The Stella Awards

[jomar]

Stella Awards

It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'! No, not our esteemed Stella_Omega, the other Stella. You know, the 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. Here are the Stellas 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.





5TH PLACE:



Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who 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.





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.



3RD PLACE:



Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a

Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a

spilled soft drink 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.



2ND 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. Go figure.





1ST PLACE : (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please)



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, 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.

 

[trysail]

jomar-

Thanks for posting these examples of ludicrous abuse of the legal system by members of the ambulance chasing crowd. In my case, you're preaching to the choir:

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=26772133&postcount=1

 

[Vermilion]

You know, the Winnebago one is the only one that even seems vaguely un-preposterous... cruise control sounds like auto-pilot - as if it might actually be able to drive without a driver.

The ones that really flabbergast me are the ones where the people threw drinks, let their kids run around or tried to climb out of a window and still managed to get someone else blamed for their misfortune! Un-fucking-believable

x
V

 

[TheEarl]

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but a lot of these are urban myths, under a banner of the usually completely misunderstood case of Stella Liebeck.

http://www.corpreform.com/2003/10/the_truth_about.html

The problem wasn't that the coffee was hot and she was mildly scalded. The problem was that the coffee was 83 degrees C because it was more cost-effective for McDonalds to keep it at that temperature rather than keep reheating it to drinkable hotness. She spilled the coffee while a passenger in a car, causing third degree burns to her legs.

The Earl

 

[jomar]

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but a lot of these are urban myths, under a banner of the usually completely misunderstood case of Stella Liebeck.

http://www.corpreform.com/2003/10/the_truth_about.html

The problem wasn't that the coffee was hot and she was mildly scalded. The problem was that the coffee was 83 degrees C because it was more cost-effective for McDonalds to keep it at that temperature rather than keep reheating it to drinkable hotness. She spilled the coffee while a passenger in a car, causing third degree burns to her legs.

The Earl

Well, you're certainly no fun this morning.

 

[trysail]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Liebeck

Similar lawsuits against McDonald's in the United Kingdom failed. In Bogle v. McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd. Field J rejected the claim that McDonald's could have avoided injury by serving not-so-hot coffee.

"If this submission be right, McDonald’s should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 C will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald’s were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55 C and 60 C. But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85 C and 95 C. Further, people generally like to allow a hot drink to cool to the temperature they prefer. Accordingly, I have no doubt that tea and coffee served at between 55 C and 60 C would not have been acceptable to McDonald’s customers. Indeed, on the evidence, I find that the public want to be able to buy tea and coffee served hot, that is to say at a temperature of at least 65 C, even though they know (as I think they must be taken to do for the purposes of answering issues (1) and (2)) that there is a risk of a scalding injury if the drink is spilled."[10]

Though defenders of the Liebeck verdict argue that her coffee was unusually hotter than other coffee sold, other major vendors of coffee, including Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, and Burger King, produce coffee at a similar or higher temperature, and have been subjected to similar lawsuits over third-degree burns.[15]

Home and commercial coffee makers often reach comparable temperatures.[16] The National Coffee Association instructs that coffee be brewed “between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit [91–96 °C] for optimal extraction” and consumed “immediately”. If not consumed immediately, the coffee is to be “maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit.” [17]

Although Liebeck's attorney, Reed Morgan, and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America defend the lawsuit by claiming that McDonald's reduced the temperature of their coffee after the suit, Morgan has since brought other lawsuits against McDonald's over hot-coffee burns;[18] and McDonald's policy today is to serve coffee between 80–90 °C (176–194 °F), [19] relying on more sternly-worded warnings to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.[5][20][19] The Specialty Coffee Association supports improved packaging methods rather than lowering the temperature at which coffee is served [18]. The association has successfully aided the defense of subsequent coffee burn cases.[21]

Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote a unanimous 7th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion affirming dismissal of a similar lawsuit against coffeemaker manufacturer Bunn-O-Matic. The opinion noted that hot coffee (179 °F (82 °C) in this case) is not “unreasonably dangerous.”

The smell (and therefore the taste) of coffee depends heavily on the oils containing aromatic compounds that are dissolved out of the beans during the brewing process. Brewing temperature should be close to 200 °F [93 °C] to dissolve them effectively, but without causing the premature breakdown of these delicate molecules. Coffee smells and tastes best when these aromatic compounds evaporate from the surface of the coffee as it is being drunk. Compounds vital to flavor have boiling points in the range of 150–160 °F [66–71 °C], and the beverage therefore tastes best when it is this hot and the aromatics vaporize as it is being drunk. For coffee to be 150 °F when imbibed, it must be hotter in the pot. Pouring a liquid increases its surface area and cools it; more heat is lost by contact with the cooler container; if the consumer adds cream and sugar (plus a metal spoon to stir them) the liquid's temperature falls again. If the consumer carries the container out for later consumption, the beverage cools still further.

 

[DesertPirate]

If you look at the manual for a gasoline powered lawn mower you will notice that somewhere between half and two thirds of the pages are safety warnings. They are there because each one was part of a law suit somewhere.

I swear I have seen more intelligent rocks.

Judges that allow suits like this to get to a jury should pay the judgement.

 

[trysail]

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but a lot of these are urban myths, under a banner of the usually completely misunderstood case of Stella Liebeck.

The problem wasn't that the coffee was hot and she was mildly scalded. The problem was that the coffee was 83 degrees C because it was more cost-effective for McDonalds to keep it at that temperature rather than keep reheating it to drinkable hotness. She spilled the coffee while a passenger in a car, causing third degree burns to her legs.

The Earl

With all due respect, do YOU not bring water to 100° C. when YOU make expresso?

Do YOU not boil water when making your java? What happens when your dumbass neighbor spills the java you made on themself?

If you spill your own home-brewed coffee on yourself, whaddya gonna do— sue yourself? Stella Liebeck, encouraged, aided and abetted by a slip-and-fall-extortionist, found a deep pocket.

The entire sorry episode defies both belief and common sense.

 

[TheEarl]

Well, you're certainly no fun this morning.

Sorry. They're still funny though; I just didn't want people to be depressed by thinking that they were real.

The Earl

 

[TheEarl]

With all due respect, do YOU not bring water to 100° C. when YOU make expresso?

Do YOU not boil water when making your java? What happens when your dumbass neighbor spills the java you made on themself?

If you spill your own home-brewed coffee on yourself, whaddya gonna do— sue yourself? Stella Liebeck, encouraged, aided and abetted by a slip-and-fall-extortionist, found a deep pocket.

The entire sorry episode defies both belief and common sense.

I hate coffee.

I think that's probably the most sensible thing I can bring to this thread and bow to the superior knowledge of coffee makers on the board. I'm still happier knowing that the Winnebago story isn't true and that that stupidity isn't loose on the world.

The Earl

 

[matriarch]

With all due respect, do YOU not bring water to 100° C. when YOU make expresso?

Do YOU not boil water when making your java? What happens when your dumbass neighbor spills the java you made on themself?

If you spill your own home-brewed coffee on yourself, whaddya gonna do— sue yourself? Stella Liebeck, encouraged, aided and abetted by a slip-and-fall-extortionist, found a deep pocket.

The entire sorry episode defies both belief and common sense.

I'm with you. They are all totally preposterous, and so is the legal system that pays out to these Darwin award candidates.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

You know, the Winnebago one is the only one that even seems vaguely un-preposterous... cruise control sounds like auto-pilot - as if it might actually be able to drive without a driver.
x
V

Ver you're gonna give us girlies a bad name. Cruise control has been around for decades as a method of regulating speed without keeping your foot on the gas. Sorry, I'm with jomar on this one.

Don't ever buy a car that's 'automatic'. You could be in serious trouble.

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but a lot of these are urban myths, under a banner of the usually completely misunderstood case of Stella Liebeck.

http://www.corpreform.com/2003/10/the_truth_about.html

The problem wasn't that the coffee was hot and she was mildly scalded. The problem was that the coffee was 83 degrees C because it was more cost-effective for McDonalds to keep it at that temperature rather than keep reheating it to drinkable hotness. She spilled the coffee while a passenger in a car, causing third degree burns to her legs.

The Earl

I agree the Stella - McD case is not ridiculous but you swing the pendulum too far. 190 deg F is a normal temperature to serve coffee and McDo had foolishly assumed that customers buying coffee in a drive-thru would not open the cup in a moving car.

As far as I remember, McDo's liability justly arose because they had failed in their 'duty of care' to protect all customers, whether savvy or not.

Neither came out well - McDo for being cavalier in product care and Stella for being a klutz.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Everyone expects coffee to be hot. That's not the issue. McDonald's coffee is served extremely hot, beyond the point of being safe. I do believe that consumers have the right to expect food and drink they puchase to be safe and consumable. I don't know about you, but I ask them to put a little ice in the coffee so that I can actually drink it.

And though water is hot when I make coffee at home, it certainly isn't hot enough to cause third degree burns. My youngest son got third degree burns on his fingers when he was a toddler. With a third degree burn, some of the skin turns black or brown. It's dead. Due to my son's young age, he healed very well and doesn't even have scars even though the ER doctor thought he might end up losing small portions of the effected tissue. A 79-year-old woman is not going to fully recover from extensive third degree burns.

 

[DesertPirate]

I wonder if having shyters fined $50,000 for each case deemed frivolous would cut down on lawsuits? The lawyer has to pay and cannot pass it on to his client. What a novel idea, ethics in law.

 

[oggbashan]

Winnebago is legend

The Winnebago cruise control story is an updated urban legend:

Snopes account

Og

 

[Stella_Omega]

Snopes is your very good friend!

It's the best cure for foot-in-mouth disease going.

 

[matriarch]

I know it's spoiled the fun,but I am really glad that these are all false. I was having serious doubts about the validity of the USA legal system.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I know it's spoiled the fun,but I am really glad that these are all false. I was having serious doubts about the validity of the USA legal system.

Keep you doubts. The "True" ones can be even worse!

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I know it's spoiled the fun,but I am really glad that these are all false. I was having serious doubts about the validity of the USA legal system.

I have heard similar stories to all of them but the Winnebago. So while the details may be falsified, and the numbers pure imagination, the stories are based in reality. People really have sued and won for breaking into people's houses and tripping over something laying int he hallway by the stairs. Or for being partially electrocuted while breaking into someone's house that was protected by a makeshift security system.

So I have no doubt that our judicial system is in complete and total shambles.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have heard similar stories to all of them but the Winnebago. So while the details may be falsified, and the numbers pure imagination, the stories are based in reality. People really have sued and won for breaking into people's houses and tripping over something laying int he hallway by the stairs. Or for being partially electrocuted while breaking into someone's house that was protected by a makeshift security system.

So I have no doubt that our judicial system is in complete and total shambles.

Yes, but they sued and won because the people on the juries had heard and believed these urban myths.

I have a feeling that the Winnebago story is derived from an "I love Lucy" skit where she tries to make dinner in a moving camper. From her husband driving, to an "auto pilot" driving, is not a huge leap of the imagination-- humans are capable of much larger leaps than that.

 

[Corylea]

Sorry. They're still funny though; I just didn't want people to be depressed by thinking that they were real.

The Earl

Yes, thank you for that clarification -- I was getting unhappy, thinking that things had gotten quite this stupid.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Well, I hate to be the one to burst the balloon, but...they're all urban myths.

http://www.zipadeeday.com/viewarticle.asp?article=151

 

[jomar]

Sorry. They're still funny though; I just didn't want people to be depressed by thinking that they were real.

The Earl

These may not be, I didn't scopes them, but I do know of others that are similar that have been checked.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but a lot of these are urban myths, under a banner of the usually completely misunderstood case of Stella Liebeck.

http://www.corpreform.com/2003/10/the_truth_about.html

The problem wasn't that the coffee was hot and she was mildly scalded. The problem was that the coffee was 83 degrees C because it was more cost-effective for McDonalds to keep it at that temperature rather than keep reheating it to drinkable hotness. She spilled the coffee while a passenger in a car, causing third degree burns to her legs.

The Earl

My thanks to The Earl (and Deacon Moon) for saving me the yearly bother of playing "truth patrol" to those urban myths big business just loves to spread.

That juries make dumb decisions and questionable awards is beyond question. That the business community would love to limit or, even better, end the public's only effective means of redress, is also beyond question.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[trysail]

Y'all oughta read John Grisham's The King Of Torts. Yes, I know it's fiction— but this particular fiction is close to the truth of what actually goes on in the world of ambulance chasing.

In essence, all Grisham did was assemble a patchwork quilt of the actual behavior of the mass tort industry and change the names in order to avoid being sued.