Lamarca and Peg, Having been involved in product safety committees for various manufacturers, I can say that there is some middle ground here. The McDonalds case is not that the coffee was too hot (it is, for a variety of reasons)because everyone who has ever tried to drink it knows it's too hot. The case involved failure to WARN. If the cup had said "Warning:Contents Hot", she would not have had a case, because driving with a styrofoam container that contains very hot liquid is stupid, and everyone knows that. But you can't prove that she knew this without being told. Hence the "Do not eat" label on silica gel in your vitamins. "We TOLD you not to eat it" is a perfectly legitimate defense. Common sense is not, and the reason for that is an over-abundence of attorneys in the USA. We have become a nation of "Can't be my fault"ers. Anything bad that happens must be someone else's fault. Again, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I am not for the abolition of product safety lawsuits, by any means. If a defective product hurts someone, then the company responsible should be held liable. I also believe that frivolous lawsuits should be punishable too. If an attorney files a ridiculous lawsuit, hoping for a go-away settlement, I wish that judges could fine THE ATTORNEY for wasting the courts time, and make the attorney responsible for all fees on both sides. (Not for losing a lawsuit, but for fileing riduculous ones). No, I don't know what standard we should use, but it is needed. One of the major lawnmower companies had to pay damages to two idiots who picked up a running lawnmower and used it to quick trim a hedge. One of them stumbled, both lost fingers (duh!) and they won the lawsuit because nowhere in the LAWNMOWER instructions did it say DON'T TRIM HEDGES. (Look at the operating instructions on any new mower, it will say something like "for use on lawns only!") If there had been a common sense law, the lawyer who filed this one should have been punished. Blues