[StBernard] stella awards

[Westley Annis]

Editor's note:  This is an old coy of the annual Stella Awards.  To see the
most recent cases visit http://www.StellaAwards.com

-----Original Message-----
This is one for the list.
 
If the following wasn't so funny, it would be pathetic....well, actually
it's funny while being pathetic!  This year's Stella Awards for the most
outrageous lawsuits....

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Hot dog! It's time again for the annual "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 the McDonald's in where she purchased the coffee. 
That's right. These are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and 
verdicts that happened during 2006. You know, the kinds of cases that 
make you scratch your head. Here are the "Stellas" for the past year: 
To kick things off the right way, there was a three-way tie for 5th
place. 
Kathleen Robertson was awarde d $80,000 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 Ms. Robertson's son. 
Also in 5th place is Carl Truman, 19, who won $74,000 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 hubcaps. Go ahead. 
Grab your head scratcher. 
The last of the 5th place winners was Terrence Dickson, who 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 subsist for 
eight -- count 'em, 8! -- 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 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of 
! anguish. Keep scratching. 
There are more. 
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the 
"Stellas" when he was awarded $14,500 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. Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch. 
3rd place went to Amber Carson because a jury ordered a restaurant to 
pay her $113,500 after she slipped on soft drink and broke her 
tailbone (coccyx). 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? Scratch, scratch, scratch. 
Hang in there, there are only two more Stellas to go. 
2nd place goes to Kara Walton after she sued the owner of a night club
in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the 
floor and knocked 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 and... oh, yeah dental expenses. Go figure. 
Finally (may I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please) this year's 
runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor 
home. On her first trip home - from an OU football game, no less - 
having driven on to the free way, 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. 
Don't look so incredulous. Remember, we're talking about Oklahoma 
here.! 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 jury awarded her -- you
are sitting down, right? -- $1,750,000 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 buy a motor home.
I am going to put in my two bits worth. I believe that the top two "Stella
Awards" should go to:
#2. The juries that agreed with the plaintiffs in these cases.

  
#1. The "idiot" judges that allowed these cases to go forward in the first
place.

  
I can only hope that the judges that presided over these cases eventually
receive and read this e-mail.

ONLY  IN  AMERICA !