stupid lawsuits!

[Snowwhite 0]

I have a friend who is a judge. He has a tendency to see the silly side of his profession, and sometimes shares the inside with me. Here is his most recent contribution to my day...



It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella Awards.
> > The Stellas are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled
> coffee
> > on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the
> > Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United
> States.
> >
> > Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonald's, the
> > teens
> who
> > allege that eating at McDonald's has made them fat was filed after
> > the
> 2003
> > award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2004 awards list
> > without question.
> >
> > THIS YEAR'S AWARDS GO TO:
> >
> > 5th place (Tied). 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 inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
> > understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving
> toddler
> > was Ms. Robertson's son.
> >
> > 5th place (Tied).
> >
> > 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 did not notice there was someone at the wheel of
> > the car when
> he
> > was trying to steal the hubcaps.
> >
> > 5th place (Tied).
> >
> > Terrence Dickson of Bristol, PA 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 could
> > not
> 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 8 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.
> >
> > 4th place.
> >
> > 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 dog. 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 a
> little
> > provoked at the time as Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the fence
> > into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
> >
> > 3rd place.
> >
> > A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
> > Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 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.
> >
> > 2nd place.
> >
> > Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a Night Club in a
> > neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor
> > and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms.
> > Walton was trying to sneak in the window of the Ladies Room to avoid
> > paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
> expenses.
> >
> > 1st Place.
> >
> > This year's runaway winner was Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, OK.
Mr.
> > Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago motorhome. On his trip home
> > from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the
> > cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into
> > the back
> and
> > make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the RV left the
> > freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not
> > advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do
> > this! The jury
> awarded
> > him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motorhome. The company actually
> changed
> > their manuals on the basis of this suit just in case there were any
> > other complete morons buying their recreational vehicles.

skydiveTaylorville.org
[email protected]

[Nightingale 0]

Those cases are all fake. They're urban legends. I looked them up in two legal databases and came up with nothing, and breakthechain.com says http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/lawsuits.html
Snopes agrees. http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

There's so many crazy lawsuits out there. I wonder why people feel the need to make some up.

[Snowwhite 0]

Quote

Those cases are all fake. They're urban legends. I looked them up in two legal databases and came up with nothing, and breakthechain.com says http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/lawsuits.html
Snopes agrees. http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

There's so many crazy lawsuits out there. I wonder why people feel the need to make some up.

Hmm, I'll let my friend know that. He is usually more careful than that. Although, I can believe anyone of those would have happened, as you say there are alot of crazy lawsuits out there!

skydiveTaylorville.org
[email protected]

[JamesNahikian 0]

Quote

I have a friend who is a judge.

Hey, you're near my corner of the woods! I'll bet I know this person. Which judge is this?

D. James Nahikian
CHICAGO

[Snowwhite 0]

PM sent. Maybe we have a couple of folks in common..

skydiveTaylorville.org
[email protected]

[JamesNahikian 0]

As it turns out, I don't know any Clayton County, Iowa, magistrates. Not yet anyway!

D. James Nahikian
CHICAGO

[PalletMan 0]

There's a Stella Awards Web Site. I think it has real cases.

--Art

Sky-div'ing (ski'div'ing) n. A modern sport that involves parties, bragging, sexual excesses, the imbibing of large quantities of beer, and, on rare occasions, parachuting from aircraft.

[justinb138 0]

Quote

Those cases are all fake. They're urban legends. I looked them up in two legal databases and came up with nothing, and breakthechain.com says http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/lawsuits.html
Snopes agrees. http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

There's so many crazy lawsuits out there. I wonder why people feel the need to make some up.

I've never seen that site before and I just spent the last few hours on there...ya'll gotta stop posting sites like that or I'm never going to get anything done!

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Those cases are all fake. They're urban legends.

There's so many crazy lawsuits out there. I wonder why people feel the need to make some up.

I was hoping so. I read those and thought, "How, at law, could any of these cases succeed, when the exculpatory evidence exonerating the defendants is right there in the facts?"

If you were shooting a chained dog with a pellet gun in its own yard, not only would the owners not be liable for bites you sustained because you were stupid enough to get in reach of the chain, you'd be charged with animal cruelty.

The suing over tripping over your own kid... how could anyone be held accountable for not restraining YOUR kid when YOU should have been doing so?

And the "cases" about trauma resulting from committing crimes?! I thought that the commission of a crime (such as being found in a person's house after burglarizing it!) would exonerate the homeowners and their homeowner's insurance company. Shit, if I am in my house and I shoot a home invader, I KNOW I do not stand exposed to him suing me for damages resulting from the gunshots, because if the law recognizes my legal right to have fired, it recognizes that I am protected from being sued for doing so. Right?

I'm pretty sure that defending against a criminal attack allows you to harm someone without their being able to sue you for doing so, as long as your reaction was justified and reasonable.

-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[wingnut 0]

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I'm pretty sure that defending against a criminal attack allows you to harm someone without their being able to sue you for doing so, as long as your reaction was justified and reasonable.

iirc when one lets say has a conceled cary permit and are in a position to legally draw a firarm at someone and shoot them, if they don't kill them they then can be charged with attempted murder eventhoughif they wouldof killed themit would be all legal and fine.....

______________________________________
"i have no reader's digest version"

[Douva 0]

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I'm pretty sure that defending against a criminal attack allows you to harm someone without their being able to sue you for doing so, as long as your reaction was justified and reasonable.

iirc when one lets say has a conceled cary permit and are in a position to legally draw a firarm at someone and shoot them, if they don't kill them they then can be charged with attempted murder eventhoughif they wouldof killed themit would be all legal and fine.....

I don't know about "attempted murder," but if you intentionally "wing" somebody (i.e., shoot them in the arm or leg instead of trying to kill them), the prosecutor can argue that because you had time to aim for an extremity you obviously weren't in enough danger to necessitate firing your weapon in the first place.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.