Not to go too off-topic, but there's more to the McDonald's coffee incident than most people realize. The woman filed suit not because the coffee was hot, but dangerously hot (i.e., somewhere near boiling temperature) and suffered third-degree (or was it second-degree?) burns. She only wanted McDonald's to cover her medical costs, but the jury found McDonald's to be so callous and in violation of its own policies that they nailed McD's with huge penalties.
More details here:
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp -- scroll down, there's another link that has more info (I'd link it for you, but my IE browser window is acting screwy).
But yes, this girl and/or her mom is a fool for filing suit.