WTF goes on in the world today...... ..unbelieveable! 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 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 who allege that eating at McDonalds have made them fat, was filed after the 2003 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2004 list without question. The following 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): A 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 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 sum 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 neighbour'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 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. 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 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, (from an OU 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 R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that 'cruise control' would not actually drive the vehicle for him. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus anew 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 recreation vehicles.)
aye, god bless them indeed when i met scratt he cudn't believe we slowed down for speed camera's so we didn't get cuaght cos all they do in america is sue for invasion of privacy & get pay outs on the basis!
Those are funny but piss me off to be honest! The whole compensation claims thing is fucking annoying....10yrs ago you could trip over a broken paving slab in Newcastle, break your teeth, snap a bone, whatever and you'd go to hospital, get sorted out, and nothing else would be said. Now it's just stupid! Anywho...I'm off to America soon...wonder how much I'll get for accidentally falling into the Grand Canyon?
Not if I don't fall all the way down! OR if I go down to the bottom, then fall of a 3ft-high rock...then my claim that I "Fell to the floor of the Grand Canyon" would be valid Who do I sue though? Surely there isn't a local council who are responsible for making rocks safe and such?
there will be after you sue, you could sue the tourist company for allowing you to stray off the path, of for not warning you about the soft nature of the rock involved
I'll sue you for giving him a bung to do it!! Then I'll shoot you in the head and your misses can sue the gun company for producing such a fatal weapon.
