Now hold on. It's not like McDonalds raped her. The examples are completely different. The rape scenario is where the person put herself in a position to be taken adavantage of by another person - that other person is definitely still liable. In the McDonalds scenario, McDonalds put the lady initially in a position where something bad could happen to her (too hot coffee). Order is important here. If someone walks into a construction zone and gets hurt by a falling brick, should the construction company be sued? What if the construction company gave the lady the okay to walk in a part of the construction zone and then got hurt? Well in that case the construction company could very well be liable. But when inadvert accidents happen, it (should) matter who initiates the problem.

The rape example is frivolous in this case because the actual problem in the scenario is that a crime was comitted. In the construction examples, there is no crimes, just accidents. When you do harm intentionally to another human being, you're going to get prosecuted and (hopefully) justice will be done.