2007 Stella Awards

[rmstevensiii]

The 2007 Stella Awards
UNBELIEVEABLE
 
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 McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee.

            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 Awards 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, because the homeowner was out of town, 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, garners 4th Place in the Stella Awards 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.
 
Too bad the beagle didn't have a pellet gun
 
3RD PLACE:
            Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania , is bestowed 3rd place because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $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.
            What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
 
2ND PLACE:
            Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware , sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, and knocked out her two front teeth.

            Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak into the night club through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000...oh, yeah, plus her dental expenses.
 
1ST PLACE: (Trumpets Phlueeze...)
This year, the runaway First Place Stella Award winner is Mrs. Marv Grazinski of Oklahoma City who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an Oklahoma football game, she drove onto the freeway, and she set the cruise control at 70 mph. Then she 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 here, 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 relative who might also buy a motor home.
 
The Judicial Branch of our governmental system is so broken, makes you wonder if there's any hope at all for any of it....

[micki]

Those are Unbelieveable!!!  It's funny and yet at the same time almost makes me MAD! 

[mrs. justcoral]

Are those for real? Where did you find them at?