Stella Awards

[Axel]

The "Stella Awards" are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (later overturned). That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States. Here are the 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 when he was trying to steal his neighbors' 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 buttocks by his next door neighbors' beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owners 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 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 $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

1st Place: This year's run away winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first 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 R. V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $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 buying recreation vehicles.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The law is an ass Axel. With crap like this where will it all end ? We live in a most litigious society nowdays.

[tomy]

the power of lawyer, these people would never make it with-out lawyer.

[surin]

the power of lawyer, these people would never make it with-out lawyer.

Tomy, Tomy, Tomy......It's the bloody judges and juries that award the compensation. Now in Queensland (Aust) we have a great Government that has put an end to all this nonsense!

[Edward B]

It's actually the idiot government law makers that write dumbass laws that are holier than a swiss cheese factory, that cause all this to happen. Judges have to abide by the written law.

Now in Queensland (Aust) we have a great Government that has put an end to all this nonsense!

Is Jo Bjielke still premier then?

[surin]

It's actually the idiot government law makers that write dumbass laws that are holier than a swiss cheese factory, that cause all this to happen. Judges have to abide by the written law.

Now in Queensland (Aust) we have a great Government that has put an end to all this nonsense!

Is Jo Bjielke still premier then?

You've been away for a long time I take it?...Joh was done by his own mob back in '87.

AND....Judges don't have to award maximum damages if they don't want to....Remember the 'Separation of Powers'.

[tomy]

some one have to convince the judge and juries to win these stupit case right .

It's actually the idiot government law makers that write dumbass laws

and the judges have to follow this law

[TizMe]

Is Jo Bjielke still premier then?

Don't you worry about that!!

[Edward B]

In Jo we trust.

Wasn't it he that abolished daylight savings in QLD 'cause the extra hour of daylight was causing his curtains to fade quicker?

You've been away for a long time I take it?...

Just having a light dig at you cane toads! All fun.

[surin]

In Jo we trust.

Wasn't it he that abolished daylight savings in QLD 'cause the extra hour of daylight was causing his curtains to fade quicker?

You've been away for a long time I take it?...

Just having a light dig at you cane toads! All fun.

Now the bloody cows aren't giving as much milk!

[Dodeskaden]

A MUST .....READ ALL THE WAY DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MAY BE THE ONLY WARNING YOU GET

If you receive an e-mail titled "Bad Times" delete it immediately. Do not open it.

Apparently, this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on all your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play.

If you drive a Ford, it will start missing like a Chevy. It will program your phone auto dial to call your mother-in-law's number. This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer.

For god's sake, are you listening? It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all the while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing your Visa card. It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a way that is only fun when someone loses an eye.

It will rewrite your backup files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporating undetectable misspellings that grossly change the interpretations of key sentences.

If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!

If you don't send this to 5000 people in 20 seconds you'll fart so hard that your right leg will spasm and shoot straight out in front of you, sending sparks that will ignite the person nearest you. Please send, send, send, send, and send!

****IN CASE YOU ARE A BLONDE, THIS IS A JOKE****

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um, p.s. there is a "stella awards" you can google to find them...this one was a hoax, actually.

[Nat]

It's actually the idiot government law makers that write dumbass laws that are holier than a swiss cheese factory, that cause all this to happen. Judges have to abide by the written law.

From memory (of my legal studies classes - a long time ago ) this is only partly true - well in oz anyway. There are two types of law: legislation and precedent. It's the legislation (statue law and delegated - I think) that's made by parliament. The courts only interpret the swiss cheese legislation from which they make a common law (a bit like a cheddar cheese ). I believe it's based on the idea of a precedent that courts will generally treat alike cases in a similar way. So both are to blame

[TizMe]

I think it all comes down to people being unwilling to accept blame for their own stupidity and trying to make someone else pay for it.

Unfortunately the law enables them to do it without simply saying "You are an idiot, deal with it.!!"

What do you call it when you see a lawyer burried up to his neck in sand?.....

Not enough sand..