To the Editor of the "Boston Globe":

Defending the $2.9 cup-of-coffee verdict against McDonald's, law professor Carl T. Bogus points out McDonalds had received 700 reports of "severe" coffee burns (Sun 16 Dec 2001, Op-Ed, p. D1). This indeed sounds like an epidemic, until one learns that McDonald's had sold $500 million in coffee in 1992 alone, and that the 700 reports were over a ten-year period 1982-1992. The coffee was hot, but most customers obviously liked it that way, despite a very small risk of being burned.

Should customers be forbidden from assuming such risks? Such decisions should be made by their elected representatives, not by twelve random individuals, often screened for gullibility in the voir-dire process, who will not be held accountable for their decision.

...

I part company from most right-wing "tort reform" advocates, however, in pointing out the single most important cause of unreasonable lawsuits -- our lack of universal health insurance. Juries in Canada and Western Europe know that injured people will get medical care in any case, while American juries know that injured people face ruinous medical expenses, while most defendants have insurance. Right-wingers tell us we cannot afford universal health insurance; in reality, as insurance premiums skyrocket, we can no longer afford not to have it.

--Hugo S. Cunningham
Boston, MA

Source for factual assertions in my letter above:

"From the 'Lectric Law Library's stacks
"The Actual Facts About The Mcdonalds' Coffee Case"
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm