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The 2005 Stella Awards

It's 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 reenter 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.

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 run away 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.
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