One of the main reasons this country will fall.

[StinkerBell]

Clipped from the Stella Awards site.

Do any of you remember Stella, she sued McDonalds and won because the Coffee was to hot.

Well in her honor, here are some Lawsuits that stop and make you think, they make you think why did Lawyers go to School, just so they can represent these People.

THIS YEAR'S AWARDS GO TO:
5th Place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000 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
toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
5th Place (Tied)
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 did not notice there was someone at the wheel of
the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th Place (Tied)
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 could not 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 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a
large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming
the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The Jury agreed to the
tune of $500,000.
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 dog. The Beagle was on a chain in its owner's
fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the
dog might have been a little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams,
who had climbed over the fence into the yard, 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 (tailbone). 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 sued the owner of a Night Club
in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the
floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak in the window of the Ladies Room to avoid
paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
expenses.
1st Place

This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor
home. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto
the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the
driver's seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee.
Not surprisingly the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual
tat he could not actually do this. The jury awarded him> $1,750,000
plus a new Winnebago Motor home. The company actually changed their
manuals on the basis of this suit just in cas

[MountainDon]

Stink, I hate to be the bearer of this news, but according to snopes.com all of those stories are untrue. I tend to believe what Snopes comes up with.

Also note this page on the "stella" website...
http://www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html
They make special note of the email that contains those stories as being false.

There really are records of truly nutty judicial outcomes, those just aren't the ones. 


We may actually live to see another day.

[StinkerBell]

Hmmmmmmmm, let me ponder this a bit.

What about the Darwin awards? Cause for whatever reason I believe those!

[MountainDon]

I believe the items listed on the Darwin Awards site. I believe the Stella Awards site as well.

What I don't believe are the vast majority of emails I receive about this sort of thing. Add to my list of "suspect until proven otherwise" are the emails that warn of threats, viruses, and the like. I place the credence of that sort of email just a notch behind the emails advising me of the millions of dollars I have waiting for me to claim and chain letters that admonish me to forward or suffer the dire consequences.

I use snopes.com    truthorfiction.com    hoax-slayer.com    and a couple of other sites specializing in virus hoaxes before I take the contents of such emails with anything more than a grain of salt. Call me a suspicious, cynical, old fart if you must. It's alright.

[firefox]

"Call me a suspicious, cynical, old fart"

Of course you are Don, and rightfully so!

I'm still working on some of my relatives to keep them from
sending me these chain letters, groan!

I've always used snopes, but thanks for the other ones to check.

Bruce

[ScottA]

The main reason this country will fail is because people actualy belive this stuff.

[MountainDon]

I'm still working on some of my relatives to keep them from
sending me these chain letters, groan!

Yeah, like what happens to the included threat of death or whatever, if their email gets lost or intercepted by a spam filter?  Does the email know it was never delivered nor read and therefore the threat does not kick in?   

[firefox]

Actually, there is an option on the spam filter settup that takes care of this Don. It replies to the sender and tells them to send it to three more people to make up for the fact that they sent it to an intelligent person.....

I wish.

[MountainDon]

Bruce, I'm     

[StinkerBell]

It was not a chain mail. I was looking at the Stella Site and reading some of it to the hubs.  Just thought I would share what I was reading and laughing at.

[StinkerBell]

I do know on a personal level about a ridiculous law suit.
My next door neighbor is a cop. A few years ago there was a shoot out and she got grazed in the head. This guy, I believed rapped someone, broke into a few homes, a chase happened, and finally he was trapped in a home he broke into by the police. swat, sheriff.
My neighbor is being sued (still think the suit is on) by the family of this guy for wrongful death. He came out firing and the cops got him. Now my neighbor is being sued along with her co workers.

[MountainDon]

a minor hijack... Readers Digest article about Snopes