Stella Awards 2006

[Best Buckeye]

Time once again to review the winners of the annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.

Here are this year's winners:

5th Place (3 way tie):Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who wasRunning inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were Understandably surprised at the verdict, considering themisbehaving 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 lockedwhen 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. In my opinion this is so outrageous that it should have been 2nd Place! 4th Place: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500. and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next doorneighbor'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 dogmight 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 runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City ,Oklahoma . Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mphand calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned.Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $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 around.
NO these are true stories
FUnny yet sad

 

[sandgk]

The inventiveness of some yellow pages lawyers never ceases to amaze me.

 

[sandgk]

Oh, whoops, looks like your litany of Stellas is on the "Fabricated" list, at least according to the Stella Awards web-site.

Of course, they do all sound plausible, probably because the real cases are no less weird and twisted.

<table border="1" cellpadding="8"><tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#f5f5f5"><center>Claimed Case</center></td> <td bgcolor="#f5f5f5"><center>Status</center></td></tr> <tr><td>Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 by a jury after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amuck inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving tyke was Ms. Robertson's son.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran his hand over with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Penn., was exiting a house he finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up because 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, so 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. Dickson sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars and change.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>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-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The award was less than sought after because the jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub 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.</td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>The "winner" every year: In November, Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined 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 Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he could not actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago. </td> <td>Fabricated.</td></tr> <tr><td>And just so you know that cooler heads do occasionally prevail: Kenmore Inc., the makers of Dorothy Johnson's microwave, were found not liable for the death of Mrs. Johnson's poodle after she gave it a bath and attempted to dry it by putting the poor creature in her microwave for, "just a few minutes, on low," The case was quickly dismissed.</td> <td>Fabricated from a very old urban legend!</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[Best Buckeye]

Oh, whoops, looks like your litany of Stellas is on the "Fabricated" list, at least according to the Stella Awards web-site.

Of course, they do all sound plausible, probably because the real cases are no less weird and twisted.

Dang you just cant trust anyone to send you true emails anymore
oh well they make good reading and now i know there is such a thing as a stella web site. I'll check it out.

 

[sandgk]

The Actual 2005 Winners

From the earlier linked stella awards web site

[SIZE=+2]The 2005 True Stella Awards Winners[/SIZE]
by Randy Cassingham
Issued 31 January 2006
[SIZE=+3]#7:[/SIZE] Bob Dougherty. A prankster smeared glue on the toilet seat at the Home Depot store in Louisville, Colo., causing Dougherty to stick to it when he sat down. "This is not Home Depot's fault," he proclaimed, yet the store graciously offered him $2,000 anyway. Dougherty complained the offer is "insulting" and filed suit demanding $3 million.
[SIZE=+3]#6:[/SIZE] Barbara Connors of Medfield, Mass. Connors was riding in a car driven by her 70-year-old(!) son-in-law when they crashed into the Connecticut River, and Connors sank with the car. Rescue divers arrived within minutes and got her out alive, but Connors suffered brain damage from her near-drowning. Sue the driver? Sure, we guess that's reasonable. But she also sued the brave rescue workers who risked their lives to save hers.
[SIZE=+3]#5:[/SIZE] Michelle Knepper of Vancouver, Wash. Knepper picked a doctor out of the phone book to do her liposuction, and went ahead with the procedure even though the doctor was only a dermatologist, not a plastic surgeon. After having complications, she complained she never would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn't Board Certified in the procedure. (She relied on the phonebook listing over asking the doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sued ...the phone company! She won $1.2 million plus $375,000 for her husband for "loss of spousal services and companionship."
[SIZE=+3]#4:[/SIZE] Rhonda Nichols. She says a wild bird "attacked" her outside a home improvement store in Fairview Heights, Ill., causing head injuries. That's right: outside the store. Yet Nichols still held the Lowe's store responsible for "allowing" wild birds to fly around free in the air. She never reported the incident to the store, but still sued for "at least" $100,000 in damages. In January 2006, the case was thrown out of court.
[SIZE=+3]#3:[/SIZE] Barnard Lorence of Stuart, Fla. Lorence managed to overdraw his own bank account. When the bank charged him a service fee for the overdraft, he filed suit over his "stress and pain" and loss of sleep over the fee. A few hundred thousand bucks, he says, will only amount to a "slap on the wrist", whereas the $2 million he's suing for is more like being "paddled". Kinky!
[SIZE=+3]#2:[/SIZE] Wanita "Renea" Young of Durango, Colo. Two neighborhood teens baked cookies for their neighbors as an anonymous gesture of good will, but Young got scared when she heard them on her front porch. They apologized, in writing, but Young sued them anyway for causing her distress, demanding $3,000. When she won(!!) $900, she crowed about it in the newspaper and on national TV. Now, she's shocked (shocked!) that everyone in town hates her for her spite, and is afraid she may have to move. But hey: she won.
[SIZE=+3]And the winner[/SIZE] of the 2005 True Stella Award: Christopher Roller of Burnsville, Minn. Roller is mystified by professional magicians, so he sued David Blaine and David Copperfield to demand they reveal their secrets to him -- or else pay him 10 percent of their lifelong earnings, which he figures amounts to $50 million for Copperfield and $2 million for Blaine. The basis for his suit: Roller claims that the magicians defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using "godly powers" -- and since Roller is god (according to him), they're "somehow" stealing that power from him.

As I look at these, several were the subject of independent threads on the Open Discussion Forum

 

[Best Buckeye]

Go Figure, this site is run by Stella herself of course you have to subscribe to it. She must have gone thru the whole 2.9 mill already. but that makes me wonder if she called the above bogus just because she didnt find them first.

 

[Best Buckeye]

Stella's true story

[SIZE=+1]"May it please the court:[/SIZE] We know quite well that not all of the cases we present will turn out to be frivolous abuse of the American Justice System. Many of these cases indeed involve real issues, real injuries, and deserve real compensation. And some don't. That's why we stress that you should read the cases before you judge.

<TABLE cellPadding=10 width=300 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SCRIPT type=text/javascript><!--google_ad_client = "pub-3873347697860878";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = "300x250_as";google_ad_channel ="5293486346";google_color_border = "FFFFFF";google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";google_color_link = "0000FF";google_color_url = "666666";google_color_text = "333333";//--></SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://internethotshots.com/hotsense.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>How about, for instance, Stella herself? Much of the coverage about Stella Liebeck has been grossly unfair. When you have a more complete summary of the facts, you might change your mind about her. Or maybe not -- that's up to you. Did you know the following aspects of the Stella vs. McDonald's case?

• Stella was not driving when she pulled the lid off her scalding McDonald's coffee. Her grandson was driving the car, and he had pulled over to stop so she could add cream and sugar to the cup.
• Stella was burned badly (some sources say six percent of her skin was burned, other sources say 16 percent was) and needed two years of treatment and rehabilitation, including skin grafts. McDonald's refused an offer to settle with her for $20,000 in medical costs.
• McDonald's quality control managers specified that its coffee should be served at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. Liquids at that temperature can cause third-degree burns in 2-7 seconds. Such burns require skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments to heal, and the resulting scarring is typically permanent.
• From 1982 to 1992, McDonald's coffee burned more than 700 people, usually slightly but sometimes seriously, resulting in some number of other claims and lawsuits.
• Witnesses for McDonald's admitted in court that consumers are unaware of the extent of the risk of serious burns from spilled coffee served at McDonald's required temperature, admitted that it did not warn customers of this risk, could offer no explanation as to why it did not, and testified that it did not intend to turn down the heat even though it admitted that its coffee is "not fit for consumption" when sold because it is too hot.
• While Stella was awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, this amount was reduced by 20 percent (to $160,000) because the jury found her 20 percent at fault. Where did the rest of the $2.9 million figure in? She was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages -- but the judge later reduced that amount to $480,000, or three times the "actual" damages that were awarded. But...
• The resulting $640,000 isn't the end either. Liebeck and McDonald's entered into secret settlement negotiations rather than go to appeal. The amount of the settlement is not known -- it's secret!
• The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
• Even in the eyes of an obviously sympathetic jury, Stella was judged to be 20 percent at fault -- she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it. Should she have taken more responsibility for her own actions? And...
• Here's the Kicker: Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." (Source: NCAUSA.) Exactly what, then, did McDonald's do wrong? Did it exhibit "willful, wanton, reckless or malicious conduct" -- the standard in New Mexico for awarding punitive damages? "

Even though Stella tries for self "exoneration" I still dont see where anyonr from MD's spilled the coffee on her. :)

 

[sandgk]

Go Figure, this site is run by Stella herself of course you have to subscribe to it. She must have gone thru the whole 2.9 mill already. but that makes me wonder if she called the above bogus just because she didnt find them first.

Actually that's wrong as well.

The Stella Awards site is run by Colorado based columnist Randy Cassingham - also the author of the "True Stella Awards" book, who has an e-mail subscription offered via the web-site ThisisTrueInc

 

[Best Buckeye]

hey mine were funnier hahaha , where did you find those sand?

 

[sandgk]

From the earlier linked stella awards web site

look for the 2005 awards at the bottom of their home page

 

[Best Buckeye]

ok here are some more from stella.
Chapter 4: It's Not My Responsibility! -- Man says he is having heart attacks and got diabetes because he's obese. Why is he obese? Because McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC failed to tell him that he shouldn't eat their fast food multiple times per week. Meanwhile, a federal judge throws out a similar case filed by obese children, but legal observers warn that's not the end of the issue.
? Drunk climbs under parked truck and passes out. When the inevitable happens (yep: squished), who's responsible? According to a lawsuit filed by his mother, everybody -- except, of course, him.
? Who to sue in the Rhode Island night club fire where 100 people died? How about the corporate owner of a local radio station that ran a few paid ads for the concert? And....
? Professional big game hunter goes on safari and shoots a lion. It didn't
drop dead immediately since he was loaded for rhino and hippo, not lion, and he's mauled. Whose fault is it that the "professional" hunter has the wrong ammo? Why, the ammo manufacturer, of course! He sues.
? Drunk pedestrian steps in front of car and is run over. Police exonerate the driver, but the drunk's family sues for $3 million. ? Driver, fearing she is about to step in front of him, stops for jay-walking pedestrian. When she passes in front of his vehicle and steps into the next lane without looking, she is hit and severely injured by another car. Who's at fault? The driver who stopped, of course! Her parents' lawsuit is thrown out, but an appeals court restores the case.
? Police officer with handcuffed suspect in the back of her police car decides she needs to stun him with her Taser. She "accidentally" pulls her service firearm (which "any reasonable police officer" could do), so who is to blame? Taser! The officer and her police department thus sue the manufacturer.
? Man hit by lightning in parking lot. A classic "act of God"? Heavens no! It's the fault of the amusement park that owns the lot, man says in his lawsuit -- they "could have told the people not to go to their cars," his lawyer says.
? Woman broken down in her car in a public place decides not to wait for the tow truck to take her on a 60-mile jaunt. Instead, she takes a ride with a stranger -- who rapes and murders her. Yeah yeah, he's caught and convicted, but surely someone needs to pay. How about the auto club?