A new documentary, Hot Coffee, premieres on HBO on June 27th at 8:00 p.m. Chicago time. This movie reviews the now infamous case involving a woman who spilled hot coffee in her lap nearly 20 years ago and sued McDonalds for her injuries. Everyone is familiar with the McDonalds coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.
This movie investigates why special interest groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - funded behind the scenes by insurance companies, big tobacco, oil, pharmaceutical companies and the like - want to undermine our civil justice system and restrict the legal rights of all Americans to exercise their constitutional guaranteed right to trial by jury and to receive fair and reasonable compensation for when they have been wronged. These attacks are an effort at so-called civil justice reform - or tort reform. These special interest groups, especially in Illinois, work to convince citizens that our justice system is being manipulated for profit, when in fact it is being manipulated against the interests of normal people who sustain catastrophic injuries.
Watch Hot Coffee on HBO and decide for yourself who is truly working to protect the safety of our communities and citizens. I trust you will quickly learn that it is not the big insurance and corporate interest groups, who try to scare people into thinking that juries of your peers are unable to enforce safety rules in your community with fair verdicts against those wrongdoers protected by special interest groups.
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