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.

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.

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. Whatever

happened to people being responsible for their own

actions?

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 :

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...?