Stella Awards

[Jolly Roger]

From another message board I visit.

It's time again for the annual Stella Awards! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That's right, these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kind of case that makes you scratch your head and wonder how anyone could be so stupid. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella's for the past year:

7TH PLACE:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son!

6TH PLACE:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California, won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.
Keep scratching.

4TH PLACE:
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. (Scratch, scratch.)

3RD PLACE:
A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled softdrink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? (Scratch, scratch, scratch - Hang in there. There are only two more Stella's to go.)

2ND PLACE
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies' room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000 - oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

1ST PLACE: (Drum roll, please)
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid? Or is it just the juries that the lawyers select?

PLEASE.If you have a brain in your head OR have good common sense, start showing up for jury duty!

[Jac Coyne]

I wonder how many were represented by the law office of John Edwards...

[StrykerFSU]

Hey, I showed up for jury duty and was dismissed BECAUSE I have a brain in my head.

I know this was supposed to make me laugh but it really just made me angry.

[Gvlax]

this was funny at first then got really sad knowing this happens a lot more frequently than these "awards" are given out.

[Ben Clark]

Oh, come on. This stuff has been flying around the internet for years.

Not true: http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

And here's one specifically about the cruise control: http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

[laxfan25]

Thanks Ben for restoring my faith in the relative intelligence of juries. "But I saw it on the internet!" will become the source of more and more stories like this - thank God for Snopes.com.

[StrykerFSU]

Well, while this email has been busted if you have ever been called to serve on a jury in civil court you learn quickly that the ignorant of this country sue first and ask questions later. It is all a waste of taxpayers money and clogs the judicial system.

And it doesn't change the fact that should you be able to think, you will most likely be dismissed from jury duty. I have never been so depressed as I was the day I spent in the Leon County jury pool.

[CPLaxGM]

And it doesn't change the fact that should you be able to think, you will most likely be dismissed from jury duty. I have never been so depressed as I was the day I spent in the Leon County jury pool.

Maybe you should move.

[StrykerFSU]

Ha! We'll see if it's any better in Santa Cruz County.

[Gvlax]

I was at my work for an event the other day when a guy slipped and fell, before i got to him, maybe 20 ft away, a lawyer was already there telling him he could get millions. We escorted the lawyer out of the arena after he wouldn't let the plea go when the man rejected him. This stuff makes me feel ill when i see this stuff happen.

[Adam G]

I was at my work for an event the other day when a guy slipped and fell, before i got to him, maybe 20 ft away, a lawyer was already there telling him he could get millions. We escorted the lawyer out of the arena after he wouldn't let the plea go when the man rejected him. This stuff makes me feel ill when i see this stuff happen.

Did he look anything like this?

[UkraineNotWeak]

Ha! We'll see if it's any better in Santa Cruz County.

It is. Nice weather at least...although that doesn't help a lot of people.