God Bless America

[Chris]

Not The 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. This is apparently a spoof list but funny nonetheless...

Unfortunately, the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonald's, the teen's

who allege that eating at McDonald's has made them fat, was filed after the

2002 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 list without

question.

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 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 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. Not

surprisingly, the R. V.

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.

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 recreation vehicles.