unbelievable

[pcgrantham]

It's time again for the annual 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?

So, 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.


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.


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 live
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.



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.


3RD PLACE:
A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania $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?


2ND PLACE:
Kara Walton of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub 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
nightclub had to pay her $12,000 (oh yeah, plus dental expenses.)



1ST PLACE:
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 in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor
home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid? Or is it just the juries that the lawyers select?

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

[Gangsta Rider]

Unreal. Thanks.

[TreeLine]

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

Check out this site to shed some light on this. Looks like these are false, however, my sis-in-law is a lawyer and was once telling me about some actual suits that they studied in law school and they were just as ridiculous or even worse!

[Dr. NO]

OLD!

[Bubba]

Funny...a lot of those were allegedly awarded last year, and the year before, and the year before. Same suits, different years....hmmmmm.........

[TWA]

only in America...

[Herb]

You're right - it is unbelievable.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/20 ... form_x.htm

Legal myths: Hardly the whole truth
By Jonathan Turley
Have you heard about the guy who injured himself while using his lawn mower as a hedge clipper, and then won $500,000 in a lawsuit against the lawn mower company? How about the woman who threw a soft drink at her boyfriend, slipped on the wet floor, and then won $100,000 in a lawsuit against the restaurant?

These are only two of the common examples of lawsuit abuses that are fueling the call for "litigation reform." They are also completely untrue — part of a growing collection of legal mythologies that are appearing widely in the national media.

Other examples of fabricated "true cases of lawsuit abuse":

• Kathleen Robertson of Austin received $780,000 from a jury after she tripped over her own son in a furniture store.

• Carl Truman, a 19-year-old in Los Angeles, was awarded more than $74,000 when his hand was run over by a neighbor. The neighbor did not see Truman, who was in the process of stealing his hubcaps.

• Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pa., was given a $500,000 award after he was inadvertently trapped in the garage of a house that he was burglarizing.

[tellitlikeitis]

An example of how these myths orginate is this year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner. Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who supposedly purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home, was the winner. On her first trip home, from a 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 was supposed to have 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. It was reported that an Oklahoma jury had awarded the woman $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. It was also said that 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. The e-mail that announced the award concludes: “Are we, as a society, getting more stupid?”

The truth is that this sort of nonsense relating to a Winnebago lawsuit never even happened. But, the media bought the story hook, line, and sinker, and never even bothered to check it out. Scores of articles � the vast majority buying the Winnebago story as gospel truth � resulted across the country. Apparently, few journalists bothered to do any research to determine whether they were true. Among outlets falling for the hoax were the New York Daily News, CNN and U.S. News & World Report. In fact, the story actually spread around the world. Readers in Canada, England, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and even Vietnam heard about this fictitious lawsuit that never happened. To his credit, Los Angeles Times reporter Myron Levin, who wanted to learn more about the lawsuit, called Winnebago and found out there was no Grazinski lawsuit. He also learned that the company had not changed the owner’s manual to avoid a swarm of copycat claims as claimed by the Stella awards.

The next time an “Internet tale” makes you believe things are even worse than you thought, check it out. Especially when the story suggests that the American court system is stacked against wealthy Corporate America. If you want to check out the “Stella Awards” and decide for yourself whether they are on the level, a good place to go is www.snopes.com, an excellent site that investigates urban myths. Simply search for “Stella Awards” and find out if the lawsuit stories are true or false.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
why are you posting this nonsense????

[BoozeTan]

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

And there is the problem. People that are on juries are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it.

[Bubba]

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

And there is the problem. People that are on juries are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it.

Depends on the court. I was on a Federal jury in Manhattan years ago on an 11 count criminal indictment that related to an arson for profit scheme that lasted close to 5 weeks. Federal jury duty is hard to get out of and we had, along with myself, the executive producer of ABC's 20 - 20 and several other professional people. Yes, we also had a few less well educated people (along with one guy who, as we were moving toward acquittal, said he'd "been on 6 juries before and never acquitted anybody" and another guy who said "of course he's guilty; just read the indictment") but it was a more intelligent jury in general than one would think probable.

I was also called for jury duty in Rockland County, NY in 1999 in a civil suit where two people were suing each other from a car accident, where one or both had preexisting conditions they claimed were aggravated, and I easily got out of that one after sitting through a day long voir dire process. I just said I didn't believe either party in a suit like this and the lawyers looked at each other and then waved me goodbye.

Those are the only two times I've been called.

[Nevada West]

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

And there is the problem. People that are on juries are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it.

Why is it smart to get out of jury duty? I believe it is quite the opposite.

[BoozeTan]

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

And there is the problem. People that are on juries are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it.

Why is it smart to get out of jury duty? I believe it is quite the opposite.

who would actually want to go to jury duty?

[Stache]

I never saw the actual show but I will forever remember the promo commercial of Milton Bearl appearing with Andy Griffith on Matlock. Uncle Milty was up for Murder and he says to Griffith "Ben, my fate lies in the hands of twelve people tooo stupid to get out of Jury Duty!."

Ny first hand experience with Jury Duty was when I still owned and operated a landscaping business and somebody was suing the City of Troy over a collapsed retaining wall. When asked if I knew anything about retaining walls I answered that I did as I built them as part of my business. BOTH attorneys asked for me to be dismissed.

[Bubba]

PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE!

And there is the problem. People that are on juries are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it.

Why is it smart to get out of jury duty? I believe it is quite the opposite.

who would actually want to go to jury duty?

Civic duty?

[JerseyGuy]

why are you posting this nonsense????

Supremely Ironic Post Of The Year.