Evolution in action. The American judicial system.

Monophonic · Post by **Monophonic** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:04 am

found this browsing the alt. groups. amusing and sad.

Here's the outcome of our judicial system after centuries of evolution.

This goes to show you even evolution has its flaws.

ANNUAL STELLA AWARDS~~~~

The Stella's are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's

THIS YEAR'S AWARDS GO TO:

5th Place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000 by 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, Pennsylvania 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 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor home. 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 Motor home. 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.

Zeo · Post by **Zeo** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:49 pm

hey bro, where you been?

elasticwings · Post by **elasticwings** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:09 pm

I swear. Do they only pick complete fucking morons for jury duty? I don't care how well a lawyer is at argueing these cases. What the hell? Are these people sleeping during the trial or something? I seriously think they need to quiz the jury individually as to what is going on with the trial before they are allowed to vote on a decision. Anybody that fails the test should be replaced with a new person and blacklisted from ever doing jury duty again.

The Stormstress · Post by **The Stormstress** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:23 am

Tru testamentz ov a failed system!

iblis · Post by **iblis** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:40 am

elasticwings wrote:I swear. Do they only pick complete fucking morons for jury duty? I don't care how well a lawyer is at argueing these cases. What the hell? Are these people sleeping during the trial or something? I seriously think they need to quiz the jury individually as to what is going on with the trial before they are allowed to vote on a decision. Anybody that fails the test should be replaced with a new person and blacklisted from ever doing jury duty again.

I think we should sue the government for implying that such morons are our peers.

The jurys involved in those cases are obviously the sort of people who are incapable of completing a conscious thought without drooling to such an extent that they slip and fall while buying a six-pack at their favorite shopping location - usually Walmart™ - and thus dream of getting back at The Man™, who has to be at fault, since they certainly could not be.

Melicious Scam · Post by **Melicious Scam** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:58 pm

we're goin to hell in a handbasket!!

ms.tangledwebs · Post by **ms.tangledwebs** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:11 pm

iblis wrote:
elasticwings wrote:I swear. Do they only pick complete fucking morons for jury duty? I don't care how well a lawyer is at argueing these cases. What the hell? Are these people sleeping during the trial or something? I seriously think they need to quiz the jury individually as to what is going on with the trial before they are allowed to vote on a decision. Anybody that fails the test should be replaced with a new person and blacklisted from ever doing jury duty again.

I think we should sue the government for implying that such morons are our peers.

actually they are implying that the idiots on the jury are peers to the idiots that are suing... in which case, they are apparently right.

JaNell · Post by **JaNell** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:57 am

ms.tangledwebs wrote:
iblis wrote:I think we should sue the government for implying that such morons are our peers.

actually they are implying that the idiots on the jury are peers to the idiots that are suing... in which case, they are apparently right.

You both just made my day.

Vampilot · Post by **Vampilot** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 6:31 pm

Interesting note...
With very little research, I found that *all* of the above cases are false. There are really 'Stella awards'.. Though not as extreme..
Also, there are several sites dedicated to dumb lawsuits, none of which are really all that bad. Mostly, the people involved get called on their own stupidity.. Don't think that just because the average grade-level in the US is hovering around 5th grade means that all our 'peers' are *complete* morons... Most people really do have some semblance of common sense.
These are from 'TrueStella.com" or something.. Do a google on it..

#6: The Tribune Co. of Chicago, Ill. The newspaper chain owns several newspapers, as well as the Chicago Cubs baseball team. One of its newspaper carriers was Mark Guthrie, 43, of Connecticut. One of its ball players was Mark Guthrie, 38, of Illinois. The company's payroll department mixed the two up, putting the ballplayer's paycheck into the paper carrier's bank account. The carrier allowed them to take back 90 percent of the improperly paid salary, and said they could have the rest after they gave him a full accounting to ensure he not only got his own pay, but wouldn't have any tax problems for being paid $300,000(!) extra. The Tribune Co., rather than provide that reasonable assurance, instead sued him for the rest of the money.

#5: "High Tech" retailer Sharper Image sells a lot of its "Ionic Breeze" air filters. As part of a comparative review of many air filters, Consumer Reports magazine found the "Ionic" unit was the worst performer. SI complained, saying it didn't do a "fair" test. CU asked what sort of test should be done, but SI never replied -- until it sued CU. A federal judge ruled the suit not only had no merit, but was actually an illegal attempt to squelch public discussion. SI was ordered to pay CU $400,000 to cover its legal defense costs.

#4: Edith Morgan, mother of Kansas City Chiefs football star Derrick Thomas, who died after being thrown from his SUV in a crash while speeding in a snowstorm. Morgan said Thomas's neck was broken because the SUV's roof collapsed a few inches -- not from rolling down the highway because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt -- and sued General Motors. Her lawyer begged jurors to award more than $100 million in damages, perhaps more -- he "did not want to put an upper limit on it." GM pointed out that Thomas's oversize SUV was exempt from federal roof crush standards, yet it met them anyway. The jury sent a message: of that $100 million, it awarded Morgan ...nothing.

#3: Tanisha Torres of Wyndanch, N.Y. The woman sued Radio Shack for misspelling her town as "Crimedanch" on her cell phone bill. She didn't even ask them to change it; she just sued. "I'm not a criminal," she whined. "My son plays on the high school football team." Yeah, that makes sense. The name "Crimedanch" is a common joke; police in the area confirm it's a high-crime area. Still, Torres claimed she suffered "outrage" and "embarrassment" at having to see that spelling on her private phone bill. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

#2: Homecomings Financial, a subsidiary of GMAC Financial Services, which is a division of General Motors. The finance company accepted a change of address notice from identity thieves for the account belonging to Robert and Suzanne Korinke. The thieves ran up a $142,000 debt, and the Korinkes notified Homecomings of the fraud the moment they discovered it. Homecomings sued them two years later, saying the couple's "negligence" is what "caused the injury to Homecomings," not the fact that the company accepted a change of address from fraudsters -- and then gave them all the money they could drain. The victims got the company to drop the suit, which demanded $74,000 plus attorney's fees, after shelling out $5,000 in legal fees -- an outcome the couple's lawyer called "really lucky".

And the winner of the 2004 True Stella Award: Mary Ubaudi of Madison County, Ill. Ubaudi was a passenger in a car that got into a wreck. She put most of the blame on the deepest pocket available: Mazda Motors, who made the car she was riding in. Ubaudi demands "in excess of $150,000" from the automaker, claiming it "failed to provide instructions regarding the safe and proper use of a seatbelt." One hopes Mazda's attorneys make her swear in court that she has never before worn a seatbelt, has never flown on an airliner, and that she's too stupid to figure out how to fasten a seatbelt.

have fun, regardless....
-V

Onibubba · Post by **Onibubba** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:41 am

Thanks Vampilot. You beat me to the punch. I thought some of those sounded strangely familiar. The Winnabego one clinched it though - classic urban legend.

The actual cases you post make me appaled at the gall of some people. Isn't there a law against wasting a court's time with frivolous cases? There should be...

Vampilot · Post by **Vampilot** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:59 pm

Yes.. In fact, some states will actually jail you, and charge you for incurred costs now if the judge feels it's a waste of time. Not to mention lawyers getting dis-barred for this shit...
Our system is flawed, yes.. (look at the s. peterson trial) but it's not *that* bad...
We could all live in Communist Russia where we'd have had *NO* rights...

Suck it up.
Even with our current admin, we still live in one of the best countries in the world. We just need to make sure it *stays* that way. Stop the criminals now, before it's too late.

Oops! political diatribe.... Sorry :oops:

-V

razor · Post by **razor** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:35 pm

not to mention, that whole mcdonalds thing makes alot more sense if you actually read the facts. It wasn't an issue with the fact that she spilled the coffee, it was more of the case that McDonalds tends to make their coffee WAY hotter than it has a right to be, which caused the woman some serious burns, I believe she had to have some skin grafts.

http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm

iblis · Post by **iblis** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:37 pm

Unless the coffee was at boiling temperature - which as far as I know, it could very well have been; I'm too busy researching other things to look into it - it was not too hot.

Coffee is meant to be a happy molten brick that slides down one's throat and takes residence in one's belly. It's practically useless unless it has a very high temperature. If you spill it on sensitive areas of your body, it's supposed to hurt.

Real™ coffee drinkers carry their scars with pride.

Mother Mo · Post by **Mother Mo** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 4:01 pm

Realâ„¢ coffee drinkers carry their scars with pride.

Yeah! Especially their crotch scars!

:twisted:

junkie christ · Post by **junkie christ** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 4:54 pm

razor wrote:not to mention, that whole mcdonalds thing makes alot more sense if you actually read the facts. It wasn't an issue with the fact that she spilled the coffee, it was more of the case that McDonalds tends to make their coffee WAY hotter than it has a right to be, which caused the woman some serious burns, I believe she had to have some skin grafts.

http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm

ive researched that case

<sarcasm>that coffee was only about 30 to 50 degrees hotter than it should be </sarcasm>
seriously man it was well over boiling. they said at that temp it woulda burned thru the cup even if it didnt spill all over her.
and yes she did have to have skin grafts acording to all the shit i read.

ive google around on this, mono's examples (love bro but...) are largely false, mostly based on some fact and exploded upon..
vampy's post, yea true blue baby. hes nailed it.

and the really interesting fact is the courts are dumb enough to let this shit thru, but we all laugh and its fun right?
now when shit like Court TV and shit makes a mockery outta the judicial system.. whos the bigger evil?
be afraid.