The Stella Awards

EarthWind

Literotica Guru
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It's time once again to consider the candidates for the annual Stella Awards. These prizes should rank right up there with the Beagle Awards as prime examples that Darwin might have been wrong.

The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.

Actually, the award should be given to the flaming idiots who awarded anything at all to these morons---who deserved NOTHING!!!!


The following are this year's candidates:

1. 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.

2. 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 hub caps.

3. 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.

4. 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 was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun..

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new
32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, 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 their recreation vehicles.
 
What about that guy who sued the fast food chains for his weight problem? Does that count?
 
Most of those are fake lawsuits. And Stella's skin was burned off to the bone after she spilled the McDonald's coffee on her lap. She required skin grafts and an extensive hospital stay. She was held partially liable for taking the lid off the coffee cup, and McDonald's was held partially liable for serving coffee hot enough to melt skin, which means that they shared in the costs of her medical treatment. After the appeal, the punitive damage award was thrown out.

Jokes are funny, but it'd be nice if the underlying facts even remotely resembled the truth.
 
Mischka said:
Most of those are fake lawsuits. And Stella's skin was burned off to the bone after she spilled the McDonald's coffee on her lap. She required skin grafts and an extensive hospital stay. She was held partially liable for taking the lid off the coffee cup, and McDonald's was held partially liable for serving coffee hot enough to melt skin, which means that they shared in the costs of her medical treatment. After the appeal, the punitive damage award was thrown out.

Jokes are funny, but it'd be nice if the underlying facts even remotely resembled the truth.


hey! dont shoot the messenger!!!
 
Tap-Out said:
What about that guy who sued the fast food chains for his weight problem? Does that count?
The lawyer that filed that suit had his last two cases thrown out of court, and sanctions imposed for even filing one of the cases. He's not winning the suit, people.
 
Mischka said:
The lawyer that filed that suit had his last two cases thrown out of court, and sanctions imposed for even filing one of the cases. He's not winning the suit, people.

Wasn't sure if he did or not. It's just that the orignal post reminded me of this.
 
EarthWind said:
hey! dont shoot the messenger!!!
I just see the McDonald's case get tossed around like this all the time. People are aghast that she would have won any damages, yet they don't know the case. It wasn't frivolous, so naming such an award after her is inaccurate.
 
Mischka..

are u a lawyer or do you just know stuff?

im seriously asking
 
I'm a litigator larvae. Another semester before I finish law school. And I have a head filled with useless facts.
 
ah ok!

what about the other cases then? justified or just stupidity??

my mom sent me an email with that, and i thought it was funny.. i emailed her back with what u said about Stella's case. lol
 
EarthWind said:
what about the other cases then? justified or just stupidity??

my mom sent me an email with that, and i thought it was funny.. i emailed her back with what u said about Stella's case. lol
I don't know why I've taken on the McDonald's case as my personal crusade to enlighten people. Please believe me when I say I did not mean to appear cross or upset with you in any way. It's just one of those scratches I have to itch.

I don't remember which ones are real on that list. Someone sent it to me (with the legal explanations), but I deleted the e-mail. I'll try to track it down again. It's like the Darwin awards, though. Some of them are true, some are based on the truth, and some are Jerry Springer fodder.
 
Mischka said:
I don't know why I've taken on the McDonald's case as my personal crusade to enlighten people. Please believe me when I say I did not mean to appear cross or upset with you in any way. It's just one of those scratches I have to itch.

I don't remember which ones are real on that list. Someone sent it to me (with the legal explanations), but I deleted the e-mail. I'll try to track it down again. It's like the Darwin awards, though. Some of them are true, some are based on the truth, and some are Jerry Springer fodder.


Oh! no i didnt think you were mad at me, i appreciate the enlightenment.
 
EarthWind said:
4. 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 was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun..
This one appeared, almost verbatim, in Jay Leno's "Headlines" segment yesterday.

Still don't know if it's true or not, I guess, but Jay got a kick out of it.

TB4p
 
Mischka said:
I don't remember which ones are real on that list. Someone sent it to me (with the legal explanations), but I deleted the e-mail. I'll try to track it down again. It's like the Darwin awards, though. Some of them are true, some are based on the truth, and some are Jerry Springer fodder.

M, i would really like to see that if you have a chance to try and find it again. maybe your friend kepts a "sent copy" of the e-mail?
 
EarthWind, I have a question. Where did you get this list of cases? Do you have a link? These stories seem a little implausable--especially the last one, which bears a remarkable similarity to a joke that was going around in the early eighties.

....never mind. Slippage.
 
I've been looking for these cases everywhere.

I don't think they exist.
 
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