Discussion
For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. !st Place is pure classic female logic.
She purchased coffee and took the lid off and put it between her knees whilst driving
7th Place
Kathleen Robertson (Austin, Texas) was awarded $80,000 by a jury after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store
The store owners were surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son
6th Place
Carl Truman (Los Angeles, California) won $74,000 (+medical expenses) when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord
Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of his neighbours car when he was trying to steal thier hubcaps
5th Place
Terrence Dickson (Bristol, Pennsylvania) who was leaving a house he had just burgled, 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) so he was forced to sit for eight days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, so he sued the homeowner's claiming undue mental Anguish and amazingly the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000
4th Place
Jerry Williams (Little Rock, Arkansas) was awarded $14,500 (+ medical expenses) after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbour’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 dog attack because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun
3rd Place
Amber Carson (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) was awarded $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone.
The reason the soft drink was on the floor was because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument
2nd Place
Kara Walton (Claymont, Delaware) sued the owner of a night club because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 entrance charge but the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000
1st Place
Mrs. Merv Grazinski (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home.
On her first trip home having driven on the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.
During which the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned
Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat whilst the cruise control was set
The Jury awarded her $1,750,000 (+ a new motor home)
She purchased coffee and took the lid off and put it between her knees whilst driving
7th Place
Kathleen Robertson (Austin, Texas) was awarded $80,000 by a jury after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store
The store owners were surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son
6th Place
Carl Truman (Los Angeles, California) won $74,000 (+medical expenses) when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord
Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of his neighbours car when he was trying to steal thier hubcaps
5th Place
Terrence Dickson (Bristol, Pennsylvania) who was leaving a house he had just burgled, 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) so he was forced to sit for eight days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, so he sued the homeowner's claiming undue mental Anguish and amazingly the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000
4th Place
Jerry Williams (Little Rock, Arkansas) was awarded $14,500 (+ medical expenses) after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbour’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 dog attack because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun
3rd Place
Amber Carson (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) was awarded $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone.
The reason the soft drink was on the floor was because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument
2nd Place
Kara Walton (Claymont, Delaware) sued the owner of a night club because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 entrance charge but the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000
1st Place
Mrs. Merv Grazinski (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home.
On her first trip home having driven on the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.
During which the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned
Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat whilst the cruise control was set
The Jury awarded her $1,750,000 (+ a new motor home)
Finlandia said:
Please tell me this is not true...
This is not true.http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
t? I think thought these are were real.
Poor old Stella gets a very unfair press, mind. She was found partly liable due to her own stupidity but she did get compensation. The case centred on the dodgy practice of some McDoCrap franchisees to avoid a free-refills promotion- they served the coffee so hot no-one could possibly drink it!
Poor old Stella gets a very unfair press, mind. She was found partly liable due to her own stupidity but she did get compensation. The case centred on the dodgy practice of some McDoCrap franchisees to avoid a free-refills promotion- they served the coffee so hot no-one could possibly drink it!
Edited by grumbledoak on Saturday 5th September 18:21
thetapeworm said:
Finlandia said:
Please tell me this is not true...
This is not true.http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
DIW35 said:
Just goes to prove how stupid/dumb some Americans are (including the juries that sat on some of those cases!) The sad thing is you can see where this country gets it from (compensation culture) and where it is headed as a result.
You must be more dumb than a dumb jury then. Its untrue, fake, didnt happen. We've (hopefully) got someway to go before chavs start intentionally tripping over their kids in order to get compensation. 
not true then and not true now.pokethepope said:
You must be more dumb than a dumb jury then. Its untrue, fake, didnt happen. We've (hopefully) got someway to go before chavs start intentionally tripping over their kids in order to get compensation.
They may be fake, but they all have the air of possibility about them. And I'm not so sure that we have so far to go before that sort of thing starts happening here.
thetapeworm said:
Finlandia said:
Please tell me this is not true...
This is not true.http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
DIW35 said:
Just goes to prove how stupid/dumb some Americans are (including the juries that sat on some of those cases!) The sad thing is you can see where this country gets it from (compensation culture) and where it is headed as a result.
Nobody like that wandering about the U.K., right?Forum | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff