The Stella Awards
SURE BEATS WORKING FOR A LIVING


�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
�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 :

��Third place goes to 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
�Stellas 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 onto 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 in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a
�motor home.

��Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...?
��


do I have to get shots to go there? 8o)