It's time once again to review the
winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81
year-old Stella Liebeck of New Mexico who
spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case
inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful
lawsuits in the United States.
Here
are this year's winners:
7th
Place:
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.
6th
Place:
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 tr ying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
5th
Place:
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 buttocks by his
next door neighbor's beagle. The bea gle 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 jus! t a litt le 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 night club 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 $3.5! 0 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 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.