The Stella Awards
SURE BEATS WORKING FOR A LIVING


 It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those
 unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 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. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch
 your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.
 
  Here are the Stella's 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.
 
  Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.
  
  5TH PLACE :
 
  Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, 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.
  
 Keep scratching. There are more...
  
4TH PLACE :
 
  Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the
 Stellas 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.
  
 Grrrrr ... Scratch, scratch.
 
   3RD PLACE :
 
  Third place goes to 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. What ever happened to people
 being responsible for their own actions?
 
  Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more
 Stellas to go...
  
  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 onto 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.
 
  Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...?
  

do I have to get shots to go there? 8o)