Susan Saladoff's Hot Coffee concerns tort reform politics in the United States and the controversy surrounding such reform. The film is named after the infamous lawsuit that people have greatly shortchanged in its details, editorialized for their own amusement, or wrote off as senseless and that of little importance. The lawsuit is Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, which was enacted when an elderly woman named Stella Liebeck spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap while sitting in the passenger seat of her nephew's car in the restaurant's parking lot. The cup, which was said to be at roughly 180 - 190 degrees Fahrenheit, left Liebeck with third degree burns and skin grafts to repair most of her lap.
We're told a lawsuit was created by Liebeck not to draw attention to herself or to gain money, but to prevent such a thing from happening to other people. However, listen to the lawsuit - a woman sues a restaurant for coffee being too hot. The ideas to riff, play, and utilize it in ways to demand the wildest things are not that hard to come up with. The lawsuit in itself was the main kickstarter to proposed tort reform in the United States, which is when common law is changed or rewritten to put a restriction on the kinds of things the American public can sue for. It's not doubt that we've become a lawsuit-happy country in this day and age, but does that mean everyone's rights to do such should be restricted? Saladoff uses various cases to show how tort reform has affected America in a detrimental way. One of the cases involves the Gourley family, a middle class Nebraskan family who was stricken with hellish circumstances when one of their twin sons was born severely mentally handicapped due to malpractice. Lisa Gourley went to the doctor's when she noticed irregular movement of her twin boys during pregnancy. The doctor monitoring Lisa's pregnancy assumed she had two placentas, when she only had one, resulting in one twin, Connor, being born normally, and Colin, the other twin, born with little oxygen to his brain while in the womb. Colin's medical bills were obviously through the roof, causing major financial struggles with the family. They thought a malpractice lawsuit would take care of finances. Despite winning their case, the $5.6 million payout, which would've covered numerous medical expenses, was reduced to the $1.25 million payout cap Nebraska had in place, leaving the Gourley's with only a few hundred-thousand dollars after paying their lawyer fee. Caps on damages were set in place by tort reform.
The other two cases, or proclaimed "exhibits," show a Mississippi justice named Oliver Diaz prosecuted due to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's methods for Diaz's stance against tort reform. The final studies the case Jamie Leigh Jones v. Halliburton Co., examining mandatory arbitration after Jones was brutally gangraped on one of the company's assignments in Iraq and was then held in a shipping crate for twenty-four hours with no food or drink. Because of a lengthy contract the oil company Halliburton makes their employees sign, Jones could not sue because a rape lawsuit was voided by signing the contract to work at Halliburton.
Belief in tort reform was a logical position to take after hearing about the McDonald's lawsuit, I believe. If you, like many others, heard the basic outline of a story that a woman spilled coffee on her lap and received $2.9 million from the company who sold her the coffee, you'd likely be pretty skeptical or even angry. It would be your tax dollars put to use on what seems to be a frivolous lawsuit. However, when details have light shined on them, magnifying other vital parts of the story (such as the third degree burns, the selflessness of the victim, the skin grafts), things begin to become clearer and maybe a lawsuit (regardless of the imminent payout) more understandable.
Things began to become clearer to the corporations too, who realized they could be victim to the same immense payout of McDonald's. Organizations began turning up all over the internet and on Television, advocating for tort reform and an end to "senseless lawsuits." One association was called Citizens Against Law Abuse (CALA). CALA gave consumers the illusions that the group was on their side and made up of concerned citizens who didn't want their tax dollars wasted. However, CALA wasn't citizen-driven at all; it was corporation-driven. The association was created and paid for rightfully paranoid corporations that thought similar lawsuits would be the jurisdictional norm and that getting consumers to support a group like CALA would effectively make them feel like they were protecting their money when they were protecting the corporations instead.
In an essence, corporations would encouraging Americans to support a form of politics that effectively limits their right to a trial. Because of groups like CALA and the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), the concept of tort reform politics such as caps on damages and mandatory arbitration were furthered and the citizens were given the illusion that they were winning when they were actually losing big.
Hot Coffee brings these points to light in a way that isn't didactic or overly-reliant on redundant exposition. It's also not a statistical documentary; one that beats you over the head with charts, graphs, and percentages seemingly trying to scare you more than attempting to inform you. In addition, the information is made accessible and understandable to most everyone, and the importance of the documentary isn't sacrificed by a filmmaker fighting for the camera. This is an intelligent documentary because it knows its subject inside and out and can communicate it to a large audience. That is, by definition, an extremely successful documentary. The only thing making it better is that it concerns an issue that many can relate to.
Directed by: Susan Saladoff.
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