Exercise 1: prepositions
a) to
b) in
c) from
d) between
e) towards
f) before
g) at
h) for
i) by
j) on
Exercise 2: anagrams
1) tort
2) proceedings
3) trial
4) jury
5) litigation
Exercise 3: verbs
1) heard
2) ordered
3) suffered
4) lasted
5) claimed
6) initiated
7) accusing
8) Applying
9) found
10) cited
Exercise 4: true or false?
(1) false (she was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s car)
(2) false (she spent eight days in hospital and lost nine kilograms in weight)
(3) true (the $20,000 offer was to cover actual and anticipated – i.e. future – medical expenses)
(4) true (the coffee was served hot because it was mostly bought by commuters who wanted it to stay hot during their journey)
(5) false (the parties settled the case out of court)
Exercise 5
No answers given.
Read the summary of case of Liebeck v McDonald’s Restaurants below and then try the exercises on it.
Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants (also known informally as the ‘McDonald's coffee case’ and the ‘hot coffee lawsuit’) was an American product liability case (1) ________ in 1994. It triggered debate over tort reform after the jury awarded $160,000 (in addition to $2.7 million in punitive damages) (a) ____ the claimant, who had spilled hot coffee purchased from a McDonald’s restaurant over herself, causing third degree burns.
The facts of the case were that (b) _____ 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman (c) ______ Albuquerque, (2) ________ a coffee from the drive-through window of a local McDonald's restaurant. She was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s car, put the coffee cup (d) _______ her knees and pulled the lid (e) ______ her to open it. In the process, she spilled the contents of the whole cup on her lap, causing extensive scalding. She was taken to hospital, where it was found that she had (3) _______ third-degree burns on six percent of her skin, as well as other lesser burns. These had to be corrected with skin grafts. Her stay in the hospital (4) _______ eight days, during which she lost nine kilograms in weight. Two years of medical treatment followed.
Liebeck (5) _______ $20,000 from McDonald's to cover her actual and anticipated medical expenses, but the company was only prepared to offer $800. When McDonald’s refused to increase its offer, Lieback (6) _______ proceedings in New Mexico District Court (7) ________ McDonald's of ‘gross negligence’ for selling coffee that was ‘unreasonably dangerous’ and ‘defectively manufactured’.
The trial took place during August 1994 (f) ______ Judge Robert H. Scott. Liebeck's attorneys had discovered that McDonald's required franchisees to serve coffee at 82-88 degrees centigrade, a temperature (g) _______ which coffee would cause a third-degree burn in two to seven seconds. They argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 60 degrees centigrade, and pointed out that a number of other establishments served coffee at a much lower temperature than McDonald's. In its defence, McDonald's argued that the coffee was served hot through its drive-through windows because those who bought it were typically commuters who wanted to drive a long distance with the coffee; the high initial temperature would keep the coffee hot during the trip.
(8) _______ the principles of comparative negligence, the jury (9) _______ that McDonald's was 80% responsible (h) ______ the incident and Liebeck 20% responsible. Although the coffee cup had a warning on it, the jury decided that this was not large enough and insufficient. They awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced (i) ____ 20% to $160,000. They also awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages, which the judge reduced to $480,000. The decision was appealed by both McDonald's and Liebeck in December 1994, but the parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of less than $600,000.
The case has been (10) _______ by many as a glaring example of frivolous litigation (ABC News called it ‘the poster child of excessive lawsuits’), while others have taken a more sympathetic view based (j) ____ the actual facts of the case.
Exercise 1: prepositions
Insert the correct preposition from the list numbered (1) to (10) below into the gaps lettered from (a) to (j) in the passage.
1) before
2) in
3) on
4) between
5) at
6) by
7) towards
8) from
9) to
10) for
Exercise 2: anagrams
An anagram is a type of word play achieved by rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the letters once. The examples below are not pure anagrams since the ‘words’ do not mean anything in their current forms. However, once rearranged they reveal themselves to be nouns used in the case summary above.
1) TTRO
2) SGNORPEENIDC
3) ALTRI
4) NOTIGATILI
5) YUJR
Exercise 3: verbs
Insert the following verbs in the appropriate gaps in the passage given above. Note that in order to achieve a correct answer it will, In many cases, be necessary to adjust the form of the given verb into an appropriate tense (e.g. find might be changed to finding, found or yet another form as necessary).
order
initiate
cite
claim
suffer
find
accuse
hear
apply
last
Exercise 4: true or false?
Are the statements below true or false?
(1) Stella Liebeck spilt hot coffee over herself while sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant. (true/false)
(2) She had to stay in the hospital for six days and lost eight kilograms in weight. (true/false)
(3) The sum offered by McDonald’s to Stella Liebeck was intended to cover medical expenses she expected to incur in the future due to the incident as well as those already incurred. (true/false)
(4) During the trial, the defendant company argued that there were good reasons why take-away coffee should sometimes be served hotter than 60 degrees centigrade. (true/false)
(5) At the appeal hearing, the court reduced the damages award to under $600,000. (true/false)
Exercise 5: terminology research
Research the meaning of the following terms used in the passage.
1) poster child
2) frivolous litigation
3) punitive damages
4) tort reform
5) comparative negligence
