These are not lawyer jokes!
Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards."The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck whospilled 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.
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):
9-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 apparentlydidn'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 thansought 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 repeatedlywith a pellet gun.
3rd Place:A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, P ennsylvania, $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.
2ndPlace:Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to thefloor and knocked out her two f ront teeth. This occurred while Ms. Waltonwas 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,Oklahoma. Mrs Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motorhome. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto thefreeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat togo into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left thefreeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advisingher in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awardedher $1,750,000. plus a new motor home. The company actually changed theirmanuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other completemorons around.
