From what I've heard from those supposedly in the know, McDonald's could have avoided the whole coffee debacle by paying the medicals, which is all the woman was asking for in the first place, and with third degree burns there is no doubt they were real medical expenses and an intelligent management decision would have been to settle it for that on a 'good will' basis instead of going to court (which was going to cost more than medicals for anything short of organ replacement surgery from the git-go).
Of course McDonald's is by and large a franchise operation with franchisee business organizations running typically between one and a dozen local or regional stores, so corporate is not necessarily in the undisputed driver's seat when the shit hits the fan on claims like hers.
