The Stella Awards
The "Stella Awards" are named after the 81-year-old woman, Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself and success-fully sued McDonald's in New Mexico for 2.9 million dollars. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits - including bogus cases! Here are this year's winners...
- 7th Place - Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle when she tripped over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering that the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
- 6th Place - Nineteen-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 - 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, so 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 home owners' insurance company, 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 owners' fenced yard. The award was less than originally sought, because the jury felt that 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 (tail bone). 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 (drum roll, please) - This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand-new, 32-foot-long 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 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 that. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed its manuals on the basis of this law suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.
What'd You Think?
(78 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)
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I’m not sure about all of those, but I do know that the ‘amber carson of Lancaster, PA’ is fabricated. They are pretty funny though…
it sounds really funny and i dont think any jury can be that stupid, whatever, it is too good and gives me idea how to make another person guilty on my mistakes……………gr8
I can now rest in the assurance that the human race is screwed.
Well at least we know how we can make alot of money! Just be really stupid and you get thousands its a great idea lol not! And that one lady with the Winnebago motor home oh my gosh she is making people from oklahoma look so bad and im from oklahoma!
is this for real?? omigosh, these people are really dumb, and smart too!
These are all fictitious stories.
I think the jury members and the people who filed the law suites should be sued for being stupid,supporting stupidity and not having common sense.
wow those people are retarded..if i was the judge i would make THEM pay for being stupid asswipes
only in America…
Wouldn’t trespassing rule out the case? Like the person wasn’t suppost to be there in the first place, how can they sue? What has America come to?!..
dear god…
i don’t know who is the more stupid…. the ultra morons who did sued or the brain-dead juries who found in favour of the plaintiffs.
one thing i noticed was that all those stupid people were Americans
well we ARE a sue-happy country…
The American Association of Justice has looked into all of these. None of them are true. In fact even Stella Liebeck’s case was blown way out to the point where if you actually read the facts, McDonald’s really is at fault there. For those of you that actually care to read the facts, here is a link with the case details. http://www.atla.org/pressroom/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx
Also to be well noted. Urban myths like the “Stella Awards” aren’t just cute or harmless jabs at trial lawyers and our legal system. They clearly are part of a massive disinformation campaign designed to undermine Americans’ confidence in our legal system and to benefit powerful corporate interests at the expense of average people harmed by corporate wrongdoing and indifference.
The court case involving Stella Liebeck is true and is widely known because of it being the little old lady who got millions because of what seemed like a small incident.
She spilled hot coffee on herself after the drive-through at a McDonald’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s car.
The spill caused severe burns over 6 percent of her body.
She spent a week in the hospital, underwent several skin drafts, and ended up with permanent scarring on 15 percent of her body.
According to the Washington State Trial Lawyer’s Association, Liebeck sued McDonalds only after the company refused to pay her medical expenses.
The WSTLA says her bills added up to $11,000, but McDonalds offered to pay only $800.
A mediator recommended a $250,000 settlement, which McDonald’s turned down.
One of the issues in the trial was that Liebeck’s lawyers said there had been several hundred similar cases that McDonald’s had ignored and that the company had refused to reduce the temperature of the coffee machines.
A jury gave Stella Liebeck $160,000 but also fined McDonald’s a punitive damage of $2.7 million.
A judge later reduced that amount to $480,000 then McDonald’s settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
According to Snopes.com, all of the above are bogus.
I never comment on these things, but I am sorry, holding a styrofoam cup between your knees, trying to pry the rather tight fitting McDonalds lid off, is a recipe for disaster, whether youre sitting in a car, or on a bench, it doesn’t matter. you KNOW the contents of the cup is hot, if it wasn’t hot, then everyone would be complaining to McDonalds that their hot beverages aren’t hot. I know it’s very sad that an old lady got hurt THAT badly, but it WAS her own fault. there was nothing that McDonalds could do more to prevent that. they did everything that was expected from them. They owed her nothing.
I cant belive how many idiots there are in this world . what kind of screwed up people would accualy give them money.and none of these people are from canada, canadians are not that stupid to do something like that
uhm Aaron this IS a joke site, i think you really need to chill!!
and you sure do sound like you want to sue F&J, loosen up!!
This is false,
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
Oh brother. Who cares if these are true? They’re FUNNY!
Whatever. It’s good for us to at least think that someone out there is stupider than we are…or in this case, several people.
stela’s case is true, i just read it on American Association for Justice’s page.
Those looking to destroy the civil justice have continually mocked Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case. Unfortunately, the actual facts of this case make it no laughing matter.
Ms. Liebeck’s injuries include third degree burns—the most severe—to her groin, inner thighs, and buttocks. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting and debridement treatments (the surgical removal of tissue).
Ms. Liebeck sought to settle her claim with McDonald’s for $20,000, but they refused. McDonald’s eventually produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1993, some involving third degree burns similar to Ms. Liebeck. This history documented McDonald’s knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. McDonald’s own quality assurance manager testified that a burn hazard exists with any food served above 140 degrees; their coffee was kept warm at 185 degrees.
A jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages, but reduced it to $160,000 because they found her 20 percent at fault for the spill. The jury also awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages, equal to two days of McDonald’s coffee sales. This was eventually reduced to $480,000, even though the judge called McDonald’s conduct reckless, callous, and willful.
wow really stupid people….. but stupid people are funny
well. i can’t say i’m overly impressed with those people, they clearly don’t take respnsibility for their own actions and then they turn around and point the finger at other people when something goes wrong.
plus the juries must have been high or something like that too haha to come up with ridiculous verdicts like those!
i’m ashamed they have the cheek to come up with cases like that. the money they get out of it i would consider to be tainted haha
See, this is the kind of thing that makes me cry at night. Because yes, some of those are true, not all, and maybe not the names of the ppl, but the types of circumstances are true, and the ppl did win. As for stella liebeck, i’ve heard several articles and websites trying to defend her, but guys? Seriously? Its called responsibility, and not being a retard. Its ppl like her that make it so hard for me to find hot(i like my coffee HOT, not warm) coffee in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, i feel sorry for the lady, i mean, she’s old, and apparently not too bright. But this is just plain greed and ignorance. Its like me falling and skinning my knee and sueing the concrete company for not making the concrete soft and bouncy and “pillow-ish”. Oh well, i guess i’ll have to start making my own coffee, because restaraunts can’t risk making hot coffee…old ladies might spill it on themselves.
lol what has the world come to? =)