Kindle Edition Amazon Blind Justice Category:  Humor Publisher: J. Ryan Jones Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 254 Copyright: April 15, 2015 ISBN-13: 9781495152474 Price: $3.99 (eBook) These hilarious true stories teach incisive lessons about the law. Hot coffee, flying body parts, & entertainment that makes you smarter. Hot coffee, flying body parts, and how a jury once found that workplace harassment caused an armed robbery. These are true stories that are supported by actual court records, along with legal analysis explaining in plain English how each court reached its particular result. Learn how evidence is hidden from the jury (lawfully), how an armed robber can be caught red handed and then set free if police don't follow procedure, and why doctors are so obsessive about writing things down.   A Crash Course in American Law is entertainment that will make you smarter.  * This Kindle version also includes hyperlinks to selected court materials.  Excerpt 1 – The Real McDonald’s Coffee Case1 Everyone has heard some version of the McDonald’s Coffee Case. As the story goes, Greedy Old Stella Liebeck was careening about town in a faded old Mary Kay Cadillac when she decided to stop for coffee. This was before Starbucks had a store on every corner, so she skidded into the nearest McDonalds. After paying in pennies and nickels, she lurched into traffic and floored it, causing the coffee to spill on her favorite pleated skirt. Enraged, she lawyered up and conned a thick-witted jury into awarding her nearly three million dollars. The real story is quite different. It was 1992. Boyz II Men and Sir Mix-a-Lot dominated the Billboard 100. Bill Clinton was trying to land a job in the White House, and he had not yet incurred any noteworthy dry cleaning bills. Microsoft had just excreted Windows 3.1, which sucked “0.1” less than Windows 3.0. Stella Liebeck was born in 1912. That was the year in which New Mexico became a state and the RMS Titanic sunk (drowning Leonardo DiCaprio and 1,501 others). The modern zipper didn’t even exist yet. By 1992, Stella had lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, and disco. At 79, she wasn’t interested in hip-hop, and she probably couldn’t distinguish between Windows 3.1 and an actual window. The Great Coffee Spill of 1992 On the morning of the world’s most famous coffee spill, Grandma Stella was just a little old lady who was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s Ford Probe. They had just dropped off a family member at the airport, and now Grandma was hankering for a snack. They pulled into a McDonalds. Grandma Stella ordered a value meal complete with a nice cup of coffee. Before hitting the road, Junior pulled over to get situated. His 13-year-old beater didn’t have any cup holders, so Stella tried to hold her coffee between her knees so that she could add cream and sugar. As she pulled back the tab on its lid, the cup collapsed, causing the coffee to spill into her lap. There’s no way to be sure just how hot the coffee was, but McDonald’s corporate policy at the time was to serve coffee at 187 degrees Fahrenheit. Dr. David Arredondo happened to be on call at North Presbyterian Hospital when Stella arrived. He treated Ms. Liebeck, and testified that she sustained third degree burns over 6% of her body, including “the groin area, which is the area around the vagina, and also in the area of the lower buttocks and around the anus, and also the upper inner thighs.” Scald burns do not normally cause third degree burns, but this coffee was so hot that Ms. Liebeck spent a week in the hospital. Third degree burns are called “full thickness burns” because they destroy all layers of skin, right through the fatty tissue beneath. These burns leave no tissue that can regenerate skin, so the injury cannot heal without surgical skin grafts. For weeks following the incident, Ms. Liebeck submitted to painful therapy sessions to clean and “debride” the wounds. This required her to lie down while a therapist used sharp scissors to cut away dead tissue. Did I mention where the burns were located?

Highly Recommended!
Between the author's incredible sense of humor and the cases explained, its no wonder that I read this book in almost a single sitting. I genuinely appreciate how Jones organized each of the cases and how his writing style was both easy to understand and entertaining. A lot of cultural references can be learned from this book, as each case was clearly well chosen and explained with a lot of detail. Overall, this is a great little book that I'll read again and again.

I am laughing out loud in public places
Lots of weird looks but just can't help myself. This guy is funny!
Very sneaky, Mr. Jones. I didn't expect to actually learn something about the law. Great read. Love that you can read one case at a time or all at once. Don't miss the Caution and Introduction. Whole new perspective on the little old lady in the McDonald's coffee case.

A witty and informative look at American Law
A Crash Course in American Law is one of the best books I have read in a while. The book is very well written and a very funny yet informative at the same time. The book give the facts about real court cases but presents them in an easy to understand and usually humorous way. You will likely have heard about some of these cases before especially the infamous McDonalds coffee spilling case, however the author has included the facts not the urban legend. I was actually quite surprised to find out the full details of the coffee spilling case and actually agree that the compensation was owed.

This kindle edition also has lots of links to external references which is great if you want to get more details information. The book itself gives a very detailed overview and does so in easy to understand terms even for someone who has never studied law like myself. Overall this is a very interesting, educational and witty look at American Law.