It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'!

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after            

    81-year-old Stella Liebeckwho 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 you scratch
    your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella's for
    the past year: 

7th PLACE :                                                           
                                                                           
    Kathleen Robertsonof 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 , who was leaving a house 
    he had just burglarized 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. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, 8, 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   
    was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds 
    earlier during an argument. What ever 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.

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. Winnebagoactually changed their manuals as a result of this
    suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy 
    a motor home