Carrera Elite
Libra
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Glendale,AZ
Posts: 44,127
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1990 Carrera 23.5 Classic
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Posted: Feb. 07 2008,7:11 pm |
Post # 1 |
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Stella Awards
It's time again for the annual Stella Awards! For those unfamiliar with
these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck, who
spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New
Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember,
she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was
driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
That's right, these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts
in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head.
So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella's for the past year:
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 store owners were understandably surprised by
the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
6TH PLACE:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California, 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 scratcher.
5TH PLACE:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just
burglarized 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 sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, 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.
4TH PLACE:
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 its 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.
3RD PLACE:
A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled softdrink and broke her
tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown
it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Hang in there. There are only two more Stella's to go.
2ND PLACE:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, sued the owner of a nightclub 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 nightclub had to pay her $12,000 - oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
Go figure.
1ST PLACE: (May we have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos,
please.)
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winnerwas 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, 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. 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,
are you sitting down, $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 also buy a motor home.
Are we, as a society, getting more stupid? Or is it
just the juries that the
lawyers select? PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR
HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON
SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE
Sarcasim, Just one more thing that I offer for free!! I've Reached The Age Where Happy Hour Is A Nap!! WWW.StormPokerRuns.Com  |
11-28-2024 Three Word Post.....The Next Generation.... (Rep.#19,436) from: GoFastRacer
