Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[FNGw/08SERK]

Proof of entitlement mentality

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 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, EIGHT, 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 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 repeatedl y 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 Stella Awards 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 tha t 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 incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.



Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...?
 

[RJ749]

To answer your question I must know one thing.......is stupid synonymous with litigious?

It never ceases to amaze me just how much many people feel an accident must always be "somone elses" fault nowadays.

There seems to be very little personal responsibility and it is getting worse not better.

[FNGw/08SERK]

To answer your question I must know one thing.......is stupid synonymous with litigious?

It never ceases to amaze me just how much many people feel an accident must always be "somone elses" fault nowadays.

There seems to be very little personal responsibility and it is getting worse not better.

In word - yes, sorry should have been more specific. I wasn't sure if I supposed to laugh or cry when I read these!! (chose to laugh obviously)

[JesterDecor]

I can state absolutely that those jury were NOT juries of MY peers. Too bad we can't sue the jurors for being morons.

On another note, I have jury duty next year. These won't happen on MY watch!! 

[grc]

After reading stuff like this (I assume they are all true, since I see ridiculous stuff like this all around me), does anyone wonder why lawyers and our so-called civil legal system are held in such low regard?  Put aside the fact that the juries are a bunch of morons with a lottery mentality, why does an attorney take such cases, and why does a judge allow those cases to go forward?  Our legal system isn't about right or wrong, it's totally about $$$$.  And unfortunately, that's true of not only the civil system, but the criminal system as well.  Rich folks get off even when obviously guilty, while poor folks do hard time even when the evidence is sketchy at best.

Think I'll go out and grease up my tires - since my lottery numbers aren't working, I could use a nice 7 figure jury award.

Jerry

[twojay]

After reading stuff like this (I assume they are all true, since I see ridiculous stuff like this all around me), does anyone wonder why lawyers and our so-called civil legal system are held in such low regard?  Put aside the fact that the juries are a bunch of morons with a lottery mentality, why does an attorney take such cases, and why does a judge allow those cases to go forward?  Our legal system isn't about right or wrong, it's totally about $$$$.  And unfortunately, that's true of not only the civil system, but the criminal system as well.  Rich folks get off even when obviously guilty, while poor folks do hard time even when the evidence is sketchy at best.

Think I'll go out and grease up my tires - since my lottery numbers aren't working, I could use a nice 7 figure jury award.

Jerry

I wonder if you or the "newbie" that started this thread would have qualified for jury duty on these cases if there had been a jury and if the facts as stated were correct. Fortunately they are not real cases and had they been then I doubt that anyone would have rendered a favorable verdict for the idiot plaintiff.  You want to know why some lawyers get bad names, well it is because some people believe anything that they are told. http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html

[FNGw/08SERK]

I wonder if you or the "newbie" that started this thread would have qualified for jury duty on these cases if there had been a jury and if the facts as stated were correct. Fortunately they are not real cases and had they been then I doubt that anyone would have rendered a favorable verdict for the idiot plaintiff.  You want to know why some lawyers get bad names, well it is because some people believe anything that they are told. http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html

Wonder if "twojay" is qualified to comprehend the fact that he is in the "humor thread"? If twojay is in search of factual data might I suggest he look in a thread other than "humor"!

[twojay]

Wonder if "twojay" is qualified to comprehend the fact that he is in the "humor thread"? If twojay is in search of factual data might I suggest he look in a thread other than "humor"!

Now that is funny and incomprehensible. By the way, what are your qualifications? Regardless of where your post was made you presented it as being factual and your ending remarks to your original post confirm that. Just curious but are you now stating that you knew this information was false when you posted it? Either way my initial post was meant to clarify the fact that the allegations in your original post were false as others on the site were apparently assuming them to be true. I may have reacted in haste in my original post and if so, taking into account your "newbie" status, I meant no harm and welcome you to the site.

[RJ749]

Factual or not they are a stretch....

If anyone is interested there is a "real" Stella site and it does have a number of "true/researched" cases just as goofy as those above.

http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html   They quote the following "The Stella Awards were inspired by Stella Liebeck. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, but that's not the whole story. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits -- including bogus cases! We search for true cases, and you can subscribe by e-mail for free to get the case reports as they're issued. "

At any rate there isn't any reason to get all twisted up over these posts this early in the morning IMO.

Have a great day   And remember not to drink any 190 degree coffee, unless you are checked out on it.

[FNGw/08SERK]

Now that is funny and incomprehensible. By the way, what are your qualifications? Regardless of where your post was made you presented it as being factual and your ending remarks to your original post confirm that. Just curious but are you now stating that you knew this information was false when you posted it? Either way my initial post was meant to clarify the fact that the allegations in your original post were false as others on the site were apparently assuming them to be true. I may have reacted in haste in my original post and if so, taking into account your "newbie" status, I meant no harm and welcome you to the site.

Twojay - your presumptions are just that - presumptuous. I don't feel the need to explain my attempt to give memebers here a laugh. Again if you are in search of researched data please look elsewhere! Sorry to have ruffled your feathers this fine thursday morning, hope the rest of your day goes much better!!!!

[HogBreath]

Sounds like grounds to a six figure law suit to me. 

[RJ749]

Sounds like grounds to a six figure law suit to me. 

Funny boy

[JesterDecor]

HHMMMM...if I remember correctly the McD's lawsuit was settled out of court, so no jury (but being a shareholder I was disgusted!) 

For the record tho, I found it both amusing and not TOO damn hard to believe in the litigious world we live in!

Waiver - no offense to attorney's that actually practice law to keep the world a safer place!!

[RJ749]

HHMMMM...if I remember correctly the McD's lawsuit was settled out of court, so no jury (but being a shareholder I was disgusted!) 

For the record tho, I found it both amusing and not TOO damn hard to believe in the litigious world we live in!

Waiver - no offense to attorney's that actually practice law to keep the world a safer place!!

From the Stella site you are partially correct.  It did get a jury settlement that was then negotiated out of court rather than go through the long appeal process, the actual settlement remains sealed.

Quote from the Stella site:  While Stella was awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, this amount was reduced by 20 percent (to $160,000) because the jury found her 20 percent at fault. Where did the rest of the $2.9 million figure in? She was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages -- but the judge later reduced that amount to $480,000, or three times the "actual" damages that were awarded.
But...

The resulting $640,000 isn't the end either. Liebeck and McDonald's entered into secret settlement negotiations rather than go to appeal. The amount of the settlement is not known -- it's secret!
The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
Even in the eyes of an obviously sympathetic jury, Stella was judged to be 20 percent at fault -- she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it. Should she have taken more responsibility for her own actions?

And...

Here's the Kicker: Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." (Source: NCAUSA.) Exactly what, then, did McDonald's do wrong? Did it exhibit "willful, wanton, reckless or malicious conduct" -- the standard in New Mexico for awarding punitive damages?

[FNGw/08SERK]

From the Stella site you are partially correct.  It did get a jury settlement that was then negotiated out of court rather than go through the long appeal process, the actual settlement remains sealed.

Quote from the Stella site:  While Stella was awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, this amount was reduced by 20 percent (to $160,000) because the jury found her 20 percent at fault. Where did the rest of the $2.9 million figure in? She was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages -- but the judge later reduced that amount to $480,000, or three times the "actual" damages that were awarded.
But...

The resulting $640,000 isn't the end either. Liebeck and McDonald's entered into secret settlement negotiations rather than go to appeal. The amount of the settlement is not known -- it's secret!
The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
Even in the eyes of an obviously sympathetic jury, Stella was judged to be 20 percent at fault -- she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it. Should she have taken more responsibility for her own actions?

And...

Here's the Kicker: Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." (Source: NCAUSA.) Exactly what, then, did McDonald's do wrong? Did it exhibit "willful, wanton, reckless or malicious conduct" -- the standard in New Mexico for awarding punitive damages?

[/quote




Thanks for the research Rjob749. Next time I'll know better!!!