Cyprus-Forum.com

[Niki]

Stella Awards - actual lawsuits. Could only happen in America!!!

The Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's in the USA. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.

Below, just for fun, are this year's winners, from 5th to 1st place.

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 Mrs Robertson's son.

5th Place (tie):
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses, when his neighbour 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 neighbour'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 either, because the door connecting the house and garage had locked itself 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 had caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000. In our opinion this is so outrageous that it should certainly have been awarded 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 neighbour's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than that 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 had 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 neighbouring 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 (RV) motor home. On her first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph, and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back to 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. Which we hope there are, because we’re looking forward to next year’s Stella Awards.

[nasos007]

don't get me wrong, the US courts have too much power and not enough sense.

but the above examples are false. check out http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html

and once that straightens things out, carry on to the 2005/04/03 awards and laugh/cry at the even more sillier TRUE cases!

nas

[MyNextDog]

One of the sillier true tidbits ----- A woman had her husband's ashes made into an egg timer when he died so he could still "help" in the kitchen.

I'm still trying to get my head around that one .... any man I've known has no idea where the kitchen is let alone how to "help" in the kitchen.

Maybe I should mention to my husband what a great help he will be ....... someday !!!

[TaraT]

Oh we Americans are a litigious bunch aren't we! It's the attorneys that file the cases that convince people to do these things. The attorneys work on contingency so they will take on almost anything. They really just look for a settlement because the legal process is so expensive and time consuming so companies well usually settle.

Once I was in a teeny weeny fender bender, I was not hurt even a little but because I was in a company vehicle, I was sent to the hospital anyway. Accidents reports are public record. During the next week, I had 12 chiropracters call me trying to convince me that I was hurt, ten of them said they could refer me to an attorney and I had 9 attorneys call me.

[Snad]

Only in America Tut Tut