After seeing the documentary Hot Coffee, it makes me realize how messed up our political system is. Some Politicians will do whatever it takes to get that reelection and even go against what they believe to obtain there so called Power. Its to the point that they have the people of the United States thinking that Tort Reform is necessary, when in reality they are trying to take away your freedom form you. They are taking away your rights and us the people don’t even know it.
These big companies have manipulated so many people that tort reform is a good thing, they have Big politicians always saying that it is necessary that people just started believing whatever came out of there mouths. What Tort Reform really does is it makes so much more money for big companies and it puts a limit to your compensation within a lawsuit against any company. You can be killed in an accident, the car could’ve blown up because it was supposed to be recalled, but the company gets away with only paying 100K, while your family suffers through the pain.
All this does is makes the rich richer. In the case of McDonalds vs. Stella Liebeck, the coffee burns Stella after she accidently spills the coffee on her. After everything, all Stella Asks for is for McDonalds to pay for her medical expenses, a amount that doesn’t even come close to how much they make a day in coffee. They decide to give her not even half of the amount, so Stella sues them. While in Discovery they find that McDonalds kept their coffee at 180-190 degrees while knowing 3rd degree burns happen at 185 degrees, the same type of burns that Stella had suffered.
Also during discovery, they found that there were another 700 accidents that had happened but were kept low key because McDonalds just paid them a good amount of money. So not only was there damage to Stella, but also to 700 other people, which means there were Punitive Damages. The Jury finally assesses the damages and awards Stella with $200,000 and $2. 7 Million in Punitive damages, which equaled 2 days worth of Income from coffee. The 2. 7 million was the reduced to $480,000 because of the Cap on Punitive Damages.
Even though Stella still won about 680,000, the law that the people past for caps on punitive damages saves McDonalds $2. 1 million, so at the end of the day they got the last laugh. With all this said, big companies are trying to find any way possible to continue making money, while not even caring at all about their employees or costumers. Most people don’t even know but when most people sign a contract for a credit card, cell phone or as an employee they sign an Automatic Arbitration clause.
This is so people don’t sue the company and are basically forcing people to sign it. Every Big Company has this clause and one of the worse cases was the Halliburton case. This young lady gets a job that she has been wanting so she can support her family back home, she is sent to the warzone and is bunkered with all males, not a single female at all. She tries to bunker somewhere else and the company does not allow her to move at all. She is eventually drugged and raped by the men in her bunker; she has vaginal and anal tears and is scared for life.
The next day she goes and takes a rape kit to see who raped her and that magically disappears and she is moved inside a portable container basically imprisoning her for standing up for herself. She is stuck in there for 5 days and she finally gets to call her father who eventually makes a couple of calls to get her home. When she gets home and tries to sue, she can’t cause of this Arbitration Clause, and Arbitration with one of the Halliburton Arbitrators.
Either way Halliburton was getting away clean because they were going to win arbitration. Because of this clause, Halliburton gets away with rape and falsely imprisoning this poor girl. The saddest thing of all this is that most of the people that we elect to represent us, will represent them because of the money flow and because the will always keep there seat. My solution to all this is easier said then done. People really need to be more informed when they vote and not always take the BS that most of these Politian’s and commercials say.
These Big Companies are slowly but surely taking every right away from the people of the United States. Whether it is putting a cap on any damage, or not even allowing juries to make a right decision. They really need to do some research and we need to gain our rights back. What these companies have done is a very complex way of manipulation, manipulating the people you vote in to do the things that they want or it will for sure cost them reelection. It’s just the ways things are now days and hopefully things start to change sooner rather then later.
