Every week “Stella Awards” for the most “wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits” are given out in a popular news commentary column by Colorado journalist Randy Cassingham. The “Award” is named after Stella Liebeck, a McDonalds restaurant patron who was awarded $2.9 million for damages after spilling a cup of Mickey D’s coffee on her lap. If there’s anything certain in this world, there will always be an unbridled abundance of frivolous lawsuits eligible for Stella Awards. Here are my Bottom Ten:
10) In 1997, burglar Larry Harris broke into an Aurora, Illinois bar, stepped right into a homemade booby trap, and was electrocuted to death. The bar, George O’s Place, had been burglarized three prior times before owner Jessie Ingram decided to jerry-rig a booby trap. Harris’s family sued Ingram and the property owner despite the fact that Ingram had posted warnings both outside the bar and right inside the window that Harris had broken through.
The jury awarded Harris’s family $75,000 in damages, holding the bar owner 50% responsible for Harris’s death.
9) In 1992, after a night of hard drinking, 23 year old Karen Norman put her car in reverse and backed into Galveston Bay. She was too drunk to figure out how to unbuckle her seatbelt, and she drowned. Her family sued Honda for making a seatbelt that was too difficult to unbuckle.
The jury awarded the Normans $65 million despite the fact that Karen Norman’s blood alcohol level was .17, almost twice the legal limit.
An appellate court later threw out the case.
8) In 1995, Virginia prison inmate Robert Lee Brock sued himself for $5 million for allowing himself to get drunk enough to commit a series of crimes that landed him in prison. Since he didn’t have an income in prison, he blamed the state of Virginia for his own liability. Of course, the case was thrown out, but it did make it to court.
7) The English legal action, “McDonalds restaurants versus Morris and Steel”, lasted for two and a half years, making it the longest lasting court case in England’s legal history. It all started with the launch of Helen Steel and David Morris’s website, McSpotlight, that strongly criticized the restaurant chain for “exploiting animals, people, and the environment.
After spending 10 million English pounds in legal expenses, McDonalds was awarded 40 million pounds. To some critics, the amount of negative publicity for the chain was much greater than their legal expenses.
6) Ambulance driver Larry Wesley was fired from his job after stopping for doughnuts while transporting an emergency patient to Ben Taub Hospital, a city hospital in Houston. He later sued the city of Houston, claiming that he suffered emotional distress because of the firing.
5) In 2007, Boca Raton, Florida attorney Richard Mateer sued the owners of the Miami Heat basketball team. A long-term season ticket holder, Mateer had paid $11,000 for six front row seats. When the team owners added a new front row in front of Mateer’s front row seats, the lawyer sued, claiming that his seats had now become “second-rate.”
4) A West Virginia convenience store clerk was awarded more than $2.5 million in damages for injuring her back while opening a pickle jar.
3) San Francisco attorney Stephen Joseph sued Kraft Foods to stop selling Oreos to children because of the high trans fat content. When the case drew nationwide media attention, Joseph dropped the lawsuit.
California State Senator Debra Bowen, who supported Joseph’s lawsuit as well as sponsoring additional nutrition legislation, said, “To see someone file a suit, then drop it after they’ve gotten enough media attention for it is pretty disappointing. A stunt like this does more harm than good because people will walk away from it thinking the suit was a joke, then any claims about trans fat being dangerously unhealthy for them must be a joke, too.”
2) A Houston landlord found out that squatters were living in one of his properties. He kicked them out and they filed suit against him, claiming that the landlord owed them for upgrades and improvements that they’d made to the property. Despite the fact that the “upgrades and improvements” translated as damages to the property, the landlord still had to appear in court.
1) In 2007, Washington D.C. judge Roy Pearson sued his neighborhood mom-and-pop drycleaner for $65 million for losing a pair of his pants. Even stranger, the case has gone to court.
A defense fund website has been established for the Korean immigrant mom-and-pop owners of the store, who have already spent thousands of dollars in legal fees.
For even more Stella “winners”, see this Associated Content article.
SOURCES:
http://www.stellaawards.com/caselog.html
“S.F. lawyer plans to drop Oreo suit”, Kim Severson, San Francisco Chronicle, URL: (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/15/MN234561.DTL)
“Family of electrocuted thief get $75,000 from jury”, Dan Rozek, Chicago Sun-Times, URL: (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20030225/ai_n12494544)
http://www.legalzoom.com/articles/article_content/article11331.html
http://www.thetroyagency.com/frivolous_lawsuits.htm
“Lawsuits or law pants”, Sis Bowman, Coshocton Tribune, URL: (http://www.coshoctontribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/OPINION02/705060311/1014/OPINION)
“$67 million pants”, Jim Avila & Chris Francescani & Mary Harris, ABC News, URL: (http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LegalCenter/story?id=3119381&page;=1)
“How jackpot justice became law’s best bet”, Frank J. Murray, Insight on the News, URL: (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_32_16/ai_64698433/pg_1)
