WaPo TV Critic Slams Conservatives in Review of Documentary on Lawsuits
Washington Post staffer Hank Stuever started off with a fair point in his review of the new HBO documentary “Hot Coffee.” But before his June 27 Style section front-pager was concluded, the Post TV critic was bashing conservatives and free marketeers for advocating tort reform. “We get a lot wrong in our media-transfixed culture, where a wry quip and populist outrage almost always trump any understanding of complicated facts,” Stuever opened his article, adding, “But rarely do we get someone as wrong as we got Stella Liebeck,” the “79-year-old woman who horribly scalded her upper legs and groin when she spilled a 49-cent cup of coffee purchased at a McDonald's drive-through in Albuquerque 19 years ago.” Liebeck, the subject of “first-time filmmaker” Susan Saladoff's “Hot Coffee” documentary, “sued only to cover her medical costs, but a jury awarded her $2.86 million in punitive damages,” Stuever noted, lamenting that the general public's view of Liebeck being greedy for gain was grossly unfair and that the punitive damages were ultimately “reduced and settled out of court for a mid-six-figure sum.” But Stuever couldn't resist turning his review into a political screed. It wasn't enough to praise Saladoff's work on its own merits, Stuever went into attack mode against conservatives and free market advocates: Saladoff is a former public interest lawyer, and while I’m sure that proponents of tort reform will cry foul at “Hot Coffee’s” tactics, they would be hard-pressed to make a documentary about their own stance seem as sensible or compelling.
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on June 27, 2011. Filed under