The real issue here is not whether the coffee was unreasonably hot. The issue is that McDonald's had been circulating internal memos for years in which they stated that it was too hot, and posed a danger to their customers. Regardless of whether it was actually too hot, the point is that McDonald's believed it was dangerously hot and did nothing to change that.

And frankly, I don't care about what a thermometer said: If a cup of coffee causes third-degree burns, then it is, by definition, unreasonably hot.

Samuel, she had third-degree burns. She spent eight days in the hospital. Asking to be compensated in that situation is not unreasonable.

Asking people to RTFA, however, apparently is.

Er, I intended, but forgot or miscoded, to put emphasis on the phrase "that you can't chalk up to mere coincidence."

Sorry I'm just now getting back to this.

Oliver, your original post said, "However, when you correct he data, using Sidereal astrology, there is a correlation that you can't chalk up to mere coincidence." (My emphasis.)

That's what set me off. I can chalk a whole lot up to mere coincidence. Correlation does not indicate causation. (Although lack of correlation DOES indicate lack of causation.)

I'm getting the impression that even though the blurb up top tells you that there's more to the story than you think, several of you are still convinced that this was an overzealous jury and a sue-happy grandmother. The important facts here:

- McDonald's had known for a decade that its coffee was burning customers, but had done nothing about it.

- Grandmother originally sought $20,000 to cover her medical bills and lost wages. The jury ended up awarding her 10 times that in compensatory damages; after several rounds of negotiations and a full trial, this probably didn't cover much more than her legal fees.

- Finally, the $2.7 million was in punitive damages. It was not intended to compensate the grandmother, but rather to punish McDonald's for knowingly serving dangerously hot coffee to its customers for a decade.

Oliver, please provide a link to a peer-reviewed scientific journal to substantiate your claim.

@Femmy: Yeah, many of the comments here demonstrate the TL;DR phenomenon pretty clearly.

A story like this makes me grit my teeth and remind myself that it's her body, she can do what she wants, it doesn't affect me...

BTW, the linked article says, "Despite her obsession with heart-throb Robert Pattinson childless Mrs Ward has not got it in the neck from husband Francis, 52."

Does anyone know what "get it in the neck" means in UK slang? Something like "get in serious trouble," I'm guessing? I've never heard it before.

Daniellasaur, have you no sympathy for the billions of plants that are casually slaughtered each day just to feed humans' voracious appetites? Monstrous.

Very cool. I like it. Haters can go take a flying leap.

Not to minimize what Target's owner is going through, but it's maybe worth pointing out that the dog didn't have tags or a microchip. Good reason to make sure your pets wear ID.

(I should clarify that I do think this is pretty cool. But the bit about people with no coats caught my eye.)

"I wanted to do something for the people with no coats, so I knitted a coat for a metal statue."

I've read that Buckminster Fuller took a voluntary vow of silence for something over a year as well. The story doesn't seem to show up on any reliable-looking sites, though; maybe it's apocryphal.

Can't access Buzzfeed from work, but I sure hope Bob Dylan's "Christmas from the Heart" is on there.

As one critic said: "He sings 'I'll be Home for Christmas' and makes it sound like a threat."