The Stella Awards

[jomar]

The Winnebago cruise control story is an updated urban legend:

Snopes account

Og

Snopes is your very good friend!

It's the best cure for foot-in-mouth disease going.

Well, I hate to be the one to burst the balloon, but...they're all urban myths.

http://www.zipadeeday.com/viewarticle.asp?article=151

My thanks to The Earl (and Deacon Moon) for saving me the yearly bother of playing "truth patrol" to those urban myths big business just loves to spread.

That juries make dumb decisions and questionable awards is beyond question. That the business community would love to limit or, even better, end the public's only effective means of redress, is also beyond question.

Rumple Foreskin

Hard to slip anything by you guys!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hard to slip anything by you guys!

Aaaah, you bird dog you...

 

[Belegon]

There is, however, a gentleman who for years has been writing a Newsletter he calls the "True Stella Awards." He has compiled some of the best ones he found into a book. Link to his page.

Here is an example of a true case:

JUMP SUITS ARE ALL THE FASHION

Jeb Corliss, 31, was grabbed just as he tried to jump off New York's
Empire State Building in 2006. He wasn't suicidal: he had a parachute. In
addition to being charged with reckless endangerment with "depraved
indifference to life" (which made it a felony), the Empire State Building
Company sued him for $12 million for endangering bystanders and, I would
assume, for exposing them to liability (the Company said it wanted to
discourage others from trying a similar stunt). They also accused Corliss
of having financial motivations. That's not Stella Awards-worthy, though;
this is: in January Corliss counter-sued the Empire State Building
Company in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, charging that restraining
him from jumping was "unlawful imprisonment," which caused him "emotional
distress" as well as "adrenal fatigue" ("very similar to battle fatigue
syndrome," he said), which led to loss of income. For all of that, he
demands $30 million. Meanwhile, his felony charge was thrown out by a
judge, but an appeals court reinstated the reckless endangerment charge
as a misdemeanor, ruling the "depraved indifference to life" bit was
overdone, but certainly jumping off a building could endanger others. "No
one was in any danger of being injured except me," Corliss complains.

STATUS: Apparently still pending.