[Vision2020] FW: The Stella Awards

[Donovan Arnold]

It's time once again to review the winners of the annual "Stella Awards"
  (The Stellas are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee
on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella
awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.
Personally, I think they ought to be called "Stupid Jury Awards").

  Here are this year's winners:

  5th Place (tie):
  Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 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 own 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 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 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.

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