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, 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 repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Grrrrr ... Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE:

Third place goes to 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's 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 onto 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.

According to snopes.com, these are all false and have been around since about 2001.

Yes, according to the information I have these are made up stories. The Insurance Insitute did research on these and could not finsd any credibility to them. But the coffee burn was a true one.

But more than likely there are some true stories out there that are just as outrageous!

Yes, there are. Being in the insurance industry for over 40 years, there are a lot of true but outrageous stories with a lot of outlandish awards. One that I remember well involved a push lawnmower way back in the 70's. Two men decided to trim the hedge between their houses with the lawnmower. They started it up, picked it up by the wheels and with one on each side of the hedge they started walking it down the hedge, trimming the top of the hedge. One man lost his balance and the lawnmower ended up on him, doing severe damage to one of his arms. They sued because there were no warning labels on the lawnmower warning against trimming hedges with it. The man won almost a half-million. We all say what is wrong with our court system? I say what is wrong with jurors awarding such outlandish awards to reward someones own stupidity.

I remember that incident. Mowers now have warning labels not be used as hedge trimmers.

I agree that idiots should not be rewarded for their own stupidity.