As noted below, we have recently been informed that the Stella Awards FW is a fake, a fraud, a mockery of the email forwarding system… ok not actually a mockery as ALMOST ALL FWs are lies concocked by devious emailers. So that goes with the territory but it does point out a definate complacency on my part to protect you — our readers. Anyway, to make up for my hasty endorsement of urban legends I have been given some additional court cases (real this time for sure! ;D ) that will lift your spirits about our judical system, but not by much. Sure in the END these people didn’t get their money, but they came darn close. And these have come from a source other than an email forward so one can’t simply laugh and then find comfort it the fact that they most likely were made up (since they were contained in an email forward — can anyone say “send this to 10 people and MS will give you $$$”) and continue to have some misplaced faith in the system.
A San Carlos, California, man sued the Escondido Public Library for $1.5 million. His dog, a 50-pound Labrador mix, was attacked November 2000 by the library’s 12-pound feline mascot, L.C., (also known as Library Cat). The case was heard in January 2004, with the jury finding for the defendant.
In 1994, a student at the University of Idaho unsuccessfully sued that institution over his fall from a third-floor dorm window. He’d been mooning other students when the window gave way. It was contended the University failed to provide a safe environment for students or to properly warn them of the dangers inherent to upper-story windows.
In 1993, McDonald’s was unsuccessfully sued over a car accident in New Jersey. While driving, a man who had placed a milkshake between his legs, leaned over to reach into his bag of food and squeezed the milkshake container in the process. When the lid popped off and spilled half the drink in his lap, this driver became distracted and ran into another man’s car. That man in turn tried to sue McDonald’s for causing the accident, saying the restaurant should have cautioned the man who had hit him against eating while driving.
Although the cases cited above were all eventually dismissed, they still managed to work their way to the highest levels of our court system.