It’s time once again 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 McDonald’s. That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.Here are this year’s winners.
==================================================5th Place (tie):
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.5th Place (tie):
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 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 run away winner was Mrs Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago
motorhome. 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 drivers 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….An Old But Classic Case
A Charlotte, NC, man having purchased a case of very
rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against fire
among other things. Within a month, having smoked his
entire stockpile of cigars and without having made
even his first premium payment on the policy, the man
filed a claim against the insurance company. In his
claim, the man stated the cigars were lost “in a
series of small fires.” The insurance company refused
to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had
consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The man
sued….and won. In delivering the ruling the judge
agreeing that the claim was frivolous, stated
nevertheless that the man held a policy from the
company in which it had warranted that the cigars were
insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure
against fire, without defining what it considered to
be “unacceptable fire,” and was obligated to pay the
claim. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal
process the insurance company accepted the ruling and
paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in
“the fires.” After the man cashed the check, however,
the company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson.
With his own insurance claim and testimony from the
previous case being used against him, the man was
convicted of intentionally burning his insured
property and sentenced to 24 months in jail and a
$24,000 fine.That poor lady that sued mcdonalds has been ridiculed by them as part of their defence against the lawsuit.
The Judge was horrified that McDonalds were superheating the coffee with steam so it stayed hot on the servery longer. The doctor who treated her said he had never seen such burns and she needed skin grafts etc and was scarred for life. He awarded punitive damages because of McDonalds behaviour towards the poor woman.
They made her out to be an idiot in their defence and unfortunately the popular press over there jumped on it.
Some of those other cases aren’t really true I suspect. That cruise control one has been doing the rounds for years now.
Cheers,
Simon Macks
Mortgage Broker
http://www.mortgagehunter.com.au
0425 228 9853 year fixed rate – 6.69%
Comments may not be relevant to individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult a professional adviser.
obviously we can all look forward to having our coffee’s served cold….mmmmmm…thats nice…
with respect to the original post, i’ve recently been told of one of the well known ‘ambulance chasing’ law firms downsizing from 5 levels of city office space to 50 sqm of outer metro dive….
i did like the post –
cheers
Brendan Heagney
Mortgage Broker
07 3240 4815There are some truly amazing people around these days. And, sadly, these people sue “at the drop of a hat”.It is also sad that the American system lets them get away with these sorts of things.
As to the comment made by Simon Macks, about the winnebago, I don’t know for a fact if it is true but I would not be surprised if it was. I was a Paramedic, in rural Victoria, for just over 23 years and I actually picked up a person who had a car accident under very similar circumstances.
This lady had just acquired a new, late model car and had never before driven a vehicle with cruise control before this particular day. So after reaching 100 kph and engaging the cruise control, she proceeded to settle back in her seat and read a book!! I don’t know why, but she really did believe that the cruise control did do all of the driving.
This actually did happen because I extricated her from the vehicle and transported her to hospital in my ambulance. So the “winnebago” one might actually be true.
Cheers to all,
Forklift.Well i for one believe that any of those stories could be true as just recently in NSW 2 people have been awarded damages in seperate cases
1. Jumped off rocks into the ocean and hit his head on the bottom….sued the council as there was not a sign telling him not to do it??? go figure!
2. Run into the surf and jumped into the water and hit his head on the sandbank- Sued the council cause the lifeguards put the flags where there was a sandbank…fancy that it may have also been the safest place to swim.Bring back Darwin and weed out the idiots….
This all stands to prove my theory however that OH&S has prevented natural selection so we now have a lot more idiots running around and having babies that should have been lost many years ago!!
Iwill probably be getting abused for this post but all i ask is that you think about what OH&S is all about – protecting ourselves from ourselves.Sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can
I do agree that our gene pool could do with a little more chlorine in it.
Simon Macks
Mortgage Broker
http://www.mortgagehunter.com.au
0425 228 9853 year fixed rate – 6.85%
Comments may not be relevant to individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult a professional adviser.
C’mon guys most business thrives on the stupid / uniformed!
If everybody was brilliant where would most of the business be?
It’s nice to see some references to Australian stories occurring – As an American I will agree that we have our fair share of idiots running around, but I’m sure we’re not the only country. I was really starting to become offended at some posts on these forums talking bad about my country – but alas I realized this is a forum for funny stories and had to chuckle over some of them. Please keep those of us from the USA who are members in mind when posting – most “regular” Americans are decent people.
True or not, I’ve been told that following California USA, NSW Australia is the most litigious state in the world. Therefore that would make us one of the most likely to be contributing to the frivolous lawsuits that are doing the rounds. Just take a look at some of the disclaimers on any product you buy… They are there for a reason – some idiot has probably tried it.
Cheers
Sonja
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