STELLA AWARDS **HARD TO BELIEVE!!!

From My InBox:
> It's time again for the yearly 'Stella Awards'!
>
> 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 Stellas 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=2 0toddler 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, 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 hav e 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 :
> Third place goes to 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. What ever 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 we have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos,
> please.
>
> This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner is
> Mrs. Merv Grazinski,
> of Oklahoma City, OK, who purchased a 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 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 in case Mrs.
> Grazinski has any
> relatives who might also buy a motor home.