IIRC, McDonalds coffee was significantly hotter than any other large scale provider, and they had had multiple complaints and warnings about it. Its not a matter of stupid people not knowing that coffee is hot, but rather normal citizens haveing a reasonable expectation of what "hot coffee" means, an understanding that was not at all in line with McDonalds superheated version.
My general view, as a soft libertarian, is that there are three methods to control the potential rapaciousness and abuses by large power corporations:
1. government regulation, which as its own set of problems, mainly due to regulatory capture
2. liability law, i.e., civil law suits
3. public opinion translated to market power
I think 3 alone is wonderful, but insufficient. I generally oppose 1 since it will often result in the fox guarding the hen house, and so I am not at all bothered by our supposedly overly litigious society.
