Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: This Year's Favorite Lawsuits

This is topic This Year's Favorite Lawsuits in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Barry Martin (Member # 1376) on 01-31-2003, 10:23 PM:

I haven't had the opportunity to check these by legitimate sources as of yet, so for now they are just jokes but if they are authentic, I am becoming less proud of being a member of the human race. Anyways, did find these somewhat amusing and thought I should share and actually open a topic for once. Personally, the last is my favorite, person must have watched too much Knight Rider or Demolition Man. [Roll Eyes]

It's time once again to consider the candidates for the annual Stella Awards. The Stella's are named after 81-year old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States. The following are this year's candidates:

1. 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 amuck inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

2. A 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 didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hub caps.

3. 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 couldn't 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 eight 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.

4. 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. 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 just a little provoked at the time Mr. Williams was shooting him repeatedly with a pellet gun.

5. A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay $113,500 to Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 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.

6. Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak into the club through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

7. This year's favorite, however, could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. To top it off, the Winnebago Company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreational vehicles. [thumbsup]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-31-2003, 10:45 PM:

THIS is what's wrong with our legal system today! [Mad]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 01-31-2003, 10:49 PM:

Unbelieveable.

I have actually seen some of these in the news.

There are, once in a while, a few that are dismissed. One guy in Oregon tried to sue another person for "passing gas in his direction" after an argument.....but the judge threw it out. The judge ruled the person who passed gas was excercising his right of free speech.

Some of you in Oregon might remember that one...

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-01-2003, 02:50 AM:

By our legal standards here, these lawsuits are absolutely incredible. But so was the MacDonald`s hot coffee thing, and I know it is true. So I would really like to know if the others are authentic and what the reasons behind them are. For instance no.7, maybe the vehicle`s manual did not say that the cruise control can not be left unattended. But isn`t that a general rule when you drive a car or any other vehicle. Didn`t the person violate traffic laws by leaving the driver`s seat?

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-01-2003, 03:19 AM:

The 'Stella Awards', as Barry has assumed, are merely a joke ... [Smile]

-Aaron

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 02-01-2003, 03:53 AM:

The best place to go on that is http://www.snopes.com/
They are an urban legend debunking site and they have a whole section on legal matters.

Edit: [Embarrassed]

I guess I should check the previous post next time before I post... [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-01-2003, 01:52 PM:

I think No. 4 was true, too. Maybe it was not the actual incident, but I remember reading something like that in the newspaper about a year or so ago.

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 02-01-2003, 02:13 PM:

If you think that is bad

http://ftp.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/news/2002/07/05/tony_martin.shtml

Legal aid should be for people who are wronged NOT SCUM. ITmakes me so [Mad]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-02-2003, 12:09 PM:

A friend of my brother had two pitbull terriers and one night he came home and found a messed up burglar who had almost bled to death. (True story.)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-02-2003, 12:56 PM:

It seems to me that in the US, the ridiculousness comes with people starting lawsuits against each other, whereas in Europe in comes in the form of government regulation, namely the European Union. EU regulations which have come into force recently include having to call sausages 'offal tubes' if their meat content is below X%, outlawing the use of perfectly safe chemicals (usually ones manufactured by British companies) on spurious health and safety grounds and much else that makes me hopping mad.

On the lawsuits front, though, the funniest one I came across was a failed lawsuit against Hoover. Someone had attempting to give themselves, err, 'physical stimulation' through the insertion of... you get the idea, and hadn't realised that there is a rotating turbine at the end of a Hoover tube. Said turbine removed a fair chunk from the litigant's appendage, who lost three pints of blood as a result and only just survived. He sued Hoover, who successfully defended themselves on the grounds that his use of the device was not exactly what it had been sold for.