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 yo u
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.


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 doo r 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.



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.



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 w
as on  the floor - Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend  30 seconds
earlier during an argument. Whatever  happened to people being
responsible for their own  actions?



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:

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 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.