Peg, people keep bringing up the McDonald's case as an example of a silly lawsuit - what they don't seem to know is that the woman involved required major skin grafts to repair the burn damage, because McDonalds, in spite of numerous warnings, was maintaining its coffee at temperatures in excess of 185 degrees. An interesting summary of the "McFacts" of the case are here.

Basically, industry groups want to maintain the impression of the apparent silliness of this case to lobby for "tort reforms", so that product manufacturers won't be held liable for genuinely defective and dangerous products. The more the public believes that all such warnings are silly, the easier time industries will have avoiding the wretched expense of actually making their products comply with rational safety rules. Remember, you can't rely on manufacturers to "do the right thing" out of the goodness of their hearts when it affects their bottom line - just look at the huge pile of evidence that Ford and Firestone had about the problems with Explorer tires before the story broke to the public and they were forced to make changes...