Warning: Another Coffee Cup Maker Thinks Hot Coffee Is a Joke

More hot coffee warningsA while back I posted a picture of a coffee cup, reportedly from Canada, that made fun of U.S. tort law and, indirectly, poor Stella Liebeck, the plaintiff in the infamous McDonald’s coffee spill.

Now Chris Fergus, a professor in Australia, sends along this photo showing another coffee cup maker having a grand old time with the case by including a warning on its cups stating, “Avoid Pouring on Crotch Area.”  I don’t speak French, but  can guess the French version amounts to something like “Don’t Pour It on Your Oolala.”  Chris said he received the photo from one of his students and is unsure where it originated.

Hilarious, unless you happen to end up like Ms. Liebeck.  Sorry for the graphic pic, but this is actually one of the milder pictures of her burn injuries:

Stella Liebeck's burn injuries

And so here we are more than a decade later continuing to distort the American tort system with a case in which dangerously hot coffee sold through a drive-thru window caused third-degree burns to a 79-year-old woman who accidentally spilled it while a passenger in a stopped vehicle trying to add cream and sugar.  Consult the original post for links to some eye-opening information about what really happened in the McDonald’s coffee spill case.

–Thanks to Chris Fergus

3 comments to Warning: Another Coffee Cup Maker Thinks Hot Coffee Is a Joke

  • Edward Martindale

    I am the guilty party who made up this java jacket for our small independent coffee shop. This has been around for many years before things went viral on the internet. My brother and I over coffee one day just decided to put this on the jacket to make fun of the ridiculous warnings on mega-corporations sleeves. I had heard of the McDonald’s case but this really was not in our minds at the time. At the printers he said, “Why not come up with a French version since due to political correctness in Canada we have to have everything in French as well as English.” Then I came up with the German…the Germans think it is Dutch and vice versa. This was our own private, local joke and was never meant to go around the globe like it did.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

  

  

  

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Funny Law School Stories
For all its terror and tedium, law school can be a hilarious place. Everyone has a funny law school story. What’s your story?

Strange Judicial Opinions
Large collection of oddball and off-the-wall judicial opinions and orders.

Product Warning Labels
A variety of warning labels, some good, some silly and some just really odd. If you come encounter a funny or interesting product warning label, please send it along.

Tortland
Tortman! Andrew J McClurg
Tortland collects interesting tort cases, warning labels, and photos of potential torts. Raise risk awareness. Play "Spot the Tort."

Weird Patents
Think it’s really hard to get a patent? Think again.

Legal Oddities
From the simply curious to the downright bizarre, a collection of amusing law-related artifacts.

Spot the Tort
Have fun and make the world a safer place. Send in pictures of dangerous conditions you stumble upon (figuratively only, we hope) out there in Tortland.

Legal Education
Collecting any and all amusing tidbits related to legal education.

Harmless Error
McClurg's twisted legal humor column ran for more than four years in the American Bar Association Journal.