The 'Stella' Awards

No, not as in 'Artois' but Stella Liebeck. Never heard of her? Read on ...



The '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, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.

Here are the 2009 winners:

5th Place (tie): 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 little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour's hubcaps.

5th Place (tie): 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 couldn't 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 eight 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 neighbour's beagle. 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 just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and 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, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

1st Place: This year's run away winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs Grazinski purchased a brand 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 drivers seat to go into the back and make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

Spirt and Things Spooky cont ...

Some years ago a friend suggested that I visit a medium who was a good friend of hers.  Initially I was sceptical but after due thought I agreed.   This medium, a lady in her late thirties whom I had never met previously, seemed just like anyone else when we met at her home one evening, we chatted inconsequentially for a while then she suggested that we go to her reading room.   To cut a long story shortand she told me that she saw people standing behind me and proceeded very accurately to describe my father, mother, grandfather, what they were wearing which was just so accurate amongst many other things.

She also described my mother's favourite purse of which I have never seen another like it and that she kept an eternity ring with one stone missing in it.  Very true because I was fascinated with this purse and particularly the ring within.  As to the future she foretold that within five years or so I would be living abroad!  The reason that I escaped serious injury during my racing years she said is because that initially I had two guardian angels, my mother and a drunk Egyptian man who was in fact English and called Fred.  This latter piece of information someone else had told me thirty years previously. My third angel is my father after he died in the early 1980s.  The taps on my shoulder some years before she said was my mother trying to reassure me that all would be well, eventually as. I was then going through a very difficult period in my personal life and that she was watching over me. 

There was much else that she revealed and she could not have known any of my early life because together they were things that only close family and I could possibly know.  I came away more than amazed at what I had been told and particularly how accurate things past were.

For several years before my visit I had begun waking two r three times a week at 4.44am. I thought it was probably a local milkman doing his round, but I never heard any delivery type sounds.  Then occasionally the same thing was happening at 3.33am again with no obvious reason.   Finally another wake up call was also now at 3.03am, seldom all three or even twice on the same morning.  Naturally I was intrigued so had a wade around the web to see if it might shed any light. several hits reckoned that this phenomena was not as uncommon as one might think and all reckoned that it is an attempt at communication from the spirit world.  My seer, Linda, confirmed that idea and that the 4.44 awakening was my father, 3.33 my mother and the 3.03 was my grandfather, the connection there being that he was a soldier in the Great War and the standard weapon issue was the Lee Enfield .303 rifle.  I still sometimes awake at these times invariably with a comfortable feeling of inner warmth no matter how chilly our bedroom becomes in winter.

In recent years I have often felt that I am not alone, no, I'm not becoming paranoid, that someone is nearby, nothing tangible at all but nonetheless an awareness. Before we moved I felt this frequently in my office at home which was detached from our bungalow, most often with a late, close and great mate who lost his life in a motorcycle racing accident. Others also were sometimes around me, nothing perturbing or frightening, just a pleasant, almost comforting feeling.

I feel most strongly a sense of having company at a particular motorcycle racing circuit where I have spent many happy hours and days in the company of good friends who are no longer with us.  It matters not whether the circuit is totally quiet and empty as on weekdays or at a weekend with all the noise and excitement of a meeting, they are always there with me.  People close to me know that I wish my ashes to go there when it is my time, often I refer to this place as my spiritual home.

Having moved abroad a few years ago now my 'friends' have followed me.  I still know that sometimes someone is there, sometimes in odd ways such as in our downstairs bedroom and up on our middle floor there is occasionally the odour of Golden Virginia tobacco smoke, a very distinct smell that my father always smoked.  There are other occasional smells too that are personal to me in the house.

Well, what else can I add? Am I slowly losing 'it'? If so then that has been gradually happening for many years.  Have I become more sensitive and attuned to things ethereal or are those from elsewhere trying ever harder to communicate?  I don't really know but I do know that there is more to being than just the present.