Not sure if anyone has seen this before, but here goes.

The Stella Awards

The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who
spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's in New
Mexico. 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 own obviously uncontrollable 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 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 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.

2ndPlace:
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 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 driver's 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.

 

And you wonder why we dislike attorneys so much..........

 

This is old. Check Snopes.

 

Because people send around a stupid email full of fake cases?

Snopes is your friend:
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

 

I'm Batman,

Thanks for the link. I forwarded that info to the hillbilly that sent it to me.

 

If you like that sort of thing. (I do when it's real). Try here.
http://www.darwinawards.com/

 

And now for the REAL Stella Awards:

http://www.stellaawards.com/

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,252588,00.html

 

Some very important words, buried very deep in that article: "If it goes to trial later this year..." A lot of these things get thrown out of court quickly. Of course, those who hate a fair and just legal system never tell you that...they just scream from the rooftops that these cases are filed.

 

I did my part this year. Got picked for Jury duty AND apointed as Forman. Case was a woman walked thru a washer/dryer display at a big appliance store and destroyed her knees on the board in the display between the appliances that was a part of the display.
OK, but her councils pictures didn't line up with what she said, and the witnesses said. Oh, they also left out the part about the other 5 falls she admitted to shortly after the knee bump in the 5 months before she decided to suit (sue?) whatever. Anyway, she got nothing. Oh, her hubby also wanted 540k for Loss of COnsortium! The jury was unanimous on that, NO, Obviously a lack of imagination!

 

What steams me up that any attorney would take the case and let the client think they will prevail. Obviously with the McDonalds "Hot coffee spill" lawsuit in the back of some peoples minds, they think the jury will see it their way. Sometimes they do.

 

 

Some good C3 stuff in there.

 

Yeah. Should be in Tech/Performance.