Hot Coffee (2011) on Netflix
NR20111h 25mDocumentary
A documentary about how business interests and the media shaped the American debate over lawsuits and damage caps. Four people whose court cases were caught in that fight stand at its center.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.5/104,113 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
The documentary traces how tort reform has reshaped the court system in the United States and the campaigns mounted behind it. Its title comes from the case of Liebeck, who was severely burned when coffee bought at a McDonald's spilled into her lap, a segment built from news clips, remarks by politicians and celebrities, and interviews with her family. Other threads follow the upholding of Nebraska's statutory cap on damages in medical malpractice actions, the prosecutions of Mississippi Supreme Court justice Oliver E. Diaz Jr. after a judicial election in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funded ads against him, and a mandatory arbitration clause in an employment contract with Halliburton. The film argues that corporations spent millions of dollars to shape how such cases are understood.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hot Coffee (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film addresses the misconceptions around the Liebeck v. McDonald's case: many people thought Liebeck was driving when the hot coffee spilled and that her burns were only superficial, when she in fact suffered severe burns and needed extensive surgeries.
- After Hot Coffee's release, Jamie Leigh Jones succeeded in having her civil case against Halliburton tried before a federal court in Houston, but the jury was not convinced she had been raped or that KBR, then part of Halliburton, had committed fraud.
- Senator Al Franken, who appears prominently in the film, worked closely with Jamie Leigh Jones to get her case heard in court and proposed legislative changes to mandatory arbitration clauses.
