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?
So... 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.
What???
6TH PLACE :
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical
expenses when his neighbour 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 neighbour'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 neighbour'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 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 the lawyers select?
