The "Stella Awards" are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous and 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 because the misbehaving toddler was Ms.Robertson's son.
5th Place (tie):
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour 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 the 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.
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.
2nd Place:
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, having driven onto the freeway she set the cruise control at 70mph 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.
The GOS says: You couldn't make it up, could you?
Sadly, I can't quite persuade myself that somebody didn't. On the other hand, America is the home of all that is lunatic …
Our correspondent Bertie has just emailed us to confirm that these stories are, unfortunately, apocryphal (for any Americans reading this, that means they've been passed around for years but aren't actually true) - see Snopes.
Shame. However they also quote a few equally bizarre court cases which are perfectly genuine.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
Copyright © 2007 The GOS
This site created and maintained by PlainSite