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Only In America - The Stella Awards 2004
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.
Here are this year's winners:
______5th Place (tie):
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
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 while 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.
_____4th Place: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded
$14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the rear end 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.
_____1st Place: This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, OK. 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 explaining in the
owner's manual that cruise control isn't automatic pilot. The jury
awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home.
ONLY IN AMERICA Now here is the kicker. All the lawyers who got these
awards are lawyers who make their money by suing insurance co.s. Now
you know why your health and other insurances cost so much.
MJS
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