2005 Stella Awards

[Sally]

The Stella Awards

It's time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards".
The Stella Awards are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck
who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM).
That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous,
ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.

Here are this year's winners:


5th Place (tie): 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 owners of the
store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the
misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and
medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda
Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the
wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour's hubcaps.

5th Place (tie):
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had
just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning.
He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and
garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and
Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He
subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food.
He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him
undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

4th Place:
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical
expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbour's
beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award
was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just
a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the
fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd Place:
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her
coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had
thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd Place:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a
night club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window
to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to
avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
expenses.

1st Place:
This year's run away winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor
home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven
onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left
the drivers seat to go into the back and make herself a sandwich. Not
surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed, and overturned.
Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual
that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus
a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals based
on this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

[CJ]

Alas! methinks the era of personal responsibility draws sadly to a close.

Great post, Sally. Thanks!

Love,
CJ

[Carolynn]

Hi Sally. For what its worth category:
I know you posted the Stella awards in the Laugh Stop, but given CJ's response, I was curious about the veracity of the "awards". So I went on line to the State of Oklahoma Court system, and though I searched through the last five years, there was no such case or plaintive listed, no listing in the telephone directory (doesn't discount an unlisted number, of course), nor was there a story in the Daily Oklahoman archives about the suit, and I cannot believe that one of their writers who railes at "frivalous" law suits would fail to comment on this one.

As far as the circumstances of the story (driver leaves seat after setting cruise control to fix food, get beer, or whatever) goes, that has been an old joke in at least Texas and Oklahoma since cruise control and vans became synonymous (started as a Texas Aggie joke, I am told) and usually is told to poke "fun" toward one minority group or another (Aggies, a college football team, Pollocks, Oriental exchange students, Moslems of whatever country, especially during Bush #1's war) and highlights assumed superiority of the teller. I can't speak for any of the other Stella awardees, but for the Okie one, I am highly dubious, and that makes me wonder about the others.