It's time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards, which are not genuine awards but just lists of real cases someone compiles, 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. Clever lawyers, or brain-dead juries? We report - you decide. Here are this year's winners:
5th Place (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 was running inside a furniture store The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving 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 locked when 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 door
neighbor'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 dog might 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 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.
AND.....
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
mph and calmly left the drivers 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.
