The Stella Awards - As Good As The Darwin Awards

This came to me by email today.. It's hilarious

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States .

Here are this year's winners:

5th Place (tie): 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 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. In my

opinion this is so outrageous that it should have been 2nd Place !

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 runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand 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 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.

ROFLMAO

O...M...F...G....if that is all legit then I lost the little shred of faith I had left in humanity I mean it's hilarious but not only were their people around stupid enough to try adn sue for this crap, but there were juries who THOUGHT THEY HAD A VALID REASON FOR SUEING~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean come ON now. I would have burst out laughing if I was on the jury and someone said they were sueing a store because they tripped over their own kid Speaking of which, I tripped and fell, breaking my leg, while standing up after using Xisto... I believe I'll be sueing for medical expensives, mental anguish, the price of a new car, and some spending money... I mean OBVIOUSLY it was the distraction of the webpage that made me fall... OOOOOH YEA IMA BE RICH!I've said it before and I'll say it again...Stupid people piss me off.

hehehe - yeah man. They even got a site for this - I forgot to mention. Not just a site, but monthly e-zine and printed publication too.

here you go: http://www.stellaawards.com/

I am American and I must admit that our country as a whole is very greedy (as you can tell from this topic). I know from experience there has been a time or two when I've done something stupid and thought 'Hey, can I sue for that?' But that stems exactly from that McDonalds case. Sure I'd love to have lots of money in a hurry, at least as fast as the system works, but REALLY, that stuff is really ridiculous. I said I've thought it, I would never really DO it!!

I just can't believe there is people who will actually do stuff like that. Well, I realize now: I'll never get rich as designer. I must buy something stupid, then 'accidently' hurt myself with it, but before doing that I'll read carefuly the manual just to be sure that there isn't printed warning there... so I can get rich by lawsuit later

*sad sigh* Yeah - named after the idiotic woman who spilled McDonald's coffee on her lap and sued over the resulting burns, the Stella Awards have been shaming Americans for a few years now.The problem? We graduate so many lawyers every year, and they all have to do *something* to make money to pay back their massive student loans. So, file a bunch of frivolous lawsuits, miraculously find a jury who will actually pay attention to the outrageous demands and everybody on the plaintiff's side gets rich.If the losers always had to cough up court costs for both themselves and the winners, I bet there'd be fewer pointless lawsuits.

Check out these events too...not Stella awards nor Darwin awards...just dum crimes.These criminals do not even know how commit a crime...god knows why they even commit crimes when they do not know...here are two such events.A young enthusiastic searching for a job enters a restaurant. He directly walks up to the counter and asks the attendant to give him a copy of a Job Application Form. He then sits on a nearby table and starts to scribble something on Job Application Form. After a few minutes he again walks up to the counter and this time instead of giving the Job Application Form back he points a gun, he robs the restaurant completely, and not a single buck is left. Till here everything is normal (the actual way a crime should take place). Police come to the restaurant to investigate upon this robbery. After an hour the attendant at the counter remembers about the Job Application Form he had given to the robber. The police found the Job Application Form; they were shocked to see of which height the robber could have gone. The noodle brain robber had written his actual name, address, phone number, driving license number and his vehicle number. How pathetic can it go? The police nailed the accused the following day.Another such event took place at a Camera Store, a couple walks in to do dutiful shopping (actually, these people are the thieves). They take a look at a few cams; they even take a look at a few cams which were kept for demo. They even act like as if they were really taking a few snaps. After a few minutes they leave the shop with a load of cameras and lot of money. While the investigation was taking place, one of their staff remembered that the accused couple were fiddling around with some of the cams kept for demo...in most of the cams the battery had run dry. But in the one in which the couples were fooling around had a pair of new batteries. The police took it for investigation. The couple had been so stupid that the wife had really clicked the button and her husband’s photo had been taken. They were taken into custody soon.