How great is our judicial system for such DUMB actions.
Here are the Stellas for this past year -- 2011
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 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 kind of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your
head scratcher handy...
*SEVENTH 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.
Start scratching!
*SIXTH 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.
Scratch some more...
*FIFTH 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 and survive 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...
Double hand scratching after this one
*FOURTH 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.
Pick a new spot to scratch, you're
getting a bald spot..
*THIRD 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.
What ever happened to people being
responsible for their own actions?
Only two more so ease up on the
scratching...
*SECOND 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.
Ok. Here we go!! Drum roll ...
* FIRST PLACE*
This year's runaway First Place Stella
Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased
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 owners 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.
