The Stella Awards, synonymous with outrageous lawsuits, are guaranteed to make you raise your eyebrows, smirk at the plainly ludicrous and frivolous lawsuits slapped by many, and shake your head in disbelief when you learn that those opportunistic weirdos got greenbacks, loads of ‘them, for those same absurd claims.
In 1992, a septuagenarian lady - Stella Liebeck (and you thought that women that age are relatively harmless), sued McDonald’s when the hot coffee she had bought from a drive-in, fell on her lap, scalding her.
Her claim—McDonald’s sold “dangerous” coffee that could lead to burns (as in her case).
Her next step...? She sued!
The damages that she won - to the tune of $6,40,000 (but many claim that it was much more than that) had everyone sitting up, blinking their eyes rapidly and making a mental note to strike her off their party lists. F-O-R-E-V-E-R! Is that me whistling...you bet!
Since the Mcdonald’s Coffee claim, there have been many cases that defy sanity and gumption. To make it worse, many of these have actually gone on to collect mini-fortunes, cash-in on their fiteen seconds of fame on the idiot box, and go laughing all the way to the bank. Whoa!
The Stella Awards does a neat job of handpicking the most bizarre cases, every year. Sample some of these:
— A woman sued a home store when a bird flying outside the store attacked her (her line of reasoning – the home store shouldn’t be allowing birds to fly around it.). What did she expect – the home store to hire men with air guns…?
— A chap sued two magicians – they were being ‘difficult,’ he said. The motive – they didn’t share with him their trade secrets of how they performed their magic tricks. I say the two poor magicians should have taught him, albeit a little differently – would have been fun to see him pull out a hungry, roaring lion out of his black hat, instead of the customary long-eared rabbit, at a Sunday practice for children. Let’s just say the parents wouldn’t have been very amused, and gone ahead to slap some charges of their own...
— A woman involved in a car wreck sued the automobile maker for not issuing instructions that every passenger was required to wear a seatbelt.
— A guy hit by lightning outside an amusement park, sued the amusement park for failing to issue a notice to people advising them to stay in during thunderstorms.
— An enterprising guy changed his name to “Jack Ass,” and claimed that the MTV and American namesakes films and shows were plagiarized from him, and severely hurt his image. So he proved that his self-christening was just about right and made a Jack Ass of himself and went right ahead in suing MTV.
- A smoke-puffing woman, with a family history of coronary artery disease and high blood pressure, weighing over 150 pounds, with a penchant for high-cholesterol, swimming-in-fat fried food, sued her doctors for $1 million for not forcing her to change her habits! Along the same lines, a guy dued KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s for becoming obese and diabetic, and not advising him that he shouldn’t be frequenting them multiple times every week. WTH!
There certainly isn’t a dearth of dotty people in the world, I guess.
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