Greene v. Boddie-Noelle Enters

You’ve all probably heard about the McDonald’s “hot coffee case” that’s commonly used an example of civil litigation gone amok. That was a products liability case where the court found that the product (coffee) had a defect which rendered it unreasonably dangerous for ordinary or foreseeable use. In that case, McDonalds had already had numerous reports of people being burned by the excessively hot coffee and the lid was not secure such that the injury to the plaintiff was foreseeable. Now you can examine a similar case, this time involving Hardee’s coffee.

Before crafting your discussion forum post, do your research! Carefully review the case of Greene v. Boddie-Noelle Enters. Consider the cause of action she had and whether she established what was necessary to prevail in the case. That is, consider the law that applies and whether it was applied appropriately. Be sure to review all of the facts of the case (not just what might have been included in some soundbite about frivolous lawsuits).

Your grade for this week depends on your ability to go beyond an urban legend, and demonstrate your understanding of the laws that were applied in this case. Your post should include a reference to at least one credible, rigorous source (law review article or other secondary source) through Shepardizing.

Keep in mind that you are asked, once again, to argue both sides of the argument. One of your posts should argue in favor of the outcome, and the other of your posts (it could be your reply post) should argue against the outcome. That is, you don’t have to include both sides in one post—I just need to see that, over all of your posts, you argued both sides.

Review the case, Greene v. Boddie-Noell Enters., 966 F. Supp. 416 (W.D. Va. 1997) and skim at least one law review article or other secondary source related to the case, that you see through using Shepardize in Lexis.com.

Do you agree with the result? Why or why not? Please try arguing in favor of the result in one or more posts and against the result in one or more posts. Share what you did to find precedents in a post as well.

Answer Preview

In this case, the plaintiff claimed to have been burnt by hot coffee which he had purchased from the drive-through window of a fast-food restaurant. The coffee spilt on the plaintiff after it had been handed to her by the driver of the vehicle. The plaintiff was driving with the boyfriend Chris Blevins, who bought the food through the window and passed it to…