Its not about being in a bubble Honey, its about taking responsibility for your own actions. No it should not be unexpected if you move 4 feet and have a 3 foot cord and something drops.....its called foreseeable.
Great, so being responsible means that you can't have an accident--whether it's your fault or someone else's? I've heard stories of responsible people; their computer goes wonky because someone tripped and spilled coffee onto their notebook. If you're at the cafe with your iPad and listening to music, what's to say that someone won't brush by and bump your tablet off the table?
Water can't boil more than a couple of seconds once removed from a heat source. There is no way the coffee was boiling in the cup by the time it was pored, lidded, bagged and handed out the window. Have you ever witnessed water boiling when removed from a heat source for more than 5 seconds?
She suffered second and third degree burns. There were places where the coffee burned her skin to the bone. It sounds as though the coffee was still damn hot.
McDonald's may bag your coffee now, but they didn't used to do that. They just gave you the cup with lid as is. They didn't just heat their coffee to boiling, they exceeded the boiling point. That would allow plenty of time to pour, lid and hand over a cup, filled with coffee above the boiling point.
Water doesn't have to be physically boiling to be boiling hot or hotter. If you've ever microwaved water, you'll know that unless you give the water something to cling to, it'll be boiling hot without any of the boiling action.