HUMOR - THESE JUST CANT BE TRUE ...BUT ITS FUNNY

[RIHMFIRE]

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 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 ru nning 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 f ood, 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:
A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania $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?
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Hang in there. Only two more Stella's to go.

2ND PLACE
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, sued the owner of a nightclub 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 in through the ladies' room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000. Oh yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.
1ST PLACE: (May we 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, who purchased a new 32-fo ot Winnebago motor home.
On her first trip home (from an OU football game) she was driving on
to the freeway, so 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 in case Mrs.
Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor
home.
Are we, as a society, getting more stupid?
Or is it just the juries that the lawyers select?
PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD
COMMON SENSE, START SHOWING UP FOR JURY DUTY! PLEASE

[Rimfire McNutjob]

That there is some depressing stuff.

[Ysabel Kid]

I read somewhere along the line that most of these were not real. The sad thing though is that every one of them is believable - given the current state of the law and the average intelligence of the people of this country!

[TedH]

Your right about that.

[2row]

I've been hearing the one about the motor home for 20+ yearsso don't belive all that you hear or read thats my 5cents worth

[SR James]

I live in Norman, just south of Oklahoma City. The motorhome thing never happened. As 2row said, that story is 20 years old. At least.

[Paladin]

You are correct they are not true check SNOPES.Com (http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp)