Time to heap glory on whoever's trying hardest to cash in on stupidity

BILL BROWNSTEIN, In the midst of Oscar and Grammy and Teen Choice and Ig Nobel madness, I fear another awards presentation has slipped through the cracks. And that would be the Stella Awards. To be more specific, that would be the True Stella Awards.

While the name may conjure up images and, more likely, sounds of Marlon Brando's immortal, ear-piercing "Stellaaaaaaa" in A Streetcar Named Desire, these awards do not honour those gas-laden thesps most proficient in the time-honoured art of primal screaming. In fact, the True Stella Awards have nothing at all to do with acting. That is, unless one were bold enough to suggest that the businesses of law and acting are not mutually exclusive.

The awards were inspired by one Stella Liebeck. It seems that back in 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap. She got burned.

She sued. A jury in New Mexico awarded her $2.9 million U.

S. Would-be Stellas have probably been dousing themselves with hot coffee at fast-food joints ever since. And the True Stella Awards were created in tribute to ludicrous lawsuits everywhere, but mostly in the United States, where citizens and lawyers tend to be more litigious than almost anywhere else.

Font: But law buffs should not be fooled by imitators. The True Stella Awards are based on, well, true frivolous lawsuits, gathered and documented by Colorado humorist and journalist Randy Cassingham. They are an offshoot of This is True, a weekly news column featuring wacky-yet-true stories from newspapers around this planet - and perhaps others.

But don't be deceived by another group out there that issues mere Stella Awards, which are also based on frivolous lawsuits and are funny but which are, alas, bogus. A true miscarriage of justice, if you will, which, come to think of it, could be grounds for a major lawsuit.
While the True Stella Awards are meant to be entertaining, they serve a loftier purpose too.

They seek to establish whether lawyers wish to "extort money from anyone they can," or whether they are true "champions of justice." (Evidently, this is not a trick question.) They ask us to be the judge.

So here goes:
One of the runners-up for a 2006 True Stella Award was Marcy Meckler, who had the misfortune of being attacked by a squirrel outside a mall where she had been shopping.
While trying to remove the squirrel from her leg, she fell and "suffered severe injuries." Meckler blames the mall and is suing for more than $50,000.

Why? The mall's "failure to warn" her that squirrels live outside, amidst the ever-ominous trees and bushes.
Sadly, Meckler missed out on the grand prize.

Allen Ray Heckard was deemed a more deserving recipient of the True Stella. Heckard had the chutzpah to sue Michael Jordan and Nike co-founder Phil Knight for a total of $832 million, because he says that he looks like Jordan and often gets confused for him. So he sought cash for "punitive damage for emotional pain and suffering," among other hardships.

Oh yeah, it's worth noting that Heckard is three inches shorter, 25 pounds lighter and eight years older than Jordan, but apart from that. ..

. Word is that Heckard dropped the suit after a chat with Nike's barristers, who just might have threatened to counter-sue him into submission.

Read more on by www.canada.com. All rights reserved.

Keywords: True Stella, Stella Awards, True Stella Awards

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