[StBernard] This year's STELLA award winners

[Westley Annis]

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
driver's 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.