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, who 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 Stella's 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:

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. Whatever 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 on to 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 i n case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...?

More than a few of our judge's elevators don't go to the top floor either!

 

And people want to know why insurance rates go up???? These frivilous suits won't stop until the law starts telling people that they are entitled to die in a fire and not sue because they have no money.

 

i think is mostly with the jurors and also with judges that allow that kind of veredict to happen?

 

I don't believe anything in that list. While humorous, I just don't think it's true.

 

This is on snopes as being 100% false. It might even be a repost as well.

Edit:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showt...&#entry13722726

 

Yeah. Just looked it up. http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html

The sad thing is that it wouldn't surprise me if they were true.

 

Stella, while being a fool, was in the right. McD's was warned repeatedly by its consultant that the temperature was far too hot and was likely to burn customers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_coffee_case

 

Hot or not, you shouldnt be driving with coffee between your legs.

 

i was about to say... i get irritated with the amount of times i hear people citing the mcdonalds coffee case as the basis for their hatred of lawyers, or frivolous lawsuits.

i've yet to meet anyone who read the actual full case description and still felt it was frivolous.


annnnnd as i typed that,

i've driven with coffee between my legs multiple times. I drive an s2000 with one cup holder - if i buy two cups of coffee, one goes between my legs. i've spilled hot drinks on myself plenty of times. in my lap even , in similar circumstances. not a full cup, but a little bit. hell i've gotten hot drinks and soups on myself probably hundreds of times - not so often in the car as at home or out at a restaurant, but still.

the point of the lawsuit, and the point i'm going to make, is this: i've never had to get SKIN GRAFTS as a result of a spilled drink. have you? highly doubt it. until you do, and you're paying thousands of dollars for medical treatment, don't be so judgmental.