creamospam I love documentaries, this just doesn't really qualify as one. There is zero balance in the way the facts are presented. When you find out this "movie" was made by veteran lawyer who made her money on punitive damages, it makes more sense. I thought this was going to be about the hot coffee case but only a few minutes of the movie shows any insight. The rest is one long appeal to emotion about how the big bad companies are horrible and lawyers are superheroes. No matter your opinion on the issues, this movie does nothing to inform. If you want to see one long commercial appealing to emotions, using sad stories to sell the idea of big lawsuits (with big legal fees) then this is for you.

Morphman Morgan I saw one thing and one thing only in this documentary: Assigning blame to anyone but yourself.It goes over how damage caps on lawsuits is wrong, how ridiculous it is that a boy born with brain damage didn't get enough money to live on the rest of his life and how unfair it is that the woman who burned herself on coffee didn't get the 2.7 million USD she was promised at first, but fails to even once mention the main issue: Who was really to blame?Let's take it from the top down! The Coffee Case: An elderly woman is handed her coffee in a car by her nephew at a parking lot. She decides to put the coffee in her lap while trying to get the lid off, so she can pour some cream inside. The cup tips over and she gets 4th degree burns over her entire upper legs.The degree of the burns, the medical bills, the heat of the coffee and the number of complaints about the heat of the coffee has nothing to do with who's at fault for this woman spilling coffee in her lap, thou that is the "evidence" used in both the trial and this documentary. They claim it's McDonald's fault that she spilled her coffee because the coffee machine was "set too high". If she had dropped the cup because of the heat it would have been one thing, but all I kept thinking while they laid out the evidence is that it has nothing to do with who's at blame. They might as well have sued Ford because there were no cup holders or the company making the paper cups.Also, the reason she sued was because McDonald's had given her 800$ without even questioning who's fault it was, but her medical bills went up to 10 000$ and she couldn't pay it. She even admitted herself that the reason she sued was not because she thought they were at fault, but because she couldn't afford the medical bills, but this documentary makes it seem like that is the reason it was McDonald's fault!Exhibit 2, the boy born with brain damage: A mother pregnant with twins feels less movement at night. She goes on the second day to the doctor who listens to the heart beats and couldn't find anything wrong there. She waits a week and the movements had been less and less each day, so she goes back. An ultrasound confirmed that one boy didn't get enough oxygen and she was rushed to the ER for a C-section and the boy came out with brain damage.What the documentary tries to prove here is that the cap on damages is wrong, because the mother sued the doctor and the jury thought 5.6 million USD was enough for taking care of the boy the rest of his life, but the cap on damages that the state had brought that sum down to 2.7 million USD instead.Again, no real evidence that the doctor actually caused the brain damage through malpractice, other than the fact that she had two previous lawsuits filed against her. The documentary only mentions the previous lawsuits, but fails to go into any details about them. What was the background for those? Who won those cases? What had happened?But instead of trying to find any evidence that the doctor had actually done anything wrong that caused the brain damage, they decide that previous complaints and lawsuits are enough evidence that this is true.Next one, damage caps vs medical bills: Again, using faulty logic they try to prove that no cap on damages doesn't mean medical prices go up. Their reasoning being that in Texas in 2003 they put in a cap for non-economic damage (this is the arbitrary sum a successful lawsuit generates that cannot be measured in money) and in 2004 the people spent more money on medical care.They are completely satisfied with keeping that as proof without going into any surrounding circumstances, such as was the prices really higher or did more people seek medical attention, or if anything else happened around the same time, such as legislations that forced companies to pay for medical care. They don't even go into what kind of medical care they included, if it was only emergency costs or if they included plastic surgery for beauty operations, holistic medicine and other non-vital medical care.It might just be the fact that doctors and nurses no longer fear being sued that makes them perform their jobs better and enables the hospitals to take on cases they otherwise wouldn't take on, therefore increasing the number of patients treated that causes the overall spending on medical care to increase.In short, this documentary is heavily biased, has no factual grounds to stand on and doesn't even try to prove their claims with anything resembling facts. Instead they play the Blame Game and just point their finger at the "evil corporations", to such length that they actually try to convince you that the "tort reform" is wrong just because some of the biggest corporations in the US is for the reform and have a financial gain in it. Of course they have a financial gain in not being sued left and right for things they have no control over. Does that mean it is wrong to prevent unnecessary lawsuits? Does that mean it is right for doctors, EMT's, police and business owners to live in fear of lawsuits?Unless you want to be shaking your head in frustration, skip this one. There are better ways to waste 82 minutes of your life!

timmyj3 I watched "Hot Coffee" today and was looking forward to it. I enjoy documentaries a great deal. It started off on solid note by giving the full back ground on the famous McDondalds hot coffee case. Unfortunately it goes downhill from there.We are shown a family in Nebraska that had twins. One is born with severe brain injury due to a lack of oxygen because of one umbilical cord instead of two. The family is awarded 5.6 million but Nebraska's cap law limits the award to 1.25 million dollars. While a sad story I think many people would argue that it was a birth defect medical condition that caused the injury not malpractice by the doctor and hospital. The movie makes a point about the doctor having been involved in two previous law suits. OK, but tell us how many case the doctor has been involved with in total. Is this doctor 3 for 3 or 3 for 13,289?? It makes a difference in the overall credibility of the movie.The next case up is a Democratic Mississippi lawyer/politician named Mr. Diaz that ran for the state supreme court in 2000. He won the race but was out spent by outside political groups according to the movie. Mr. Diaz then obtained personal loans guaranteed by a lawyer friend that practiced cases in front of the state supreme court. Mr. Diaz was then indicted on Federal charges of bribery and tax evasion. He was found not guilty. Does this film maker really think a judge should be taking personal loan guarantees from a law firm that does business in front of him?? He then lost his 2008 re-election bid. We are now told that Karl Rove scary right wing groups are behind the money against Mr. Diaz. I am still not sure what the problem was here other than a Democrat lost a race. Oohh.We are pretty much off the tracks by now. We are treated to Presidents Bush and Reagan talking about frivolous lawsuits. Of course, they are portrayed in a condescending manner. We are then, shown a brave President Obama standing up to the American Medical Association group. We keep getting shown edited snippets of President Bush saying bad things about tort reform over and over. At this point the movie has really become a little unhinged. But, lets continue..The last case involves every lefties favorite boogeyman "Haliburton" A woman named Jamie Leigh Jones claims that she was brutally raped while housed at a Haliburton housing area in Iraq. I had not heard of this case until I was watching the film. Lets say it didn't really pass the smell test. The gist is that she signed an employment contract the limited her legal recourse to binding arbitration. Of, course this didn't work out well. Ms. Jones also has a history of untruthfulness. Her case has since been lost at two different court levels. But, her case is taken up by Minnesota Senator Al Franken. Enough said.The film also harps on the right wing "outside" money spent to promote tort reform. The gist that this money is bad, wrong, and evil (show Karl Rove again). No mention of any "outside" left wing groups supporting non tort reform. Even though just about every person interviewed that supports the films view is from "outside" groups with names like "Judicial Justice for all" (I made that up) but you get the point.After the film, I decided to find out who Susan Saladoff is and was. She practiced as a trial lawyer on the behalf of injury victims, medical malpractice, and product liability. No bias here. Wow. How can this film be even called a documentary? It is an info-mercial for left wing trial lawyer groups.One parting thing I would love to know, who funded this one sided mess of a movie. Wanna bet it is outside left wing groups pouring money into non tort reform??? Ya think. Remember the cornerstone of the film is the outside money being spent on tort reform is bad, really bad, really really bad.One other side note. Instead of capping the victims awards, how about capping the lawyers cut to maybe 3%. Just a thought.

jacob-376 the movie is presented in 4 chapters showing 4 cases. chapter 1 explains the (in)famous McDonalds hot coffee case. chapter 2 explores caps on liability. chapter 3 presents a "claim" of drugging and brutal gang rape that necessitated reconstructive surgery and the relation to binding arbitration and alternate dispute resolution. The section of the movie says what will then happen in the dispute. After the movie was released the person involved has been found to have made false claims. she eventually had a trial and it was found there was no evidence she was raped or suffered reconstructive surgery, her lawsuit was dismissed as baseless. Ergo, this entire section of the movie is untrue. chapter 4 explores judicial elections and/or judicial activism.chapters 1,2,4 are interesting but chapter 3 is so horrendously falsified that the entire work of the director should be discarded.