and have a good night...

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The
Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in N.M.). That case
inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful
lawsuits in the United States

Here are this year's winners

5th Place (tie)
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 owners of the store were understandably
surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was
Ms. Robertson's son.

5th Place (tie)
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 (tie)
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
home-owner's insurance 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 owner's fenced yard. The award was
less than sought because the jury thought 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
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 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 &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.