This morning when I was having breakfast with my wife, I said the hot tea was not really hot. And, we happened to remember the other day, when we were having a new year dinner in a restaurant, one of our friends had complained the tea was also not hot and it even didn’t have any steam coming out from it. And, we suddenly burst into laughter. The fact was that we hadn’t seen a real hot tea in restaurants for years.
I then joked that this was the aftermath of a lawsuit against a very big franchise restaurant when its really hot coffee seriously hurt an old woman.
This lawsuit has its own significance on the extent of liability and responsibility, but I am a little guy with no courage at all to comment on these apparently legal matters. The liability kind of thing in this country seems to have almost turned people silent when they don’t have an attorney. Free speech is kind of protected by law, but you don’t really know the boundary. So you better shut up! Just kidding!
But no body would guess that this lawsuit has helped fight global warming. Hah, hah, you don’t believe that. After the lawsuit, this big franchise has no way but to drop down the temperature of the coffee. Heating the coffee consumes electrical energy, electrical energy mostly comes from power plants burning fossil fuel and that emits carbon dioxide said to have green house effect and cause global warming.
Am I right? Calculate the number of this franchise restaurant in US and all those other restaurants that are bound to follow the new ‘rule’, you will agree with me, Ye. I say, all the concerned personnel should all be awarded a Nobel Prize in environmental protection, though it is still not one of the categories of Nobel’s Prize.
Therefore, for those who taste a cup of likely less tasteful coffee or tea every morning, don’t complain. Think about your contribution to fighting global warming. Ha, ha!
Note: This lawsuit is still quite famous and if you type a key word of hot coffee lawsuit, it will return many web pages about the case. After years, I still hear jokes making fun of this case and only a few nights ago I heard it in a midnight talk show. It was used to cause a joke for another lawsuit against a big company for firing an employee misusing the work place computer to 'view' inappropriate web pages. We will look forward to see the verdict of this one. See the following link for details
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20070109.html
March
2007