in the united states and its likelihood to increase year after year, probably you can't estimate that too high. Defense would try to argue for actual medical, but they should know better and come up with a figure in between. I'd still push for max comp for the medical side. If they bitch, bring blown-up photos of the injury to the settlement talks and leave them out during the discussion.

I gotta guy. He's coaching hockey at the Matzo Ball Games right now but you can leave a message at his office.

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We may be surrounded by beauty, but there's some evil stuff that's gonna come out soon.

that still won't insulate the employer from liability, its not the plaintiff's fault the employer hired a crap employee or, more likely, the employer didn't have checks in place to validate the written guidelines were being followed. employees not following guidelines is a highly foreseeable cause of injury. Maybe if the employee themselves had been injured, the employer could reduce liability; but because it was an authorized agent of the business handing out coffee to customers, the customer's ability to recover shouldn't be diminished due to the internal fuckery of the employer-employee relationship.

Again, purely for discussion here, but let's say it was a male that was involved, you have burns to the inner thigh, and a few rather sensitive areas, potential scarring internally could potentially lead to swelling or infection within the urethra, damage to testicles which would theoretically manifest later in reproductive or hormonal issues bases on testosterone production signaling with the endocrine system, unfortunately there is quite a bit of detailed knowledge of potential issues, of course given my background I could easily function as a medical expert or contact numerous specialists that would make this interesting, but again wondering if it is all worth it for first degree burns which I have seen usually only merit a certain amount. Just not sure if the case would merit more than a small amount, but then again that's why I am asking.

Their coffee burnt dude's dick? That's gotta be a million dollar case right there.

Yeah, the reproductive prospects would make it interesting, potentially huge payout there if there's any demonstrable or even suggestible nexus between the coffee spill and future (in)ability to have kids. Also having your junk fucked up no doubt screws up your whole mental well-being.