This year's Stella awards (not Artois, sorry Douglas)

[Davey Boy 2.0]

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 neighbor 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 neighbor'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 neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury thought 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.

2ndPlace:

Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware , successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring 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 runaway 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 driver's 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 on the Basis Of This suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

[AD]

1st Place :

This year's runaway 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 driver's 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 on the Basis Of This suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

Who hasn't dreamed of making a sandwich while driving? I applaud this lady for trying to live the dream.

[Mr. Photogeek]

This makes me very very sad for the human race...

[rubberdinghy]

Question...I have heard that motor home story before...is this all BS?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Awesome - thanks, DB, I'd forgotten all about these.

[phorbesie]

i snopes'd this....it's false.

and also many years old.

sorry

[Davey Boy 2.0]

wet blanket

maybe this one?!?!?

The 2005 True Stella Awards Winners

by Randy Cassingham

Issued 31 January 2006

#7: Bob Dougherty. A prankster smeared glue on the toilet seat at the Home Depot store in Louisville, Colo., causing Dougherty to stick to it when he sat down. "This is not Home Depot's fault," he proclaimed, yet the store graciously offered him $2,000 anyway. Dougherty complained the offer is "insulting" and filed suit demanding $3 million.

#6: Barbara Connors of Medfield, Mass. Connors was riding in a car driven by her 70-year-old(!) son-in-law when they crashed into the Connecticut River, and Connors sank with the car. Rescue divers arrived within minutes and got her out alive, but Connors suffered brain damage from her near-drowning. Sue the driver? Sure, we guess that's reasonable. But she also sued the brave rescue workers who risked their lives to save hers.

#5: Michelle Knepper of Vancouver, Wash. Knepper picked a doctor out of the phone book to do her liposuction, and went ahead with the procedure even though the doctor was only a dermatologist, not a plastic surgeon. After having complications, she complained she never would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn't Board Certified in the procedure. (She relied on the phonebook listing over asking the doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sued ...the phone company! She won $1.2 million plus $375,000 for her husband for "loss of spousal services and companionship."

#4: Rhonda Nichols. She says a wild bird "attacked" her outside a home improvement store in Fairview Heights, Ill., causing head injuries. That's right: outside the store. Yet Nichols still held the Lowe's store responsible for "allowing" wild birds to fly around free in the air. She never reported the incident to the store, but still sued for "at least" $100,000 in damages. In January 2006, the case was thrown out of court.

#3: Barnard Lorence of Stuart, Fla. Lorence managed to overdraw his own bank account. When the bank charged him a service fee for the overdraft, he filed suit over his "stress and pain" and loss of sleep over the fee. A few hundred thousand bucks, he says, will only amount to a "slap on the wrist", whereas the $2 million he's suing for is more like being "paddled". Kinky!

#2: Wanita "Renea" Young of Durango, Colo. Two neighborhood teens baked cookies for their neighbors as an anonymous gesture of good will, but Young got scared when she heard them on her front porch. They apologized, in writing, but Young sued them anyway for causing her distress, demanding $3,000. When she won(!!) $900, she crowed about it in the newspaper and on national TV. Now, she's shocked (shocked!) that everyone in town hates her for her spite, and is afraid she may have to move. But hey: she won.

And the winner of the 2005 True Stella Award: Christopher Roller of Burnsville, Minn. Roller is mystified by professional magicians, so he sued David Blaine and David Copperfield to demand they reveal their secrets to him -- or else pay him 10 percent of their lifelong earnings, which he figures amounts to $50 million for Copperfield and $2 million for Blaine. The basis for his suit: Roller claims that the magicians defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using "godly powers" -- and since Roller is god (according to him), they're "somehow" stealing that power from him.

Edited October 19, 2006 by Guest
I got the original from www.danbrown.com

[phorbesie]

sorry....carry on believing nonsense....