outlandish lawsuits

[its Jeanne-Marie]

got this email from a law school friend...7 reasons for tort reform

It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who 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 Robertson of 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 hub caps.



5TH PLACE:

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, 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, EIGHT, 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:

Third place goes to 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. Go figure.


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

[enRo]

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 hub caps.

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


Wow, and wow.

[12secondv6]

Too many crack head lawyers......

Grind em up in a meat grinder and fill all the pot holes with them.

[Frosty]

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

That email is about as real as the one going around stating the State Patrol is writing X amount of tickets per minute along major roads on a certain day to increase revenue

[ryanfx]

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/onlyinamerica.htm

well considering the number 1 lawsuit is completely false, I don't know how much truth there is to any of it.

[79CamaroDiva]

the problem is that even though they may come up false on snopes or another site, this country is effed up enoguh that we believe them, and can see it happening.

[trashman01]

here, i got one for you guys. bout a kid who was SLEEPING durring CLASS.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_8557051?source=most_viewed

nucking idiot

[SteveR]

The world is full of idiots. Might as well jump on the bandwagon and cash in. Why should all the morons get all the money? Darwin was soooo sooo effin wrong.

[SteveR]

I think the best lawsuit ever was the guy that sued the dry cleaner for like 10 million dollars, for messing up his one pair of pants. The dude that sued him? Yea, he was the local JUDGE.

[79CamaroDiva]

here, i got one for you guys. bout a kid who was SLEEPING durring CLASS.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_8557051?source=most_viewed

nucking idiot

wow.. i cant wait til people start suing dragstrips for causing hearing loss..

[enRo]

here, i got one for you guys. bout a kid who was SLEEPING durring CLASS.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_8557051?source=most_viewed

nucking idiot

"Many of us have fallen asleep in class and had the teacher wake us up. But what happened here was more in the nature of an assault and battery," he said. "My client is an extraordinarily bright young man. He's a computer wizard who works late into the night, and that's probably why he fell asleep."

Since he was in Math class, lets do some math, shall we?

15 Year Old Boy + Sleeping In Class = Up Late at Night
so...
Up Late At Night + Extraordinary Bright Young Man = Computer Wiz
therefore.....
Computer Wiz + Up Late at Night = World of Warcraft
because...
We assume he does live in connecticut, and at 15 years old, he falls underneath the underage labor law, which he needs to be 16 to be working.

It's a simple equation, really. :lol:

[chrisfrom nj]

thats crazy the companys should counter sue the people for being stupid as hell

[jims69camaro]

since most people don't know the facts of the Liebeck case, here it is, in black and white: http://www.caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=facts

Know the Facts: The McDonalds Coffee Case
There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was scalding - capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here is the whole story.

Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a Styrofoam cup at the drive-through window of a local McDonalds.

After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.

The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments*, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultant's advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.

Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebecks spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.

McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the company's own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.

McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third-degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds coffee sales.

Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 -- or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful.

No one will ever know the final ending to this case.

The parties eventually entered into a secret settlement which has never been revealed to the public, despite the fact that this was a public case, litigated in public and subjected to extensive media reporting. Such secret settlements, after public trials, should not be condoned. Many courts in California have adopted policies against enforcement of secret settlements, which is a positive development for consumers and the public.

For more information, Google:
The Stella Awards and Other Urban Myths Civil Justice Research and Education Project



*Debridement:The surgical removal of dead skin.

[firehawk1120]

Regardless of what McD's says about the temperature of coffee the dumb bitch put it between her legs and it spilled while she was DRIVING. those 2 actions qualify her as being a moron and McD's shouldn't have had to pay her the 5 cents for the cup it was poured into.

This is a plain fact that ignorance is abundant and in the courts more then anywhere.

[firehawk1120]

P.S. J.M.

I wouldn't cheat off the guy that e-mailed that to you he obviously doesn't do much research. LOL. isn't that like 90% of what law is about, finding a case that happened in some far off location in another state so you can apply it to the current case in your state and get the client off...

hahahah

[Tru2Chevy]

Regardless of what McD's says about the temperature of coffee the dumb bitch put it between her legs and it spilled while she was DRIVING. those 2 actions qualify her as being a moron and McD's shouldn't have had to pay her the 5 cents for the cup it was poured into.

This is a plain fact that ignorance is abundant and in the courts more then anywhere.

Had you bothered to read that post before commenting, you would see that the spill occurred while she was sitting in the passenger seat of a car that was not moving at the time.

- Justin

[zuuhlsT/A]

well if you think about it... lets see, your trying to grip a styrofoam or even a paper cup between your legs when you pop the top it's like OMG!!.... the cup collapsed because I was SQUEEZING IT BETWEEN MY LEGS!!! Think about it.. Would you actually be that stupid, I mean Holy Crap what was she thinking???? OHHH thats right, She wasn't thinking about that which makes her incredibly stupid but also incredibly rich. Ya know, If was stupid, which I have been, And probably will be in the future I would not blame my own ignorance on someone else and cash in on it. Thats just messed up. It shows what some of this human race has turned into a bunch of money grubbing whores!!!

[firehawk1120]

thank you for making my post much shorter... :D

[jims69camaro]

well, that wasn't an email, that was me doing a little bit of research on the case. i found others that support , too. so, while you go around thinking you know it all, i take the time to make sure my facts are straight. i still think it's a frivolous lawsuit. the woman should have accepted her responsibility for her actions, but the temperature of the coffee was too high to trust to the general public. 180-190 degrees fahrenheit causes scalding, which could lead to 3rd degree burns. the fact that she had to have the burned skin removed turns my stomach, but it shows you how badly she was burned - by a cup of coffee. that's ridiculous.

typically lawsuis of this variety are supposed to show the rest of the industry what is acceptable and what isn't. as soon as people found out the truth about what it was that happened, everyone turned their thermostats down (ie, wendy's, burger king, et al).

[firehawk1120]

Then in going with that theory car makers should reduce the horsepower because some idiot decides to do 150 mph and kills himself. the family should sue the car manufacturer for giving him the ability to go that fast.

Maybe the gun companies should be sued when a crazy moron uses the gun to kill a bunch of innocent people and then himself.

Wait I know I should sue the engineer of the bridge I used to jump off to paralyze myself and now and handicapped because he put the bridge over a river and it didn't kill me.

People need to be responsible for their actions PERIOD. No exceptions, well it was TOO hot, if it wasn't so hot and spilled on her crotch she wouldn't have sued. BS. They should have laughed at her and told her to take a hike. Crap like this pisses me off.

[jims69camaro]

Then in going with that theory car makers should reduce the horsepower because some idiot decides to do 150 mph and kills himself. the family should sue the car manufacturer for giving him the ability to go that fast.

they have, unsuccessfully. it's not the same thing as a hot cup of coffee, you know, but i'll let that slide and discuss it on its merits only. there are a number of factors to consider when someone decides to do 150 mph and kills himself. was he of sound mind? did he mean to kill himself? was the car modified? there are warning signs all over the place, but people chose to ignore them, sometimes to their peril. there are speed limit signs. there are cops out there, supposedly enforcing those limits. traffic has a great impact on speed, as in everyone else is obeying the posted limit, then there is no way this guy could hit 150. if he creates a situation where he can go 150, like he waits until the dead of night when there are no other cars, has friends help him block off the road, etc, then he is going all out in order to do that 150 mph, and therefore there is no way in hell anyone but he should be held liable for his speed and subsequent death.

Maybe the gun companies should be sued when a crazy moron uses the gun to kill a bunch of innocent people and then himself.

everytime this happens, the gun manufacturer(s) is pulled into court, too. they've not been successful so far, because there are so many people who abide by the law and don't go into a crowd blazing and end up pulling the trigger on themselves. so, when you compare his actions to those of the rest of the populace, there is no grounds to hold the gun manufacturer liable. guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Wait I know I should sue the engineer of the bridge I used to jump off to paralyze myself and now and handicapped because he put the bridge over a river and it didn't kill me.

again, the argument comes into play of how many people use that bridge for its intended purpose and not to kill themselves. no way to hold the engineer or the company that constructed the bridge, nor the town where the bridge is, nor the people who operate the bridge liable for one person's aberrant behavior.

People need to be responsible for their actions PERIOD. No exceptions, well it was TOO hot, if it wasn't so hot and spilled on her crotch she wouldn't have sued. BS. They should have laughed at her and told her to take a hike. Crap like this pisses me off.

if, in the normal course of action, something unintentional happens, like spilled coffee, should the person that the coffee spilled on be subject to 3rd degree burns? just because a company has their thermostats set too high? everything that happened after the coffee spilled happened because the coffee was too damn hot. 190 degrees fahrenheit cannot be consumed - you'd burn your mouth, tongue, esophagus, stomach lining with coffee that hot. so, why was the coffee so hot? the quality control guy said to keep it at that temperature. his reasoning? well, because of the lawsuit, his reasoning never came out. i know at 180 degrees, bacteria have a hard time living, so maybe it was to make sure that the drink was bacteria-free. i can buy that, but at some point before you give it to the customer, it has to cool down for the customer to drink it. how many times have you burned the tip of your tongue and the roof of your mouth because the coffee was too hot?

i agree, people should be held responsible for their actions. but companies should also be held liable for their actions, and in this case the coffee was too hot.