Project for my more objective minded DU'ers.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

I get fatigued from having to go to my bookmarks to rebut posts that tell outright lies ad infinitum whether we are discussing torts, candidates or any other subject.

While this thread may not be the answer, I propose a FILE SHARING of sorts.

POST YOUR TOPIC in the subject line so others can tag under you.

Have the first sentence be the MYTH

Then please post the rebuttal to that myth.

Perhaps once this thread gets going, we can move it to the MEETING ROOM for longevity's sake..

Then when the myth reappears, you can return to this thread...take the post and cut and paste.

It seems more sensible than wasting time when someone else has already done the work.

Please tag under the TOPIC, if you topic is the same.

[Terwilliger]

1. We all should be lawyerly like you

and just remember everything off the top of our heads :D

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. OH believe me, some people pull this shit off the top of their heads

What's on the top of their heads is the fucking scary thing :eyes:

[disgruntella]

3. I'm a bookmarker

And BS-detecting is a fun sport. ;) I'll try to keep this in mind. Thanks

[Terwilliger]

4. I have a lot of hair up there

more emotion than I should as well

[Don_G]

7. Strictly Programming Language

Is it "lawyerly" to input the highlights of everything you want to search?

If you want to be legal about this, why don't you embark on a project to input the data from all courts from 1776 to date to discover where we f**ked up and when.

Sarcasm-Off.

We have to live together as a society and, as I recall, Stalin ultimately failed in achieving that goal in the USSR.

[Richardo]

5. Armed Forces

Myth: Bush supports the military.

Fact: Army times editorial "Lip Service" from 6/30/03 about Bush budget cuts affecting veterans and active duty personnel.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-1954515.php

[sangh0]

6. I don't understand

It sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure what you're proposing.

Should we start a thread called MYTH, or is there a thread we should be posting with a subject line MYTH?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Library Max and Ricardo got it right..follow their lead

[library_max]

8. McDonald's Hot Coffee Case

MYTH: As a horrible example of lawsuit abuse, some old lady and her lawyers got $2.9 million from McDonald's because she spilled coffee in her lap.

REBUTTAL: First of all, the judge vacated the jury's verdict and reduced the amount to $640,00, and the case was later settled for even less.

Second, the suit never claimed that it was McDonald's fault that the plaintiff spilled her coffee. People spill coffee in their laps all the time. That means that it is a predictable occurrence, and the McDonald's management should reasonably be aware that it is going to happen.

The basis of the suit was that the coffee was served at a temperature near 180 degrees. That's closer to boiling than to a comfortable drinking temperature. The result was that the plaintiff, who was 79 years old at the time, got third-degree burns on her legs. Now, third-degree burns are the most serious, life-threatening kind, the kind you get by being on fire or being trapped in a burning building. Her age and state of health had something to do with this, but McDonald's knows that old people will also buy their coffee sometimes.

The reason for the very high punitive damages is that the extremely high serving temperature of the coffee was not an employee's error, but the standard practice of the restaurant. Coffee is kept at near-boiling temperatures so that a meal can be put together in any order and the coffee remain hot after it's been in the cup for several minutes. This means that sometimes it is going to be served dangerously hot.

There had been about 700 previous instances of customers being injured by near-boiling McDonald's coffee, all paid off with medical expenses and some pittance for pain and suffering. McDonald's had demonstrated no intention of changing its workflow - it merely intended to "bottomline" the cost of injuring a certain percentage of its customers, because it was cheaper to hurt people than to change the system. The jury awarded the plaintiff $2.9 million, not because she needed that much, but because they thought that would make McDonald's wake up and smell the boiling coffee.

This is the general principle behind tort reform, by the way. It is an attempt for moneyed interests to facilitate "bottomlining" the cost of killing, injuring, and otherwise abusing people. If jury awards are capped, they can compare the maximum possible cost of killing X number of people (by not cleaning up a leak which contaminates a community's groundwater, for example) to the cost of not killing the people (by cleaning up the leak). If the cost of killing people is less, well, they have a fiscal duty to their shareholders, don't they? If there is no upward limit on the cost of hurting people, companies will have to think, at least, before they do so.

[GAspnes]

9. good idea

and your method is as good as any I've heard. I suppose there might be a problem with irrelevant responses, even argument, under a given de-bunking, though.

[BurtWorm]

11. This thread should not be where these posts are stored.

There should be a post in Meeting Room called something like Myths and Rebuttals, or DUrban Legends. I mean there should be a clearly marked thread to go look for these fact-straightening subjects. And if you're having a debate with someone who makes a claim you've seen debunked, you can send him or her straight there.

I know you know what I mean, NSMA, I'm just hoping to discourage people from setting up shop in this thread, which doesn't have the right heading for such a project.