It is time again for the annual 'Stella Awards' .........named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck. Stella successfully sued McDonald's
for getting burned when she took the lid off of the coffee she had just purchased and put it between her knees while she was driving.

Here are the Stella's for this past year  --

* SIXTH 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 hubcaps.

* FIFTH 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 days and survive on a case of Pepsi and 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.

* FOURTH 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 because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

* THIRD PLACE *
 
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania makes the list 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 spilled soft drink was on the floor......Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

*SECOND 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.

* FIRST PLACE * and this year's run away winner

Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, had just purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. She had attended an OU football game an was on her first trip home in her new motor home. Having reached the freeway, Mrs. Grazinski 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. The motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned.

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. An Oklahoma jury awarded her, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit.