Winners of the Annual Stella Awards

[280PLUS]

Once again, it's time 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 & successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the
Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United
States. __________
6th place

19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles, California, won $74,000 &
medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.
Mr. Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the
car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.


5th place

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
could not reenter the house because the door connecting the house & garage
locked when he pulled it shut. The family were on vacation & Mr.Dickson
found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a case of
Pepsi he found & a large bag of dry dog food.

He sued the house owners 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 & medical
expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's
Beagle dog. 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 a little
provoked at the time, as Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into
the yard, 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 & 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, sued the owner of a night club in a
neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor &
knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was
trying to crawl through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the
$3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 & dental expenses.


1st place

This year's winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor Home. On his trip home
from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise
control at 70 mph & calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back & make
himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Motor Home left the freeway,
crashed & then overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising
him, by reading the owner's manual, that he actually could not do this. The
jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago 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 recreation vehicles.

--While it is true that technology waits for no man; stupidity will
always stop to take on new passengers.

 

[phorvick]

Although funny, all of the above are urban legends and not true. (per snopes.com). Snopes also noted.....

Though the cases described above are fake, real lawsuits of equal silliness can be found in abundance. An equally impressive list could easily have been compiled by anyone with access to a news database and a few moments to spare. For instance:

In March 1995, a San Diego man unsuccessfully attempted to sue the city and Jack Murphy Stadium for $5.4 million over something than can only be described as a wee problem: Robert Glaser claimed the stadium's unisex bathroom policy at a Billy Joel and Elton John concert caused him embarrassment and emotional distress thanks to the sight of a woman using a urinal in front of him. He subsequently tried "six or seven" other bathrooms in the stadium only to find women in all of them. He asserted he "had to hold it in for four hours" because he was too embarrassed to share the public bathrooms with women.

A San Carlos, California, man sued the Escondido Public Library for $1.5 million. His dog, a 50-pound Labrador mix, was attacked November 2000 by the library's 12-pound feline mascot, L.C., (also known as Library Cat). The case was heard in January 2004, with the jury finding for the defendant. In a further case which was resolved in July 2004, the plaintiff in the previous suit was ordered to pay the city $29,362.50, which amounted to 75% of its legal fees associated with that case.

In 1994, a student at the University of Idaho unsuccessfully sued that institution over his fall from a third-floor dorm window. He'd been mooning other students when the window gave way. It was contended the University failed to provide a safe environment for students or to properly warn them of the dangers inherent to upper-story windows.

In 1993, McDonald's was unsuccessfully sued over a car accident in New Jersey. While driving, a man who had placed a milkshake between his legs, leaned over to reach into his bag of food and squeezed the milkshake container in the process. When the lid popped off and spilled half the drink in his lap, this driver became distracted and ran into another man's car. That man in turn tried to sue McDonald's for causing the accident, saying the restaurant should have cautioned the man who had hit him against eating while driving.

Although the cases cited above were all eventually dismissed, they still managed to work their way at least partway through our court system.

 

[280PLUS]

Yes, I've once again run afoul of the "Snopes before you post" rule :banghead:

I "bang" my head in shame and sorrow...

Tick - tick - tick

There all done...



This DOES remind me of one other. My brother's Dalmation nipped his roomie's girl one day, didn't even break the skin. When they broke up a few weeks later she sued my brother. The insurance company gave her $12,000 and canceled his homeowners policy. My brother had no say in the matter.

 

[Preacherman]

The lawsuit that still makes me chuckle was some dweet in NYC who was showing off for his homies in a car of the Subway train, hanging out from the doors as the train pulled out of the station. His head made contact with a pole at the end of the platform, causing permanent crippling injuries and (obviously) brain damage. He sued the Subway for not posting a sign that hanging out of the door of the train while it was moving could cause injury! Needless to say, his case was tossed...

 

[280PLUS]

Hah, sounds like his brain wasn't functioning all that well to begin with.

 

[4v50 Gary]

The subway/pole story sounds like instant kharma to me.

 

[Tory]

Repititious fraud

As noted above, the entire first post is fraudulent, and has been exposed as such for years. Mindless repitition of known falsehoods adds nothing to our dialogues here.

"The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled
coffee on herself & successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the
Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United
States."

This is the primary lie. The "Stella Awards" are a fabrication designed to create the illusion of "frivolous lawsuits" and mindless juries. Here's a reality check for those who think internet drivel is the voice of God and parrot it as such:

1. Stella Liebeck received 2nd and 3rd degree burns to her thighs removing the lid from her McDonalds coffee to add milk and suger. Contrary to what you were probably told, she was NOT driving and the car was PARKED at the time.

Note also that this is NOT the only scalding case against McDonalds; there had been many PRIOR cases, all of which McDonalds ignored. Its excuse was that its coffee had to be extra hot so it would still be hot when its customers got to work; however, its OWN market research showed that customers drank the coffee ON THE WAY to work.

Notwithstanding its own research and the NUMEROUS scalding incidents, McDonalds kept its coffee HOTTER THAN INDUSTRY TEMP. This is called "reckless disregard" or "callous indifference" and is one reason why the jury awarded the damages it did.

2. Contrary to popular myth, there has been no major increase in jury awards in years. This includes medical malpractice cases.

3. Contrary to what the fabricators of the "Stella Awards" (the insurance industry and Chamber of Commerce) want you to believe, the major reason for medical insurance increases is the bath the insurance industry took IN THE STOCK MARKET a few years back. That little flyer cost the industry millions and it raised its rates to cover those losses.

4. A few - a VERY few - unsanctioned doctors (about 6 to 8% in the figures I've seen) generate over half the claims paid. Translation: The medical community does not police itself, allows incompetent doctors to CONTINUE harming patients, the costs of which become medical malpractice premiums.

5. Those states which have capped damages (thus subsidizing the incompetent and reckless at the expense of the victims) have NOT seen a decrease in insurance costs. So just where is the "benefit" you were promised?


Now tell us again about the "Stella Awards" and all those "frivolous lawsuits".....

 

[Derek Zeanah]

The fact that gets me about the McDonalds case: the plaintiff just wanted McD's to cover her medical bills, they refused, she sued, and the jury tried to award her the profit of one day's worth of coffee sales (not sure how close they got).

 

[pax]

Closed because it's off topic -- and to prevent the spread of urban rumors.

Oh, incidentally. Randy Cassingham's (of "This is TRUE" fame) publishes the "TRUE Stella Awards" for which most of the others are named. His take on the McD's case is here, and his opinion of the bogus list above can be found here.

pax