I’ve overlooked the She won $200,000 in compensatory damages (later reduced by 20 percent to $160,000) Last week several people e-mailed me news of the latest winners. The e-mail pointed out that, A jury of her peers awarded Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, $780,000 after breaking 5th Place (tie):<\/B><\/P> Nineteen-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his 5th Place (tie):<\/B><\/P> Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing 4th Place:<\/B><\/P> Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after 3rd Place:<\/B><\/P> A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 2nd Place:<\/P> Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub in a 1st Place:<\/B><\/P> This year’s run away winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. <\/P> The e-mail went on to ask: “Is this proof that we are in the decline of a civilization or that we The answer is we may well be replaced by rats one day, but the winning cases just cited are I’ve overlooked the Stella Awards for too long. There have been so many bogus stories about them on the Web that I simply dismissed them. The Stella Awards, if you don’t know, are named after 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald’s in 1992. She won $200,000 in compensatory damages (later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nbogus stories about them on the Web that I simply dismissed them. The Stella Awards, if you
\ndon’t know, are named after 79-year-old
\nLiebeck<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued
\nMcDonald’s in 1992. <\/P>
\n
\n“because the jury found her 20 percent at fault,” and $2.7 million in punitive damages
\n(reduced by the judge to $480,000). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous
\nsuccessful lawsuits in the United States.<\/P>
\n
\n“unfortunately, the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonald’s,
\nfat<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, was filed after the 2002 award voting was closed.” The message,
\nwhich failed to mention that the
\ndismissed<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, continued with the list of this year’s winners:<\/P>
\n5th Place (tie):<\/B>
\n
\nher ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the
\nstore were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was
\nMs. Robertson’s son.<\/P>
\n
\n
\nneighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was
\nsomeone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps.<\/P>
\n
\n
\nby way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door
\nopener was malfunctioning. He couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the house
\nand garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found
\nhimself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large
\nbag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner’s insurance claiming the situation caused him undue
\nmental anguish. The jury agreed to the
tune of $500,000.<\/P>
\n
\n
\nbeing bitten on the buttocks by his next-door neighbor’s beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its
\nowner’s fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have
\nbeen just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the
\nyard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.<\/P>
\n
\n
\n$113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on
\nthe floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend earlier during an argument.<\/P>
\n
\n
\nneighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two
\nfront teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies
\nroom to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
\nexpenses.<\/P>
\n
\n
\nGrazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, (from
\nan OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and
\ncalmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly,
\nthe R. V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
\nadvising him in the owner’s manual that he couldn’t actually do this. The jury awarded him
\n$1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of
\nthis suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying recreational
\nvehicles.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nare all destined to be replaced by rats?” <\/P>
\n
\nnot the proof. Except for Stella’s case,
\nare fabrications<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> — urban legends, some
\nembroidered from minimal facts, others made of whole cloth. They sure are funny, though. Here
\nare the