NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) (CORRECTED)- It was the case that launched a thousand jokes. The McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit came to represent for most people everything that's wrong with the American civil justice system-a plaintiff with a serious shortage of common sense, a huge windfall in damages and a waste of everyone's time.

Except that it wasn't any of those things-at least according to a new HBO documentary, Hot Coffee, created by personal injury attorney Susan Saladoff. (Watch video here)

In Hot Coffee, set to debut June 27, Saladoff seeks to dispel myths surrounding the case brought by 79-year old Stella Liebeck against McDonald's. In 1992, Liebeck was a passenger in a parked car who was trying to put cream and sugar in a cup of McDonald's coffee she held between her knees when it spilled. She won a $2.9 million jury award in Albuquerque, N.M., after she suffered third-degree burns to large portions of her thighs and buttocks, injuries graphically displayed in Saladoff's film. An appeals court later reduced the award to $480,000, and Liebeck eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.

Saladoff's aim is to show that Liebeck's case is just one example of the misperceptions and misinformation the public has about the American legal system. The 88-minute documentary is unabashedly pro-plaintiff. Its purpose is to convince viewers that corporate America and specifically the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have snookered the public into believing that the system is glutted with worthless lawsuits and greedy lawyers, and that tort reform is the solution.

The film, which took two years to make, highlights cases in which caps on punitive damages and mandatory arbitration have left the plaintiffs in financial and emotional straits. At the same time, Saladoff weaves in interviews with tort reform supporters, including Victor Schwartz, general counsel of the American Tort Reform Association, and with opponents, including Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and author John Grisham. Reuters interviewed Saladoff, 52, who was in New York June 21 for a screening of the film. Her answers were edited for brevity and clarity.

Reuters: How did you make the switch in 2009 from lawyer to film-maker after practicing for 25 years?

Saladoff: I kept seeing in the media these distortions, not just about the McDonald's case but about the civil justice system. 'Frivolous lawsuits,' ' greedy trial lawyers,' ' jackpot justice.' Those words were used to play on people's emotions. Nobody talks about frivolous defenses. I kept thinking somebody else was going to deal with it. Then finally I said, 'Ok, it's me.'

Reuters: So did you just go out and buy a camera?

Saladoff: In 2002 I had a very severely brain-injured client. She had almost no short-term memory. When you met her, she looked normal, but if you walked away and came back 15 minutes later, she wouldn't even know she'd ever seen you before. I couldn't explain to the other side what this injury meant for her life. So, I thought, I'm going to get a camera and spend three days with her and see what happens. I realized how effective story telling is through film.

Reuters: How did you get from there to "Hot Coffee"?

Saladoff: I wrote an outline for it in the summer of 2008. The name of the movie initially was called "Distorted: Has Justice Been Sold?" But nobody knows what a tort is. I [later] read an article that said the McDonald's coffee case is the most infamous case in the world. It just clicked that the name of the movie is hot coffee.

Reuters: How did you finance the film?

Saladoff: I raised money person by person, house party by house party. It was all donations. We also used the Independent Feature Project as a fiscal sponsor.

Reuters: Do you have any concerns that the film should be more balanced?

Saladoff: I do not apologize for having a point of view. Everybody knows the other side. Nobody knows this side. I don't want say that people have to agree with me, but at least open your mind that there's another side of the story.

Reuters: What's your view about frivolous lawsuits? Does the system handle them effectively?

Saladoff: What is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit? Because what's frivolous to you may not be frivolous to me. Everyone thinks that the McDonald's coffee case is frivolous until they see my film.

Reuters: What's your opinion of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that threw out the class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart that could have included as many as 1.5 million plaintiffs alleging sexual discrimination?

Saladoff: It's another erosion of our civil justice system.

Reuters: Do you find anything encouraging about the state of civil justice in America right now?

Saladoff: The hope is that people are watching this film and getting angry and wanting to do something. Nobody wants to talk about mandatory arbitration. Nobody wants to talk about tort reform. These words are like blah blah blah, boring boring boring until something happens to you or a family member or a close friend.

Reuters: Do you miss practicing law?

Saladoff: Are you kidding me?

(Reporting by Leigh Jones)

Corrects an earlier version that incorrectly stated that Stella Liebeck spilled coffee on herself in 1989. It was in 1992.