[Hellfighter]

Proof of entitlement mentality

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 pur-

chased 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 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. (This can't be true. They'd crucify him here.)

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 Stella Awards

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. She 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, 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 the courts getting more idiotic or what? Where do these judges come from
anyhow?
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now thats what i call free money