SFflyer123

this case reminds me of the case of that woman who won $14million from mcdonalds for that hot coffee which scalded her. people don't want to take responsibility for their action;they blame other people. the FA had no way of knowing if this dude had an alcohol problem.

Uniter

But that's not how liability law works. It's based on the percentage of blame a jury decides. Is the FA completely blameless? Does she bear no responsibility if a passenger is obviously drunk? She -- and therefore UA -- is partly to blame. How much is up to a jury.

As for the McDonalds case, if you actually read the case, it's not as clear cut. This particular McDonalds was given a dozen warnings that their coffee was scalding hot. McDonalds chose to ignore all of these warnings. Were they completely to blame? Of course not. But partly? ... I think so.

Mark_K

Doing some googling, it wasn't declared unconstitutional (the old memory bank isn't what it once was), an appeals court judge just dismissed the case. It involved 19 YO's going to Canada drinking legally and then coming back to Michigan. I believe the legislature has reworded the law since then.

roadkit

No, actually lawsuits like this are the reason our courts are bogged down and another example of why people who file frivolous lawsuits should get mandatory jail time for filing them.

jason8612

Just sad.
Next lawsuit wil be that United didn't offer enough wine.
New United Rules:
GM are allowed 1 alcoholic drink in C and 2 in F for flights over 5hrs
3P/2P/1P are allowed 2 and 4
1K 4 and 6
GS none - only milk and pillows

mahasamatman

Maybe someone should file suit about the quality of the wine...

SFOtoORD

Good point! The standard of law should be that if you spend more than $3 on your wine, but it tastes worse than 2buck Chuck then you're liable.

joejones

General rule for the cabin of a plane is that when the plane is on the ground, the cabin is under the jurisdiction of the country where the plane is parked or taxiing. Once in the air, the cabin is under the jurisdiction of the country where the plane is registered. The plane itself will come under the jurisdiction of any third country it flies over -- think KAL 007 -- but the occupants remain under the jurisdiction of the country of registration, which affects, for instance, who gets to fine you if you mess with the smoke detectors.

This doesn't really help the analysis here since there is no federal dram shop law in the US (although the FARs mentioned already would apply).

I think Japan has no dram shop liability law at all, other than (possibly) general negligence liability under its civil code. Frankly, "liability" is a relative term there since suing is expensive and slow and judges are remarkably conservative in giving verdicts against businesses -- basically the polar opposite of the US, which is good if you're a defendant but not if you're the poor schmuck in the hospital.

John Thacker

It's somewhat complicated, because the salient facts of the case are:

1) McDonalds in general, including this one, had hotter coffee than most competitors, which undoubtedly made it more unsafe than competitors', but
2) Customers in general, including this lady, preferred McDonalds coffee because it was hotter. She specifically made McDonalds her routine coffee stop because it was hotter.

Since then McDonalds has switched to less hot coffee, butStarbucks makes their coffee hotter than what McDonalds did. Of course, they don't have drive-throughs.

So in an alcohol sense it's like specifically buying 151 rum or Everclear because it has a higher alcohol content (and perhaps trying to make Jell-O shots with it), but then complaining because the higher alcohol content makes it unsafe, particularly with your drinking habits.

You certainly can still make an argument that McDonalds had some liability, granted, based on something like "I wanted the hottest coffee that was safe for me, and I figured that because McDonalds sold it at the drive-through it must be safe enough for drinking in the car and that they were giving an implicit guarantee that it was." That's not without merit, but I still have issues with it.

There was a somewhat similar issue with baby bath seats, which the Consumer Product Safety Council banned a couple years ago. (Or tried to ban, as I haven't kept up with all the latest info.) It seems that the bath seats did not make bathing a child any more dangerous inherently, but nor did they provide protection that diminished the risk of drowning. The argument then went that they could fool a parent into thinking that they provided extra safety, causing the parent to rely upon that and behave in a more unsafe manner, such as leaving the child alone in the seat, indirectly causing an increase in drowning. There is some evidence to back this up, but I'm not really willing to follow the chain of reasoning.

aisleorwindow

Amen ^

bhooper

There are a lot of responses to this thread, but I did not notice anything that mentioned the passenger(s), while on the flight, showed any signs of intoxication or beligerence. People have varying tolerances for alcohol intake, so if the passengers seemed OK during the flight, they (the FA's) have no control what they do afterwards.

Total ........ lawsuit, and the passengers should be made to pay all costs

flyin´ruddl

And to add: This is why many people outside the U.S. just laugh -at best- about the U.S. judisdiction system

F.R.

TMOliver

That big sliding window opening onto a drive with a line of cars at my neighborhood (and by me unfrequented) Starbucks certainly resembles a drive through. Can it just be a facsimile, a stage set to bloster popularity?

PVR

In California at least Starbucks has a lot of drive-thrus.

SFOtoORD

I'm not aware of a judisdiction system.