"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 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, TX was awarded $80,000.00 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, CA won $74,000.00 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 hub caps.
5TH PLACE: Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, PA 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 $500,000.00 for his anguish.
4TH PLACE: Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, AR garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500.00 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.
3RD PLACE: Third place goes to Amber Carson of Lancaster, PA. A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500.00 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?
2ND PLACE: Kara Walton, of Claymont, DE 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 $12,000.00.... oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
1ST PLACE: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, OK. Merv purchased a 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 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?) $1,750,000.00 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?!?!?!?!
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
8 comments:
ABSOLUTELY!! 100% Apparently our jury members are brainless morons who love to spend other people's money! Every one of these cases should have been thrown out of court while laughing and pointing!!! Morons.....I'm surrounded by morons!
countrygirl@heart
And with the possibility of a socialist like Barack Hussein in power there is a likelihood of reparations for slavery passed at the taxpayers expense, the biggest Stella award of them all.
Jesus.....idiots are getting rich for being idiots, yet I use my brain quite regularly and I'm stuck in the slowly (or not so slowly) disappearing middle class. What gives?
Today, I hit myself in the face with a tire iron. Repeatedly. With gusto. I am planning on suing the manufacturer of my car (GMC, who supplied me with the tire iron), the people who mined the iron ore and myself (what else is homeowners for anyway?). Wish me luck, if I win (and you know I will!) the drinks are on me!
jen
Just too unbelieveable. The courts are way off base anymore.
You need to get more info about that hot coffee that burned that old lady's buttocks and crotch, and about the McDonald's memo about keeping their coffee at a way too high temperature EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW IT WAS A DANGER! Seriously, it was some ungodly temp that NO ONE would think of trying to sip or handle.
When this first came out, I thought what a crock too. Until I read the real story, saw the photos of that woman's burns, etc.
If I recall, she was doing the cream and sugar thing in the car, something many of us do.
Bottom line...another corporation that didn't give a sh*t about people in its pursuit of profit.
Sorry I don't have a link or I'd share it, but maybe it would come up on Google.
The jurors in these cases should be tried!
Stupid is as stupid does to quote Forrest.
Mrs. Grazinski and ALL the rest should be taxed on their winning 99.9% just as proposed with many of the employees, CEO's of AIG. I hope she took her money and moved to a FAR eastern state because people knowing her would laugh so hard they would wet their pants. Of course she is laughing all the way to the bank because of IDIOTS sitting in the jury box and on the judge's bench. Lawyers should be sued by those that were sued because of "playing" attorney but having the brains of an amoeba.
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