only in america

[Anarchy99]

check this out

STELLA AWARDS 2002

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards.

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

Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonalds, the teens that allege that eating at McDonalds has made them fat, was filed after the 2002 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 awards list without question.


5th place (Tied)
A jury of her peers awarded Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas $780,000 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 toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

5th place (Tied)
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 did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.


5th place (Tied)
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 could not 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 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the house owner'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 dog. The Beagle was on a chain in his owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been a little provoked at the time, as Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard 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 sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was trying to sneak out of 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 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago motor home. On his trip home from a football game, 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 RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago 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 recreational vehicles.

[Fozzie]

to all countries.

Money money money that's what it is all about.

[Darkness Productions]

Nope, not money. Idiocy being allowed to flourish. Now *thats* what it's all about....

[Moogie]

I'm amazed that any of these even GOT to trial.

[pointwood]

In this part of the world, something called "common sense" is required - call ys crazy

[wirthi]

If for example the winning case happend here in Europe (ok, at least in Austria), the following would happen:

* everybody would laugh on him,
* he (Mr. Merv Grazinski) would lose his drivin licence,
* he would get sued for dangerous to public safety driving if not grievous bodily injury caused by negligence.

and he (or better, his lawyer) could chose among:

* being sued of trying to commit suicide
OR
* being delivered to a closed psychiatry because of being absolutly DUMB.

I always have to laugh when I read the manuals that originate on those stories ... It makes you think about how dumb the average american must be - what of course is not true, europeans are at least as dumb, we just seem to have the better (?) law system.

Greets,
Wirthi

PS: IANAL (yet)

[Paratima]

I blame the system itself. I have observed the jury selection process (especially in civil trials) often enough. In suits like these, the complainant's attorneys hold out for jury members who actually are likely to drool on themselves. They look for people who are gullible in the extreme and highly emotional.

It's a wonder that more of the judges who have to preside over these cases don't go postal.

[prokaryote]

that and the fact that many people in this country absolutely refuse to take any kind of responsibility for their actions.

Everyone here believes that they are a victim when something bad happens (It couldn't possibly be their fault, that's just ludicrous). Since everyone is a victim, there must be an illegal alien who is the perpertrator roaming around the country at nearly light speed causing all of this havoc. Therefore the best thing we could do as a country is to spend several billion dollars to find the one perpertrator who is making everyone a "victim" and all of our problems will go away!

[magnav0x]

I would like to put my two cents in here:

I agree that a lot of these problems have to do with our legal system. This isn't a problem with the American citizens as a whole. You put up a legal system like ours in any other country that would actualy let people get away with things like that then it would happen there as well. Sometimes I think our legal system tries a little TOO hard to benefit everyone's cause, no matter how stupid it be. I mean, the system knows that people are abusing it, they should put a stop to it. There realy should be a new section in the constitution regarding stupidity and common sense.

[RacerX]

Sorry guys, check it out.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

[wirthi]

Originally posted by RacerX
Sorry guys, check it out.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

You'r right, most likely. Those examples are far too funny to be true.

Still, the fact that such myths are able to endure shows that many people think it could be possible. That's strange enough for me. As I said in Austria (and the rest of Europe) you'd (besides being considered dumb) never win such a trial.

Wirthi