Particularly surprising since the US is such a lawsuit-happy country where it seems you can expect some form of compensation even for borderline ridiculous issues. Coffee too hot? Jackpot! Life severely ruined by being wrongfully convicted? Well, sorry about that.
That is a bad example of a frivolous lawsuit. The coffee in question was served much hotter than industry standard and they had been repeatedly warned that their coffee was dangerously hot. If you spill coffee on yourself, you expect to get burned. You don't expect it to instantly melt your flesh. They were very rightly held responsible for the extra damage that they caused by serving their coffee at a dangerously high temperature.
I believe there is some sort of automatic compensation for being wrongfully convicted in many areas, depending on the court that did the conviction. Being wrongfully jailed before conviction is a different matter.
