[thechat] Fwd: Stella Awards - for Rudy

[Martin Burns]

THE STELLA AWARDS 2002

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards. 
The
Stella's are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee 
on
herself and successfully sued McDonald's .   That case inspired the 
Stella
Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.

Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonald's, the teens 
who
allege that eating at McDonald's has made them fat, was filed after the
2002 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 awards list
without question.

5th place (Tied).

Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 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 toddler was MS Robertson's Son.

5th place (Tied).

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 did not notice there was someone at the wheel of 
the
car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th place (Tied).

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 could not reenter the house because the door 
connecting
the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family were on
vacation and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. 
He
subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food.

He sued the house owner's insurance claiming the situation caused him 
undue
mental anguish. The Jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

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 dog. 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 a little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams who had climbed over 
the
fence into the yard 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 sued the owner of a Night Club in a
neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and
knocked out two of her front teeth.

This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was trying to crawl 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 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor Home. On 
his
trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto 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 RV left 
the
Freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
advising him that in the owner's manual that he could not actually do 
this.


The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home. The
company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in
case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation 
vehicles.


Cheers
Martin


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