Time for a little fun! : Stella Awards

 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
 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.
 Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
 
 
That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and
 verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you
 scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.
 
 
Here are the Stella's for the past year:
 
 
7TH PLACE:
 Kathleen Robertson of Austin,Texas was awarded $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 her own
 son.
 
6TH PLACE:
 Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California 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.
 
5TH PLACE:
 Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, 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 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.
 
Keep scratching. There are more...
 
 
 
4TH PLACE:
 Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered 4th Place in the
 Stella's 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:
 Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a
 Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 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?
 
 
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more
 Stella's to go...
 
 
 
2ND PLACE:
 Kara Walton, of Claymont,Delaware 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....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.
 
 
 
1ST PLACE: (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, having driven on to 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 PLUS a new motor home.
 Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit,
 just incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a
 motor home.
 
 
Absolutely amazing!