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?



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 Stella's 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 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.





Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.





5TH PLACE:



Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania , who 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 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.







Grrrrr . Scratch, scratch.









3RD PLACE :



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 I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please)



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 incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.





Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...? Ya Think??!!

I wish I was on any of those juries. It would be hard not to walk off the seat, lean over and smack her.

It reminds me of a story my dad told me. He was on a jury in a case that involved a women (all on security cameras) walking into a changing room with a leather jacket on a hanger, and her not wearing a jacket, tags clearly visible. She walks into a booth, and comes out a few minutes later wearing the jacket (with no tags on). She of course gets stopped just outside the store by security, who call the police and have her arrested for shoplifting.

My dad said that two people on the jury thought it was plausible she "forgot to take the jacket off" or some other excuse, even though she had been convicted a different time.

They ended up with a hung jury in the case :(

Too funny! Yet too scary.

I know these must be real cases because no one can make up stuff this stupid.

Unfortunately, when it comes to big money, it only takes one Stella (and her clever attorney) to make a bunch more Stellas (and even more clever attorneys).

That Terrence fella must be a horrible burglar. He couldn't unlock either doors?! How about unlatching the garage door opener? I suppose the police couldn't even arrest him for burglary because he didn't leave the premises. Perhaps an "unlawful arranging of personal property" charge?

I wonder what people in other countries must think.

hummm two from this great state of PA.... yet another reason to get away from here.


although these ones all sound stupid i know for the coffee one, the coffee was so hot that it actually prevented her from having children had she wanted to in the future, so there are some aspects that we don't always hear.... or they use as good evidence to get the money.

What do I think?

If you have a total idiot who has no responsibility for their actions, legal or illegal, however stupid - then jury of their equally intellectually challenged peers is useless.

Unfortunately this litigious culture has crept across the pond and is beginning to surface in the UK, not in Europe yet that'll take a few more years.

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

Sorry, Aaron but just about all are false and a lot of the facts are left out.
Stella only wanted McDonald's to pay for her medical expenses and they refused.
They also had over 700 other burn cases by their coffee on record.
She wasn't just burned...she was SEVERELY burned.

see: http://www.atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx

[QUOTE=Dylan8i]hummm two from this great state of PA.... yet another reason to get away from here.

Dylan8i make it 3 from Pa. Isn't Delaware just the 3 lower county's of Pa. ? My sister lives in Claymont, De. I spent 13 years there and glad I left:)
Jimmy B

i know for the coffee one, the coffee was so hot that it actually prevented her from having children had she wanted to in the future

She was 81 (according to the original post)!!! I'm pretty sure her baby making days were long gone before she spilled her coffee. :D

Sorry, Aaron but just about all are false and a lot of the facts are left out.
Stella only wanted McDonald's to pay for her medical expenses and they refused.
They also had over 700 other burn cases by their coffee on record.
She wasn't just burned...she was SEVERELY burned.

see: http://www.atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx

I by no means am saying these are 100% true. This was sent to me in an email so I figured I would post them here. Call me an a**hole if you want but, anyone stupid enough to take fresh coffee, remove the lid, and put it between your knees while driving deserves to get burned. Where's Bill Engvall when you need him? "Here's your sign":idea:

if any of these are true, I say move to the next step and appeal. I sure as hell would.

You notice that no one ever sues Starbucks for being burned by coffee? That's because Starbucks is liquid gold, and McDonalds is cheap cheap cheap. Those people who spill Starbucks are sucking it up off the table, not concerned about reproduction.

Sorry, Aaron but just about all are false and a lot of the facts are left out.
Stella only wanted McDonald's to pay for her medical expenses and they refused.
They also had over 700 other burn cases by their coffee on record.
She wasn't just burned...she was SEVERELY burned.

What people forget is that she decided to sue only after lawyers for McDonald's refused to stop harrassing her and threatening her. If the lawyers had pretended to be rational people, the case would never have gone to court.

That being said, remember these outrageous decisions (true or not) the next time you have a "really good reason" to duck out of jury duty. Those jurors showed up, we get the justice we deserve.

You notice that no one ever sues Starbucks for being burned by coffee? That's because Starbucks is liquid gold, and McDonalds is cheap cheap cheap. Those people who spill Starbucks are sucking it up off the table, not concerned about reproduction.
it's the crack they put in their sludge. :prrr:

Sorry, Aaron but just about all are false and a lot of the facts are left out.
Stella only wanted McDonald's to pay for her medical expenses and they refused.
They also had over 700 other burn cases by their coffee on record.
She wasn't just burned...she was SEVERELY burned.

see: http://www.atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx

Frog is correct, corporations pay to send out these spams (I think the technical jargon is soft spam because it is sent in a mailing list). Essentially, the attack is on the citizens ability to hold corporations financially accountable. My favorite corporate propaganda campaign was when Ford reframed its decision to save money, knowing this would kill people, rather than redesign a flaw in one of their cars. After the jury awarded the plaintiffs the exact amount Ford had saved (I think it was 230 million, though I believe thirty fewer people died than Ford had predicted) Ford reframed the verdict as an act of irresponsibility by the jury and the plaintiff. This propaganda was widely accepted by the public and quickly dispersed through the media. Other companies quickly saw that there was no backlash and jumped on board. Ultimately, the message of these spams is to distrust your fellow citizen and put your trust in the government and corporations. Basically fascism.

The Ford propaganda is one thing. It's a case of a defective product. The coffee is a whole other ballgame. When you buy coffee, you know it is hot and you don't need to be told that if you spill it, you will get burned. I'm sorry but, I just don't see how MacDonald's should be held liable for the burn even if the coffee was very hot and she was in the passenger seat of a parked car. If I buy a hammer and then break my thumb when I miss the nail head, I'm not going to sue the hammer maker. Far too many people are getting rich off of frivolous lawsuits because they have absolutely no common sense and the rest of us pay the price for it.

The Ford propaganda is one thing. It's a case of a defective product. The coffee is a whole other ballgame. When you buy coffee, you know it is hot and you don't need to be told that if you spill it, you will get burned. I'm sorry but, I just don't see how MacDonald's should be held liable for the burn even if the coffee was very hot and she was in the passenger seat of a parked car. If I buy a hammer and then break my thumb when I miss the nail head, I'm not going to sue the hammer maker. Far too many people are getting rich off of frivolous lawsuits because they have absolutely no common sense and the rest of us pay the price for it.

Here here. I haven't researched the McDonald's case to see what really happened but I have a hard time understanding how there is any scenario where someone getting burned by coffee they purchased could even be heard by a court. Maybe if the employee threw the coffee at her, or the container was so poorly designed that it could easily cause a burn (and McDonalds knew about this but did nothing to correct it), but I'm pretty sure neither of these happened here.

We have a right to believe that the cars we drive are relatively safe if operated in a relatively safe manner, and if all of the sudden we saw a bunch of VW Jettas blowing up I'd want them to do something about my car. This obviously wasn't the case with Ford.

The thing that will bother me until the day that I die is the fact that people who worked for Ford studied the problem and it was decided to go ahead with production because they calculated that even with paying off the lawsuits it would still be cheaper, based on (I think) between thirty and forty fatalities. They knew they were killing between thiry and forty people...and just went right ahead. I am sure they used that old Nazi defense, just following orders. I fear that right at this moment, some paper pushing, closet sociopath employed by some company may be using these same rationalizations to sentence some of his companies customers to death.

Next time you make a pot of coffee, pour some into a cup, then pour some of the coffee on your wrist. I have done this, it is painfully hot, but does not leave third degree burns. Some corporations decided to super heat their coffee (just below boiling) so it would not taste bitter and stale as soon as coffee kept at lower temperatures. This way they would not have to make as many pots of coffee. I have no problem with them doing this so long as they give me a heads up. Oh by the way, our coffee is way hotter than the coffee you have at home, it will cause third degree burns.

Let me just say that I back the foundation of your argument 100%. I know there is widespread insurance fraud in this country and I am 100% against it. It is not these high end cases that are the problem. These cases are the battleground because it is more cost effective to mitigate the problem by capping the amount that can be awarded than by investigating all of the mid level awards which is where all the fraud is. The irony is that two sets of thieves are getting away with their crimes. This is what really drives me crazy.

Notice that McDonald's had over 700 complaints about how hot their coffee was.
If I spilled hot coffee while holding it between my knees while driving, I would expect some first degree burns and maybe a spot of second.
I would not expect extensive third degree burns which required a pro-longed stay in a hospital for healing.
I would never call you an a**hole, Aaron.
What I'm trying to point out is that we are frequently mislead by whoever puts this stuff out. A year or two ago, I bought into all this hype about silly law suits, too.
Now I check hoaxbusters and Truth or Fiction.

I do see your point Frog. I just feel like too many people don't take any sort of responsibility for themselves. Everything wrong in life in someone else's fault. I like Dunkin Donuts coffee but, it is scalding hot. I've burnt my mouth a couple times, one time I couldn't taste a thing for a couple days from just taking a tiny sip. I know how hot their coffee is and I got burnt because I was too impatient and didn't wait for it to cool down. Now, if I get DD coffee I know that I will need to wait a good 15-20 minutes before I can drink it. If I want to drink coffee sooner, I get it elsewhere. MacDonalds is a huge chain, I have a hard time believing that they weren't aware that the coffee comes piping hot.

Sorry, this whole thing hits close to home cause we've had a stupid lawsuit at work that has been dragging out for about 5 years now. I was there and know the details behind it and it is truly a Stella finalist.

The idea of personal responsibility has totally escaped this society. If a child does not do well in school, it is the teachers fault, not the parent who is responsible for the child's upbringing. If I break my finger because I hit it with a hammer, it is the hammers fault. If someone shoots another, it must be the gun's fault. So we sue the manufacturers.

We have become so sue happy here that we make up reasons to sue. You don't like something, sue. You not happy with the law, sue.

We as a society have also become so afraid of being sued that the minority runs the majority. When the threat of a suit can change business, education and laws, there is something seriously wrong.

I may be jaded, but after having been sued a "few" times I am frustrated. $20 and a piece of paper is all it takes to sue. No merit and no facts, just mud slinging.

Good luck all.. Hopefully you all will never be sued or you WILL change you mind and want reform.

Phil