Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee the Movie
Official Site : http://hotcoffeethemovie.com/
A documentary by Susan Saladoff

Blocking the courthouse door
By Stephanie Mencimer
Amazon link :http://www.amazon.com/Blocking-Courthouse-Door-Republican-Corporate/dp/0743277007


I saw Hot Coffee in this year's San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). When i came to know about SFIFF, i decided to watch atleast one movie. While i was browsing the movies, since most of them are indie movies and firs time premiers, it was difficult to decide which one to watch. None of the other ones were convincing enough to watch them (and i knew that later one of these movies will be a cult film and i had failed to recognize them when i had a chance). But HotCoffee was something that caught my attention. A documentary on US civil justice system, case studies on old cases. A movie about law, civil law, this is my area of interest, so i decided to go for this one.

Hot Coffee simply put is a great movie, a very eye opening movie. Thanks a lot to Susan for making this movie. It is so good that if anybody wants to see it, i will buy the ticket and will even buy dinner to discuss the movie. I am serious about this offer BTW. Hot coffee starts with the notorious case when a old woman sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on her lap and for which she won 3 million $. Everybody has made fun of this case, including Seinfeld. This is the example cited on frivolous law suits that are crippling this nation. But very few people know about the facts. The facts are that she suffered third degree burns because of that coffee and if you look at those burn images, they are shocking. McDonalds serve their coffee at 90 degree C and there have already been 75 previous cases before this one regarding coffee being too hot. It is also little known that before suing, she normally wrote to McD to reduce temperature and pay 100K$ for medical treatment which McD declined.

The movie then goes beyond this single case and highlights how the judiciary is in such a bad state in US. It explains tort reform (tort means injury) and how corporates are trying hard to prevent people from filing "frivolous lawsuits" and in the procedure, they are actually covering up a lot of malpractices. It also goes into how supreme court elections are also plagued by money and how there are more conservative judges in SC than before. The movie shows a case study to highlight its point.

Stephanie Mincer is interviewed in the movie and thats how i got to know about the book - Blocking the courthouse doors. The book takes a more anti-republican stand and is quite biased in its writing. The book covers the topics in movie and few more. The book covers more cases and can substantiate its claims with more points. But frankly, after watching the movie, the book for the most part is covered and its so much biased writing is a turn off. We need a balanced view here. I am confident that there are definitely frivolous law suits and most of them are thrown directly away but somebody should come clean and write with transparency.

At SFIFF, the director was present for a QnA. Americans where so ashamed of themselves after watching the movie. They were frustrated and CA being a liberal state, the angst against Repub was clearly felt. On what we can do here, Susan, the director, had a very clear answer. (a) Spread the knowledge, bring out the facts. You have been brain washed, it is time to clear our heads. (b) Poke your senators to remove the cap on these tort cases. (c) Fight against these bad practices.


Wow, it certainly is quite terrifying seeing how things are going here. The money gap is increasing in US as well, same as it is in India and it is going to be a big concern here.