Unbelievable law suits-(got this email today) Stella Awards..check out #1

[Gin]

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards.
The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired
the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United
States.

Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonalds, the teens
allege that eating at McDonalds has made them fat, was filed after the
2002 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 awards list
without question.

5th place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 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
toddler was Ms. Robertson's Son.

5th place (Tied)
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 did not notice there was
someone at the wheel of the car
when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th place (Tied)
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just
finished robbing by way
of the garage door. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since
the automatic door opener
was malfunctioning. He could not 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 a little provoked at the time as Mr.
Williams, who had climbed over the fence into the yard, 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 sued the owner of a nightclub in a
neighboring city when she fell from
the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth.
This occurred whilst Ms. Walton
was trying to crawl in through the window of 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 Mr Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a new Winnebago motorhome. On his trip
home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the
cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the
back and make himself a
cup of coffee Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and
overturned Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the
owner's manual that he could not actually do this. The jury awarded him
$1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home. The company actually changed
their manuals on
the basis of this suit just in case there were any other complete morons
buying their recreation vehicles