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.
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.
5TH PLACE :
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who 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 :
Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania 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.
Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stellas
to go...
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,
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 night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah,
plus dental expenses. Go figure.
1ST PLACE : (May I 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...? Ya think??!!
More than a few of our judge's elevators don't go to the top floor
either!
