Sorry guys for going OT, but i'm going to jump in. The McD coffee spill was an astronomic propaganda tool. There is no such thing as ******** lawsuits, nobody gets an easy pay day whether you're in the states or in Canada. Keep in mind, that a jury of your peers awards you the money. So you need to convince regular everyday people that you deserve the money.
The whole hot coffee issue was used to introduce tort reform; the maximum amount of money you can sue for medical/quality-of-life. George W. Bush won the 2000 election running on this platform. He got so much money from multi-national corporations. Chamber of Commerce spent millions brainwashing the entire country into thinking that we had an epidemic of "frivolous" lawsuits. When in reality, it was every day regular folks trying to get reasonable settlements.
Hot Coffee ended up affecting medical malpractice lawsuits; doctors who royally screwed their patients, legally didn't have to pay over their maximum... which in some states were as low as $100k. Imagine treating life-long brain damage with $100k, that will probably last you a few months at most.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court is bankrolled by corporations, even when victims tried to appeal all the way there. They were denied.
Before you jump on the propaganda bandwagon, it's super important you stay informed. Another by-product of tort-reform was 'mandatory arbitration'. That means you can't go to a civil justice system to seek a remedy for your issue. 2/3 of the United States are binded to 'mandatory arbitration'. Most of your credit cards have those clauses as well, so lets say there is some error on your card; you can't go to civil court and fight on a level playing field... you have to deal with the credit card company's appointed arbitrator.
The bad end of the 'mandatory arbitration' spectrum was J
amie Leigh Jones v. Halliburton Co; she alleged she was gang-raped by workers at Halliburton, and because she signed a contract that had 'mandatory arbitration'... she could neither go to a criminal nor civil justice system and seek a remedy.
If any of you get the chance, watch this HBO documentary, "Hot Coffee"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1445203/
You'll absolutely learn something.