It's time once again to consider the candidates for the annual Stella Awards.

The Stellas 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.

The following are this year's candidates:


1. 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.

2. 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 hub caps.


3. 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.


4. 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 just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.


5. 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.


6. 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.


***7. This year's favorite and this year's winner:::::: Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, 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 R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $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 buying their recreation vehicles.

Ya, and Canadians whine and protest. What a strange world we live in.

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oops, i knew this sounded familiar, sorry andrew

Dunno about anyone else, but I thik its sickening that people can be paid this kind of money for being f****** morons . The guy with the mobile home should have been made to pay to repair whatever he hit after leaving the road, and as to those who caused the problem themselves (eg. the toothless penny pincher)  ??? erm....... what kind of court did they have to go to?

i remeber sum1 posting this a while back Quote:

I heard about a spectator being hit by a baseball during a game & suing the baseball bat manufacturers. It's a special bat made of aluminium (aluminum in US speak). He is likely to win his case with the customary large payout.

During a radio discussion on this subject only last week it was stated that this is only possible in countries like the US where sympathetic juries decide on the amount of damages.
Hopefully this system will not be introduced to the UK. I feel the "compensation culture" is well established & things are rapidly moving in this direction. The only ones to really benefit are the lawyers & it's about time we returned to taking responsibilty for our own actions. IMHO 

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yeah, but thankfully most of the time they are more reasnable, the news posts almost totally the stupid ones

and in some cases, we (the public) do not here all the facts, which might have swayed the jury

true, but how about some of the others? A couple of them I think should have been the other way around