The True Stella Awards: Exposing Lawsuit Abuse with TRUE Cases

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May it Please the Court:

The True Stella Awards^® were inspired by Stella Liebeck. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her own lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, but that's not the whole story. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits -- including some infamous bogus cases!

We are currently not soliciting new cases and not issuing new annual awards issues. At this time, we are publishing our past case write-ups in blog style on this site -- with updates when we can get them -- and allowing you to comment on them. You can sign up below for our free e-mail newsletter which will let you know what case is being discussed currently so you can either join in the discussion, or be a court observer. E-mails are issued no more than weekly. For previous annual "awards" see: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002. And everyone should already be familiar with the Bogus Stella Awards urban legend!

Yes, we mean to be entertaining. But there's also a deeper consideration that we are addressing: are the people involved in the cases we present to you (a juror in the Court of Public Opinion) using the courts to redress justifiable grievances that can't otherwise be settled? ...Or are they trying to extort money from anyone they can? Are the lawyers involved champions of justice? ...Or are they helping to abuse the system in the name of getting a piece of the action? You be the judge!

And, unlike most "tort reform" sites, we are not a front for any special interest group. We are completely independent and funded solely by advertising (and we do not choose the advertisers: they're provided by Google) and book sales.

Stella Awards is a project of This is True^® -- a weekly news commentary column featuring bizarre-but-true stories from legitimate news outlets from all over the world, all with snippy commentary by Colorado humorist Randy Cassingham. If you like the Stella Awards, you'll love the weird-but-true stories sent out once each week in This is True.

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