It's so amazing how dumb people can be, to paraphrase Randy Newman (bonus points to anyone who can name the song I'm paraphrasing).
Someone, somewhere -- probably someone who supports the conservative position on tort reform, but whatever -- has complied something called the Stella Awards, named for Stella Liebeck who "spilled hot coffee on herself and
successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. 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?"
Click on the above link to read this year's seven winners. I'll just give you numero uno:
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 on to 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 herself 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 incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
Who was on that jury? And who was her lawyer?
UPDATE: Well, you know, stupid me. According to Snopes, this case is a hoax and wins these "awards" every year. It was really dumb of me not to check. I spent half the campaign being included in group emails from some of my conservative friends that said, you know, Obama wanted to impose sharia law on America and so on, citing this or that "authoritative" source, and then I'd go to snopes or some other site and send them the link showing them exactly why it was b.s. I did wonder how many Grazinskis there could be in Oklahoma City, but then again, it's a big city, and after all I'm a Tomasky from Morgantown, West Virginia.
On the larger torts question, obviously I'm against GOP "reform" but there are some silly verdicts out there. Anyway, my bad, people. Thanks to the commenters who corrected me. Resolution for 2009: bookmark snopes.
