silly lawsuit winners (true)

[islandmomma]

The number one winner is in our special honour LOL!!

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 w as 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 ho meowner'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 h er tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor - Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever 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 in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home. No wonder Florida beat Oklahoma in football.


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[islandmomma]

Well, sorry.... It seems only I thought it funny...

NVM... can I delete or should someone else?

j

[Getupngo]

Heeeeere comes the posting from womenrv.com's resident bubble-popper and urban myth de-bunker! Stellaawards.com says these are NOT Stellas.

Sorry.

[Paulette]

Well, you have to admit that whoever made them up has a good imagination! They were funny in a stupid duh sort of way!

[Echo]

Well I think they're funny!!!

I know the one isn't true about the woman and the Winnebago, But I can sure see someone doing that!!! It never, ever ceases to amazed just how dumb some people can be. That's why there are so many silly warning on things. Just stop and think about the cautions and warnings that you have read on things. I bet you've raised an eyebrow over a few of them and went "Duh, why would someone need a warning to not do that"?

One thing I read in the paper a long time ago was about this guy who was breaking into a laundromat and stealing the change. Well the owner of the laundromat put of surveillance cameras cause the cops sure weren't catching anyone. Well the thief was caught on tape, arrested and tried. Got jail time out of it. He then turned around and sued the owner of the laundromat for invasion of privacy AND WON. The poor owner had to pay that crook for invading his privacy while he was breaking in and stealing. Now to me that should be a Stella Award!!

Readers Digest has stories like that. It's been awhile since I picked up and read a Readers Digest but the stories were called "That's Outrageous".

And of course I crack up when I read or hear on the news about the "stupid crooks".