dean

There should be some sort of IQ testing for potential jurors, methinks.

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.

THE 2004 AWARDS GO TO:

5th Place (Tied)
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
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 a driver of the car as he attempted
to steal its wheels.

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 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 dog. 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
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 Night Club 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 in the window of 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 an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway,
he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's 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

rjosey8385

OK. I was just sitting here wondering why we were considering putting so much funding into the Hubble Telescope and what we felt such remote exploration of space would accomplish ... now I'm hoping they'll find something habitable by the time I'm ready to retire....

Here are some candidates for future civil suits:

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP? AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.

2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Police in Oakland, CA spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up."

3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

4. THE GETAWAY! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

5. DID I SAY THAT??? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery
suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives
asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: "Give me all your money or I'll shoot", the man shouted, "that's not what I said!".

6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??? A man spoke frantically into the telephone: "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart". "Is this her first child?" the doctor asked. "No!" the man shouted, "This is her husband!"

7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED! In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun... Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (hellooooooo)!

8. THE GRAND FINALE!!! Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield, CA, some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new 22 foot boat, going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition. The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard. NOW REMEMBER...THIS IS TRUE......Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!

DiamondDave2005

It's funny, but sad that such morons can be awarded huge sums of money in court as a reward for their stupidity.

I worked for a guy who was on the jury in a case where a woman pulled a box off a high shelf in a toy store, and received a minor head injury when the box fell on her.

He came back to work and said "Well, we didn't think it was a big deal, so we only gave her two-fifty."

We said "$250?". "Oh no, $250,000"!

This is the same moron who wouldn't promote anyone in his group in the seven years I was there, because he didn't think they deserved a raise...

dean

I doubt that we would have to move if American society as a whole were less accommodating of the terminally stupid. I think that we should just allow natural selection to take it's course and be done with it.

rjosey8385

That takes way too looooonnnnngggg.....and there are new strains of terminal stupidity being bred daily.

Ulrich

Closing the circle to the "evolution" discussion in the other thread, I'd think stories like this would be the best argument against "intelligent design".

dean

Well, color me red-faced. It's been brought to my attention by an anonymous benefactor that the Stella Awards that I posted are bogus. I knew that I should've checked with Snopes first...

rjosey8385

That's what you get for posting the Stella awards rather than the Darwin awards! (i dunno - mine might all be bogus, too, for that matter) But they're amusing reading and the fact that they COULD be true is kinda scary. I mean, we do know of a woman who received a healthy settlement for spilling hot coffee on herself and we do have all of those warnings posted on electronics that advise us not to use the hair dryer in the bathtub and that our irons may be hot and whatever other nonsense someone has sued over. Actually, Readers Digest has a regular section in which it recounts stupid settlements and suits, as well....don't feel too bad....and who knows, we may find out some day that Snopes and Urban Legend aren't doing their homework as they should and some of this stuff is actually true (er...maybe that should make us feel worse...)