Stella Liebeck is the 81 year old lady who spilled coffee on herself and
\nsued McDonalds. This case inspired an annual award – The “Stella” Award –
\nfor the most frivolous lawsuits in the U. S. The following are this year’s
\ncandidates:
\n1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000
\nby a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who
\nwas running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
\nunderstandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little
\nbrat was Ms. Robertson’s son.
\n2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and
\nmedical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Acord.
\nMr. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the
\ncar, when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps.
\n3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was Leaving a
\nhouse he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to
\nget the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was
\nmalfunctioning. He couldn’t reenter the house because the door connecting
\nthe house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on
\nvacation. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He
\nsubsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He
\nsued the homeowner’s insurance claiming the situation caused him undue
\nmental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.
\n4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded
\n$14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next
\ndoor neighbour’s beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced-in
\nyard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might
\nhave been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was
\nshooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
\n5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
\nLancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and
\nbroke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms.Carson threw it
\nat her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
\n6. December 1997: Kara Alton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the
\nowner of a night club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the
\nbathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This
\noccurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the
\nladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded
\n$12,000 and dental expenses.
\nAnd the winner is…
\nMr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City.
\nIn November 2000 Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago
\nmotor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the
\ncruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the
\nback and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Winnie left
\nthe freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
\nadvising him the handbook that he couldn’t actually do this. He was awarded
\n$1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago. Winnebago actually changed their handbooks
\non the back of their court case, just in case there are any other complete
\nmorons buying their vehicles.
\nIn another case!!
\nPhone Sex Operator Wins Suit Fort Lauderdale, FL
\nA Florida phone sex operator has won a worker’s compensation settlement
\nclaiming that she was injured after regularly pleasuring herself at work.
\nDuring the course of her claim for Workers’ compensation benefits, the
\n40-year-old employee of Fort Lauderdale’s CFP Enterprises Inc. said she
\ndeveloped carpal tunnel syndrome also known as repetitive motion injury in
\nboth hands from pleasuring herself as many as seven times a day while
\nspeaking with callers. The woman used one hand to answer the telephone and
\nthe other to note customers’ names and fetishes and to give herself an
\norgasm during the verbal exchanges. In her petition for workers’
\ncompensation benefits, filed with Florida’s Department of Labor and
\nEmployment Security, the woman claimed that she received her injury from
\n“repetitive use of the phone.” She claimed weekly benefits of $267 a week
\nand also asked to be reimbursed for $30,000 in medical bills after a
\nneurosurgeon operated on her hands to relieve her pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stella Liebeck is the 81 year old lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds. This case inspired an annual award – The “Stella” Award – for the most…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}