zadoc wrote:

Irrelevant and immaterial. Had it been served at a drinkable
temperature, she wouldn't have been injured so severely.

Incidentally, it would have been possible at the time to measure the
temperature of the coffee served at this particular outlet and had the
temperature reading witnessed by an independent observer.

Does anyone know if this was done, and if so, what the temperature of
the served coffee actually was?

It was done by a local TV station. The McDonalds in question as well as
others were simply serving the coffee at the temperature it comes out
of the drip system. Same thing for all of the 7-11, Circle-K, etc.
Pretty much everyone was serving coffee at 180 degF give or take a few
degrees.

I've never understood how the plaintiff's lawyers got away with the
"unnaturally hot" line. You make coffee with boiling water. Water
boils about 200 degF here in Albuquerque (about a mile up) and there's
some cooling in the process, but the output temperature is pretty
constant, and I don't know anyone who puts the fresh coffee away to cool
before serving it.

The same applies to the "50 degrees hotter than normal" lines.

An unverifiable supposition. I pointed out in an earlier post that
most people wouldn't be able to drink coffee that was served at a
temperature high enough to cause immediate scalding. There is no way
of knowing whether she would have complained had it been at a
drinkable temperature of, say, 110 F or 43.33 degrees C.

That's a little odd, I would presume that you don't drink coffee when it
comes out of the coffee maker, nor tea when using water fresh off the stove?

Why should it? A product is supposed to be inherently safe for the
average user.

Where the heck are you getting that idea? By that definition you'd
better not get out of bed in the morning - life isn't "inherently safe".
Most everything in your house isn't "inherently safe" - you can't have
electricity, hot water (betcha it's about your 110 "safe" temp), heating
systems, etc. Once out of the house you're going to have to face the
deathmobile: the automobile, being driven on inherently unsafe roads. Gads!