Everquest Suicide and Lawsuit

[Pielorinho]

It's been a good five years since I read about this case, but IIRC, part of the McDonald's problem was that their lids popped off the cups very easily. This had contributed to a lot of other folks' getting burned, in addition to the temperature of the coffee. Also, I believe that the punitive damages sought equalled what McDonald's made in one day in coffee sales. It was a symbolic value, intended to drive home the point that This Is Not Okay.

And, if I understand correctly, nobody has suffered third-degree burns from McDonald's coffee since.

As for the everquest stuff -- yeah, my friends who've played it called it EverCrack. It's designed to draw folks into it. I can imagine getting sucked into it as well, which is why I never started playing it.

First Amendment rights, though, trump most other things, and in this case, I say they trump away.

Finally, in the US, Darklone, the plaintiff still has to prove guilt on the defendant's part. But in a civil action, the standard is a preponderance of evidence, whereas in a criminal action, the state must prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. There's a lower threshhold of proof in civil cases; is that what you were thinking of?

Daniel

 

[Zappo]

I'm interested to see what people think *should* have happened. Should the mother have forcibly committed her 21 year old son?

What would you do in this situation? Let's assume your lover/friend/sibling/child is playing EverQuest a lot more than you think is healthy. You've talked to them, but they've refused to stop (despite a history of mental illness, seizures, etc.) What do you do?

Get a psychiatrist. Have him tell you what to do. This is clearly more than you can handle. Refusing to do it and screaming that "my son isn't mad!!!!!!" is very, very wrong and dangerous.

 

[Akunin]

Agree with smetzger - only not sued, criminally prosecuted for child neglect. If allowing your depressed, schizoid child to play a video game for 36 hours straight isn't neglect, what the heck is?

The boy who killed himself and the one who played for 36 hours straight and suffered from a psychotic break are two different people, as pointed out in the news story.

 

[WizarDru]

So I guess what I'm saying is that both parties should've shouldered some of the blame here. Sure she should've been reimbursed for her medical bills... but millions of dollars for her own clumsiness is something that could come only from the mind of a lawyer.

She didn't get millions of dollars. The 2.7 million dollars was awarded as the value of two days of coffee sales for McDonalds, but was never expected to actually be handed out. It was merely set for a number that both sides knew would be reduced on appeal. The actual amount awarded was undisclosed, but the appeal judgement reduced it several hundred thousand dollars. Once you factor in continuing medical costs and the extensive legal fees needed to actually win any settlement, and factor in the loss of income due to having to take time away from work to actually participate in the case, it's not really that much money at all.


As to the Everquest case, it's ridiculous on the face of it. Nothing in Everquest actually caused the player to kill himself, and there were no direct effects that were specific to Everquest that could be attributed to leading to his death. If we changed the scenario to his dedicated loyalty to the Chicago Bulls, and then his commiting suicide because Micheal Jordan resigned and said he was leaving because he hated Chicago, no one would take it seriously.

Yes, you do develop online relationships with people, and yes, it can be devastating when someone you consider a friend does you dirty. But you move in, real life or virtual. I empathize with the mother's plight (as any parent could...she's living a parent's worst nightmare), but I don't agree with it. Hate the sin, love the sinner and all that. As for the mom who started "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons"...yes, she made a career out of it, but she didn't exactly rake in the cash. She never found a way to deal with her pain, and instead found validation fighting something she wrongly thought evil. But she certainly never a made a bundle o' cash off of it. Not like those rich RPG publishers.

 

[JesterPoet]

Everything the artical says suggests that he lived in her house.

Well, everything except the part that says that he didn't....

Shawn Woolley - who was overweight, worked in a pizza restaurant and lived alone in an apartment the last months of his life - may have depended on EverQuest to provide the life he really wanted to live.

>Jester<

 

[Nish]

The boy who killed himself and the one who played for 36 hours straight and suffered from a psychotic break are two different people, as pointed out in the news story.

I'll certainly agree with this. As someone who has spent 36 hours playing a game before (Fallout 2), I'd just like to point out that the response of a normal, non-psychotic, person should have after such an activity is to pass out. For about 16 hours.

 

[Number47]

I don't really feel like reading through the article again, but I was under the impression that the "kid" was an adult and lived in his own apartment. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to prevent an adult from committing suicide if they are determined. In fact, even committing them would do little. A truly determined individual can pretend mental health long enough to be considered over the "episode". I think this is another one of those cases that we Americans always think that somebody has to be to blame. Even those people who think the corporation is blameless blame somebody else, the mother. Remember that even given a sample of people that everything reasonable and possible is done to prevent it, a percentage will wind up dying anyways.

As for frivolous lawsuits, I got to be on the jury for one of those (frivolous in my opinion, that is). You remember the so-called "Jenny Jones murder"? Two guys were on the show, and the one killed the other later on. I got to be on the jury for the wrongful death suit against the show. Of nine jurors, I was the only one who voted against the plaintiff. If I recall correctly, we awarded the family 24 million. For big cases like this, I really think that you can get a jury to consider anything over the course of six weeks (not sequestered, thankfully!). Most of us had trouble staying awake during the trial, much less follow the facts closely. Of course, I believe that I followed the actual facts while the other jurors simply voted with emotion, but they would probably disagree with me. In my opinion, the logic comes down to this: this family suffered a hideous tragedy (true), this corporation has a ton of money (true), somebody must be at fault (true), so why don't we have this big faceless corporation fork over a ton of money for the family? Not to mention that we didn't have to find the companies action the only cause of the tragedy, but only a proximate cause.

 

[Storm Raven]

Eamon

That seems alot like the "If your friend told you to jump off a bridge" bit though, Storm. Just because experts say "thats a decent temperature" doesn't always make it true. Dump 180 degree water on yourself and see what happens, then see if it is too hot

No, it is a critical element. If the industry standard is to serve coffee within that temperature range (for a combination of reasons as I remember, both for the practical reason of making sure it was hot enough when served and because customers had indicated that they wanted it to be in that range and so forth), then she was on notice (or at least constructive notice) that coffee is served at that temperature as a matter of course.

I anticipate that steak knives will be sharp when a restaurant gives them to me, because that is what almost every restaurant does (and it is what I want when I am handed a steak knife). I also anticipate that my coffee will be in that temperature range when served.

 

[Tsyr]

Missed the part about living alone, sorry

Sorry, SR, I disagree. Coffee hot enough to cause third degree burns is outside the "expected" range of how hot I expect to get coffee served to me. Coffee hot enough to require skin grafts and leave scarring on 6% of the human body is outside the "expected" range too. You can hire "experts" to "prove" just about anything in America anymore, it doesn't mean jack to me. Look at how every three months there are "expert studies" by one interest group that disprove the "expert" studies done by another interest group, which in turn had disproved another batch of "expert studies". IMO (I'm not a lawyer; but frankly I think the legal system is faulty in so many respects in America that I value my own moral judgements more than I value what is "legaly" right), what DID happen outweighs any legal standards in this specific case.

Think about what would happen if that coffee was DRANK?

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Eamon

I anticipate that steak knives will be sharp when a restaurant gives them to me, because that is what almost every restaurant does (and it is what I want when I am handed a steak knife). I also anticipate that my coffee will be in that temperature range when served.

Except that the temperature range for preparation is not the same as the range for serving, which is what you're claiming. Your analogy makes me think of the old Saturday Night Live 'Candid Camera' sketch where they heat a fork to red-hot temperatures, and then serve it with pieces of pie in a diner.