Get the Head Scratcher and Whiskey Out...

Stella Awards

I think I feel sick....................... :rolleyes:



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 kinds of cases that make you scratch your head.
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. There are more.




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.


Grrrrr .. 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 soft drink 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 : (May we have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos, 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 a 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 free way, 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! PLEASE.

 

Wow....what the hell?

 

what is wrong with the juries !!!!!

 

:eek: :confused: :eek: :confused: :eek:

thats it.. Im sueing this site for making me read that ..lmao j/k

 

That had to be one of the funniest things i have read.

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

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


Most of these things are false but funny. I love the one about the guy putting a picture of his cheating wife under the guests of his wedding chairs.

 

Yeah I heard the chair one not too long ago, had me rolling! Clever trick though I msut keep that one in mind if in the future...

 

Those are pretty funny. Kind of like the Johnboy and Billy dumb crook news. They crack me up too.

 

What really sux is that folks who should get awarded money dont. I am one of them. I was on a job site, saftey man walks by, inspects my safty glasses, says something about a piece of pipe that was on a jack stand, walks off and 5 min later I am bent over putting a saftey harness on to go on the boiler, and a 25' piece of pipe that was leaned up against the boiler falls over and hits me in my lower back. That was 5 years ago and since then I have had 4 back surgeries, and a total hip replacement. Grand total paid....one mri. If it hadnt been for my wife having insurance and us lieing about how I was hurt, I would have lost everything in bankrupcy. I havent worked a day since, and if I do very much at all, I am in bed the next day on a heating pad. The doctors I see now tell me that I will just have to learn how to deal with the pain, and they have cut off the pain meds. I could go into greater detail, but it would make me want to go and pick up my m16!!:eek:

 

There is a really good article about just this kind of stuff in the ADBA Gazette this month. The title is The Death of Common Sense. It is very eye opening.