"Stella" awards

**Michelle** · 09-23-2003, 03:37 PM

Got this in an email today:

It's time once again to review the winners of the annual "Stella Awards."

The Stella's 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 frivolously
successful lawsuits in the United States. Unfortunately the most
recent lawsuit implicating McDonalds, the teens who allege that
eating at McDonalds has made them fat, was filed after the 2002
award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 list without
question!

Here are the 2002 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 son.

5th Place (tie): A 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 the 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 run away winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, he set
the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to
go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. You have got to be kidding! Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. DUH! The jury awarded him $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 buying their R.V.s.