Cross Border Law to Sponsor Hot Coffee

[Please see the update on the change of date for this event above.]

Cross Border Law to Sponsor Hot Coffee, The Movie at the Ridge Theater on February 16th at 7:00pm.

It looks like we got their attention. Forbes just came out with their official big business response to “Hot Coffee, The Movie”, suggesting that it only tells half the story. What a joke! For twenty years, the media portrayed that story falsely, and now that someone has successfully revealed the truth, Forbes attempts to discredit the messenger-of course, that terrible scourge of our legal justice system, the trial lawyer.

For years we’ve linked the behind-the-scenes story of the Stella Liebeck case to our website, to allow folks to see what the Center for State Courts had to say about it. Every trial lawyer who’s ever selected a jury has heard it before –”Our courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits — take, for example, that case where the woman spilled hot coffee on herself and then had the gall to sue McDonalds, and she won millions! Now everyone is looking for a lottery win!”.

The real story behind that “McDonalds case” is actually more complimentary than critical of our civil justice system, celebrating a private citizen’s ability to take on a large corporation and achieve justice. Most shockingly, the very reason for the jury’s award — that McDonalds had ignored 700 previous customer complaints, some of which involved similar third degree burns — was cited critically by Forbes as representing a negligible percentage of complaints when compared to the billions of McDonalds customers. Hello?!? Forbes, like other big companies, seems to ignore the individual consumer’s rights. Fortunately, jurors are ordinary citizens too, and are slowly coming to notice the injustices promoted by big business propaganda.

At Cross Border Law, we’ve taken on a fair number of Davids v. Goliaths, and that’s why we’re proud to sponsor a showing of this movie. Entrance by donation to the Streetohome Foundation (Street to Home), helping homeless people in Vancouver find housing and dignity. We hope to see you there.

Tickets to the Vancouver premier of Hot Coffee on Feb 16th are available online at: http://www.crossborderlaw.eventbrite.ca

Here’s a recent review of the film: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/truth-about-stella-liebeck