Hot Coffee

Ryan E Harvey

Employee Relations

Tuesday/Thursday-6:00-8:30

Hot Coffee

After watching the documentary Hot Coffee I am heart broken by what these individuals had to go through. My opinion from watching this is that big business will always win and the people are going to be the ones who suffer all the time. I hope that this country will wise up and take into consideration the people are the ones being hurt.

I had heard of tort reform on the television but I really had no idea what it actually was. Tort reform aims is to make it more “difficult for injured people to file a lawsuit, make it more difficult for the injured to attain a jury trial, and places caps on the amount of money the injured can receive in a lawsuit”(www.whatistourtreform.com).

I understand that some people are looking for their next big pay day and just can’t wait to find someone or something to sue. It is very important for the court system to weed out the frivolous lawsuits and make room and spend time on the important ones. The one case that was discussed in the documentary was about the mother who was pregnant with twins. She had done her part by going to her doctor to discuss some issues she was having with her pregnancy. The doctor had assured her that everything was fine. As her discomfort persisted she went to another doctor who admitted her to the hospital.

After arriving at the hospital it took two hours for her to go into surgery. Unfortunately one of her twins was born with severe disabilities while the other was born perfectly normal. The protocol was for her to be taken into surgery within ten minutes, if this had occurred both babies would have been born healthy. This family decided to sue and they had done so successfully. It was determined that it would take close to six million dollars for this boy to be properly taken care of for the rest of his life, but in Nebraska where the family is from there is a cap on damages. The family only received a little over a...