Re: Stella Awards ..
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Tue Jul 4 12:45:09 2006
The verdict from Snopes.com -
FALSE
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
Art
At Tue, 04 Jul 2006, Gail Graham wrote:
>
>Well, my head is scratched but as we say over here, 'only in America...'
>
>Gail
>
>dean@thehuffpeople.net wrote:
>> .
>>
>> These should be taken with a grain of salt. There might be vital information
>> missing. Nevertheless, these are interesting to read.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Some things to ponder
>>
>> It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those unfamiliar with these
>> awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Who spilled hot coffee on
>> herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased
>> the coffee. [NOTE: There is more to the Stella case than is immediately obvious
>> and perhaps it was justifiable for her to get the award.]
>>
>> That's right these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts that
>> happened in the U.S. during 2005. You know, the kinds of cases that make you
>> scratch your head. So keep your head scratchers handy. Here are the Stella's
>> for the past year:
>>
>> To kick things off the right way, there was a three-way tie for 5th 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 store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict,
>> considering the running toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
>>
>> Also in 5th plae is Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California -- you knew
>> California had to be in the list somewhere, right? -- who won $74,000 plus
>> medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.
>> Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when
>> he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
>>
>> Go ahead, grab your head scratchers.
>>
>> The last of the 5th Place winners went to Terrence Dickson, of Bristol,
>> Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just robbed by way of the garage.
>> Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and
>> he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house
>> because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled
>> it shut. Forced to subsist for eight -- count 'em, 8 -- days on a case of Pepsi
>> and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company
>> claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company
>> must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of
>> anguish.
>>
>> Keep scratching, there are more.
>>
>> Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's
>> when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the
>> butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain
>> in it's owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for
>> because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of
>> the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and
>> repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.
>>
>> Grrrrr ... scratch, scratch.
>>
>> Third Place went to Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because a jury
>> ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a
>> soft drink and broke her tailbone (coccyx). The reason the soft drink was on
>> the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during
>> an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own
>> actions?
>>
>> Scratch, scratch, scratch.
>>
>> Hang in there, there are only two more Stella's to go.
>>
>> Second Place: Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware, sued the owner of a night club
>> in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor,
>> knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak
>> through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury
>> said the night club had to pay her $12,000 .... oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
>>
>> Finally, this year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv
>> Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago
>> motor home. On her first trip home -- from an OU football game, no less --
>> having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and
>> calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make
>> herself a sandwich. Don't look so incredulous. Remember, we're talking about
>> Oklahoma here. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and
>> overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
>> putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's
>> seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her -- you are
>> sitting down, right? -- $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually
>> changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has
>> any relatives who might buy a motor home.
>>
--
art fougner, md
"I drank what?" - Socrates
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