USA Litagation gone mad - Stella Awards

[*MAD DOG*]

Just got this in an email. Enjoy.

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 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, who 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, 8, 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 t he 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.

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 Stellas 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 , who 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 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.

[yaris-me]

You're right, it is litigation gone mad. It starts with the legislators that allow the laws to be interpreted that way. It is going to get really bad before it gets better.

[50MPGDream]

http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html

[SilverBack]

Somehow I suspected these cases to be fictional. Even though frivilous lawsuits do happen in the States (especially in Hollywood), our legal system couldn't be THAT stupid. While back I read in the paper that a burglar fell through the roof of a house he was about to hit. Next thing you know he sues the homeowner for gross negligence and wins. Either it was true, or the editors were trying get fired.

Good stories here, though. Maybe we can move this to the jokes thread?

[bobselectric]

The winnebago one is an urban legend from a million years ago

[ddongbap]

Really? Cruise Control, and walk away? REALLY?

[firemachine69]

The case of the woman spilling McD's coffee is actually real, although neither that name nor the point of the lady taking off the lid are real.

I'll summarize what actually happened.

Lady decides that, with hands full, she'll put coffee in between her lap. Not too smart, and of course, it spills.

McDonald's undergoes an investigation, and as I recall, the lawyer discovers their coffee is 20 degrees F hotter than any other brand - with lots of anecdotal evidence from customers who buy it "because it's the hottest they can get". Unfortunately, the temperature also happens to be able to serve second degree burns within a few seconds - Essentially, the coffee is so hot that it's near-suicide to take a huge gulp and actually poses a real danger.

The lady and her lawyer are very simple with what they wanted. Pay the medical bills (something small like $6k), drop the temp to a safer level like other competitors, and everything else would be swept under the rug, essentially like nothing happened with a "non-disclosure" clause from the lady.

McDonald refuses. They say it's a selling point.

Her lawyer returns with a new litigation amount. $500K, med bills, a new non-disclosure amount, and the threat that it would become litigation (and of course, dropping the temperature). McD's is run by a bunch of retards, and they refuse again.

They up the ante to something like a million. Of course, the lady was found something like 20% at fault, but being the fucktards that McD's is all about, they're ordered by the court anyways to drop the coffee temp, and still pay out a huge sum to the lady. Not to mention, she was no longer bound (or anyone else for that matter) by a non-disclosure agreement.



I agreed completely with her first claim, US folks don't have a government sponsored medical system like we do in Canada. And only McD's was stupid enough to refuse it.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by *MAD DOG*

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who 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 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.

This isn't that rare. I've heard of such accidents before in RVs. One would think that a cruise control in a car does not guide the car down the road so maybe one in an RV would be similar. But....


Rule to the Wise - if you manufacture do not sell to the public. I was going to make light sequencers for consumers. Turned out that the Liability Insurance was of the order of about $125,000 per year, including for "Unintended Uses". I ran like a scalded cat.

My partner wanted to use the "poison pill" argument. That the company was too small to be worth suing. We had a falling out over this stupid tactic but we're still friends.

Today he retails tractor parts to the general public without any liability insurance. I have a spare room for him and would be willing to put a hook on the wall so he could hang up his barrel.

My employer does not sell to consumers. Industrial customers are too damn busy trying to make money to bother with crap like the above.

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by firemachine69

I agreed completely with her first claim, US folks don't have a government sponsored medical system like we do in Canada. And only McD's was stupid enough to refuse it.

Sometimes saying "No" is the smart move.

Denny's Restaurants used to be known as "Sambos" and featured a cartoon character on their signs which was appropriate for the 1930s but not in these more reasonable times. The last Sambo's sign I saw was in the early 1980s, when the chain agreed to mend its ways and get with the 20th century.

Okay, fine, they realized that those Sambos signs were chasing away business. They were annoying. A picture of a little boy with "black" features that was a parody and not flattering at all.


Denny's buckled when they were accused of promoting racism against customers. Allegations were raised that customers were not served or were harassed by police. Denny's settled out of court, apologized and created a legal precedent, that the company was systematically racist.

So now they are preyed upon by race baiters. Every so often some poverty pimp visits and sits down to eat. If they're not catered to and lorded over they may get a weed up their tails. Every so often the company gets sued again and pays off.

I've seen a lot of African Americans at Denny's, both working there and eating there. I live in a part of the US that is very "white", we have the Klan hereabouts (they're not nice people) but Denny's doesn't ignore their customers in my area. The only color they care about is the green cash in your pocket.


In contrast to Denny's Eat n Park did not buckle. They fought in court. Today they're not harassed by race baiters because they don't make it easy.


So there is something to be said for going to court. Keeps the dirt bags out of your hair.

Gene

[ChinoCharles]

One point for tort reform.

[GeneW]

My erstwhile partner and good friend somehow gets called to Jury Duty a lot.

One trial he was on involved a man who was at work, running a forklift. He was drinking on the job. He kept one of his legs outside of the cage of the forklift. One of his legs impacted on something and was injured.

He sued both his employer's insurance and the manufacturer's liability insurance.

The evidence submitted by manufacturer showed that the forklift was in good condition and that the safety messages clearly showed, both in English and in pictures, that an operator should keep their limbs inside of the cage.

Additional records, including the man's blood alcohol records, were also presented to the Court. At my place of employment it's an instant urinalysis if you get injured, or you can just quit. Take your pick

My friend recalls a donnybrook with the other jurors. Many felt that the man "deserved a little something" for his pain and suffering. Apparently the forklift got too close to something and mangled one of his legs.

Eventually he got the jury to toss out the case.


No, I have no idea why he is so stupid about lawsuits when he encounters "jurors" who were not concerned with the guy's refusal to obey OSHA policy and to be clean and sober at work. Instead they were concerned with the guy "needing the money". What the guy needed was a swift kick in the ass.



In contrast a nearby factory was located in a "Free Trade Zone". This protected them from lawsuits on the state level. They got this free trade zone because a lot of their ware is made from foreign sourced parts. This gave them a hefty break from tariffs.

A person was hired in as a temp. She claimed to be a competent forklift operator. The employer broke their own policies requiring that all employees had to be trained on their equipment (OSHA rules really) because the person in question began to loudly complain of "racial discrimination". Being that the worker was on night shift they were able to bully t he managers on the scene.

They were given a forklift to run and a brief orientation. The employee signed the forms. Not too long after the person put one of the forks through a high pressure steam/water heating line. They rode off to the hospital with scald burns over a fraction of their body.

Oddly enough they never dialed for dollars to get their "day in court". That pesky "free trade" thing at work. Instead they rode the comp train, in rather considerable pain, and probably, hopefully, are a bit wiser for their attitude.


Life is not always simple.

Gene

[kustom play]

fake

its the same ones every single year

[GeneW]

http://www.stellaawards.com/

Gene