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Thirteen-year-old Megan Meier was thrilled. She\u2019d just logged onto MySpace, and found a message from a hot 16-year-old boy named Josh. Megan wasn\u2019t allowed to spend much time online, but she and Josh quickly became friends. The pair bonded, but one day, Josh\u2019s messages went from sweet to sour.

Then, Kristin tells us a story that everyone has heard before. Back in the early 90\u2019s, a woman went through the drive thru at McDonald\u2019s. She ordered a coffee. She put the coffee between her legs and drove off down the road. As she sped off, the coffee spilled. It hurt. So what did she do? She sued McDonald\u2019s for millions of dollars. This story has been hailed as an example of America\u2019s many frivolous lawsuits. But reality isn\u2019t quite so outrageous.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
\n\n\u201cScalded by coffee, then news media,\u201d New York Times Retro Report
\n\n\u201cA matter of degree: How a jury decided that a coffee spill is worth $2.9 million,\u201d Wall Street Journal by Andrea Gerlin
\n\n\u201cHot Coffee\u201d documentary
\n\n\u201cLiebeck v. McDonald\u2019s Restaurants\u201d Wikipedia entry

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
\n\n\u2018\u201dMy Space\u2019 hoax ends with suicide of Dardenne Prairie teen\u201d by Steve Pokin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
\n\n\u201cPokin Around: The story of Megan Meier\u2019s suicide\u201d by Steve Pokin, Springfield News-Leader
\n\n\u201cJudge Acquits Lori Drew in Cyberbullying Case, Overrules Jury\u201d by Kim Zetter, wired.com
\n\n\u201cUnited States v. Drew\u201d wikipedia.org

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