Stella Awards

[davemincin]

The Annual Stella Awards!

Some people are either really stupid or so stupid they are smart..... hard to tell. 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.

THIS YEAR'S AWARDS GO TO:

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 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 8 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 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 sneak in the window of 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 driver's 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 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 recreational vehicles.

[AlanM]

The scariest part is the number of morons who were on the juries.

[AlanM]

There ought to be a law:

No person in the act of commiting a crime shall be able to sue the victim(s) of said crime, for injuries received as the result of the criminal act.

[GT]

The TRUE Stella Awards -- 2004 Winners
by Randy Cassingham
Issued 31 January 2005

  Unlike the FAKE cases that have been highly circulated online for the
last several years (see http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html for
details), the following cases have been researched from public sources
and are confirmed TRUE by the ONLY legitimate source for the Stella
Awards: www.StellaAwards.com . To confirm this copy is legitimate, see
http://www.stellaawards.com/2004.html

                                   -v-

THE RUNNERS UP FOR THE 2003 TRUE STELLA AWARDS ARE:

#6: The Tribune Co. of Chicago, Ill. The newspaper chain owns several
  newspapers, as well as the Chicago Cubs baseball team. One of its
  newspaper carriers was Mark Guthrie, 43, of Connecticut. One of its
  ball players was Mark Guthrie, 38, of Illinois. The company's payroll
  department mixed the two up, putting the ballplayer's paycheck into
  the paper carrier's bank account. The carrier allowed them to take
  back 90 percent of the improperly paid salary, and said they could
  have the rest after they gave him a full accounting to ensure he not
  only got his own pay, but wouldn't have any tax problems for being
  paid $300,000(!) extra. The Tribune Co., rather than provide that
  reasonable assurance, instead sued him for the rest of the money.

#5: "High Tech" retailer Sharper Image sells a lot of its "Ionic Breeze"
  air filters. As part of a comparative review of many air filters,
  Consumer Reports magazine found the "Ionic" unit was the worst
  performer. SI complained, saying it didn't do a "fair" test. CU asked
  what sort of test should be done, but SI never replied -- until it
  sued CU. A federal judge ruled the suit not only had no merit, but was
  actually an illegal attempt to squelch public discussion. SI was
  ordered to pay CU $400,000 to cover its legal defense costs.

#4: Edith Morgan, mother of Kansas City Chiefs football star Derrick
  Thomas, who died after being thrown from his SUV in a crash while
  speeding in a snowstorm. Morgan said Thomas's neck was broken because
  the SUV's roof collapsed a few inches -- not from rolling down the
  highway because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt -- and sued General
  Motors. Her lawyer begged jurors to award more than $100 million in
  damages, perhaps more -- he "did not want to put an upper limit on
  it." GM pointed out that Thomas's oversize SUV was exempt from federal
  roof crush standards, yet it met them anyway. The jury sent a message:
  of that $100 million, it awarded Morgan ...nothing.

#3: Tanisha Torres of Wyndanch, N.Y. The woman sued Radio Shack for
  misspelling her town as "Crimedanch" on her cell phone bill. She
  didn't even ask them to change it; she just sued. "I'm not a
  criminal," she whined. "My son plays on the high school football
  team." Yeah, that makes sense. The name "Crimedanch" is a common joke;
  police in the area confirm it's a high-crime area. Still, Torres
  claimed she suffered "outrage" and "embarrassment" at having to see
  that spelling on her private phone bill. The suit seeks unspecified
  damages.

#2: Homecomings Financial, a subsidiary of GMAC Financial Services, which
  is a division of General Motors. The finance company accepted a change
  of address notice from identity thieves for the account belonging to
  Robert and Suzanne Korinke. The thieves ran up a $142,000 debt, and
  the Korinkes notified Homecomings of the fraud the moment they
  discovered it. Homecomings sued them two years later, saying the
  couple's "negligence" is what "caused the injury to Homecomings," not
  the fact that the company accepted a change of address from fraudsters
  -- and then gave them all the money they could drain. The victims got
  the company to drop the suit, which demanded $74,000 plus attorney's
  fees, after shelling out $5,000 in legal fees -- an outcome the
  couple's lawyer called "really lucky".

AND THE WINNER of the 2004 Stella Award: Mary Ubaudi of Madison County,
  Ill. Ubaudi was a passenger in a car that got into a wreck. She put
  most of the blame on the deepest pocket available: Mazda Motors, who
  made the car she was riding in. Ubaudi demands "in excess of $150,000"
  from the automaker, claiming it "failed to provide instructions
  regarding the safe and proper use of a seatbelt." One hopes Mazda's
  attorneys make her swear in court that she has never before worn a
  seatbelt, has never flown on an airliner, and that she's too stupid to
  figure out how to fasten a seatbelt.

TO CONFIRM THE VALIDITY OF THESE CASES, get more information on the True
  Stella Awards, or sign up for a free e-mail subscription to new cases
  as they are issued, see http://www.stellaawards.com/2004.html

Copyright 2005 www.StellaAwards.com . This message may be forwarded as
  long as it remains complete and unaltered.

[Russell Kanning]

I have enjoyed the True Stella awards. Truth is stranger and funnier than fiction.

[pascal.belanger]

The scariest part is the number of morons who were on the juries.

elevathing yourself will trempling down on fellow you are stupid is soo easy and
pointless Have you heard of human dignity

[Lloyd Danforth]

[AlanM]

[wdg3rd]

The scariest part is the number of morons who were on the juries.

elevathing yourself will trempling down on fellow you are stupid is soo easy and
pointless Have you heard of human dignity

I've heard vague rumors about it.  None of those rumors seem to indicate that the legal profession and its related political class has any of it.

[ken.d]

The Stella Awards are great. Randy Cassingham runs a couple of good mailing lists worth checking out, especially This is True (http://thisistrue.com/) which I've been reading for over a decade. Randy is funny, ornary, and dedicated to the truth. I haven't read True in awhile, so I can't comment on his stance on any particular issue, but I do know he pisses off liberals on a frequent basis. He pisses off conservatives, too, it's just that liberals are easier (and more fun) to piss off!

On a related note, here's one for Stella; a group of laywers are suing Thailand and the US over the recent tsunami:
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1000639&tw=wn_wire_story

[Lloyd Danforth]

Hi Ken, welcome to the forum.  Your post reminded me. Another Porc, Pat McCotter had some cards made up by 'This Is True'.  He gave me some. I've had them in my pocket during the last two Meet & Greets, and, forgot to pass them around. If anyone wants to email their address to me, I'l send them one.
lrdan4th@aol.com

[Russell Kanning]

Someone has been advertising the FSP in This is True and we have gotten some signups from it.