The Stella Awards

[yoniluvrca]

I don't know if they are true or not but some of these are pretty funny.

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The
Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case
inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous,ridiculous, successful
lawsuits in the United States.

Here are this year's winners:


5th Place (tie): 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 owners of the
store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the
misbehaving little toddler was Ms Robertson's son.



5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and
medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda
Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the
wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.



5th Place (tie): Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving
a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage.

He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door
opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the
door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The
family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the
garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found,and a
large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming
the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the
tune of $500,000. In my opinion this is so outrageous that it should
have been 2nd Place!



4th Place: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500.
and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door
neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced
yard.The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might
have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had
climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with
a pellet gun.



3rd Place: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500. after she slipped on a soft drink and
broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms.
Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.



2nd Place: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the
owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the
bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This
occurred while Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the
ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded
$12,000 and dental expenses.



1st Place: This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot
Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football
game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70
mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back & make herself
a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and
overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the
owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her
$1,750,000. plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their
manuals on the basis of this suit, just
in case there were any other complete morons around.

 

[Esco!]

I wonder how many of these are Urban Legends.

Some seem just a tad farfetched

 

[red]

outrageous if true

 

[Preferred]

As they say, ONLY IN AMERICA!!

 

[fuji]

They are all urban legends:

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

 

[tboy]

But stupidity in our legal system still reigns: Like that fat kid last year that was sueing the Ontario Government for not paying for his weight control program which he had to go to the US to get into.

The story ran on city TV and others and I found it hilarious that this 17 yr old (+/-) was suing for money and was on TV standing in front of his classic 1969 fully restored camaro......

IMHO: If a lawyer hears a case like this, and ACCEPTS it, and FILES it, HE or SHE should then be fined whatever the initial settlement request was. I would call this "the common sense approach" to practising law. BUT yeah, I know I know, common sense and law have no bearing on each other.....

 

[yoniluvrca]

They are all urban legends:

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

Shit...when am I going to learn to check snopes before posting. The Winnebago one I really wanted to be true.

 

[scouser1]

you also have to take into consideration what the jury awards and what the final settlement is are often nowhere near each other, after all the appeals and counter appeals, for example the Mcdonalds coffee lady was awarded 2.7million in damages but eventually settled for 600 grand, i know still an insane sum by normal thinking standards but not close to what the jury wanted to give her

 

[a 1 player]

There should be an idiot law. If a person tries to make a claim for anything like one of the above, the judge should throw the case out of court, and fine the bastard for being an idiot. While these might be urban legends, you know there are people out there trying to sue anybody for anything they can get.

 

[johnhenrygalt]

If you actually read the testimony and evidence offered at the McDonalds Coffee trial, the verdict won't seem so silly.

 

[colt]

If you actually read the testimony and evidence offered at the McDonalds Coffee trial, the verdict won't seem so silly.

Thats true. The evidence demonstrated that McDonalds was heating coffee well beyond recommended temperatures and that there had been numerous prior instances of customers suffering burns - accordingly they had ample opportunity to know something was wrong. The plaintiff, "Stella", suffered 3rd degree burns to the inside of her thighs. Her pre-trial offer to settle was $20,000. Jury awarded punitive damages calculated on the basis of McDonalds revenues from the sale of coffee ifor two days. As was noted above - appellate court knocked the award down to around $600k, including $200k for pain and suffering and around $400k in punitive damages and then the parties settled out of court.