Fw: The Stella Awards - are these like the Darwin awards

> The Stella Awards
>
> It's time once again to review the winners of the annual "Stella Awards."
> The Stellas are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee
> on
> herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the Stella
> awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the
> United
> States.
>
> Here are this year's winners:
> 7th Place: 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
> little
> toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
>
> 6th Place: 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: 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.
>
> 4th Place: Jerry Williams ofLittle 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 nightclub 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 ho! me, (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 and 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.
>
>
>