Inner Banks Laughter - The Stella Awards

I have agonized over this for a while, and finally chosen which of my blogs to post this information on. This first posting is actually a part of a long term plan to get more humor on my blogs. In most ways the Stella Awards belong on the Rule of Law blog since it deals with my views on the courts and the Stella Awards are completely about the nations courts. However I also realize that there is political side to these awards and so they could appropriately go on the Inner Banks Eagle as well. That is my editorial site where we cover the current ideological discussions about our nation and the world. However neither of those sites is meant to be a joke, notwithstanding that many of the articles about our courts and our nations politics could be viewed as such!

However having decided to regularly post humor I have chosen this site, the Roanoke-Chowan Patriot as my blog for humor. The Roanoke-Chowan Patriot is the place where I have posted most of my "views" on religion, especially the insightful comments of Pastor Wallace Phillips. Recently I received an email that talked about the two most beneficial things people can read. Views on faith was one. Humor was the second. Both of these allow people to relax and feel better about themselves and their lives by laughing at our human condition. That makes sense to me to me. Since the Roanoke-Chowan Patriot is where I have been dealing with faith, I decided that this was the place for humor as well.

So here we go, starting with this years Stella Awards!

Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States:

I will be posting all of this year's winners, and we are starting with 5th place winners this week

5th Place (tie):
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 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 neighbor 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 neighbor'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.

If you think these are ridiculous, wait for the first place winner!