The TRUE Stella Awards for 2002



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The TRUE Stella Awards -- 2002 Winners

  Unlike the FAKE cases that have been highly circulated online for the
last several years (see http://www.StellaAwards.com/bogus.html for
details), the following cases have been researched from public sources
and are confirmed TRUE by the ONLY legitimate source for the Stella
Awards: www.StellaAwards.com . To confirm this copy is legitimate, see
http://www.StellaAwards.com/2002.html

                                   -v-

#7: Attorney Philip Shafer of Ashland, Ohio, flew on Delta Airlines from
  New Orleans to Cincinnati and was given a seat, he says, next to a fat
  man. "He was a huge man," Shafer says. "He and I [were] literally and
  figuratively married from the right kneecap to the shoulder for two
  hours." He therefore "suffered embarrassment, severe discomfort,
  mental anguish and severe emotional distress," he claims in a lawsuit
  against the airline. Shafer figures this embarrassment, discomfort,
  mental anguish and emotional distress could be cured by a $9,500
  payment from Delta. If Shafer isn't careful, that might be dwarfed by
  the divorce settlement his "huge" (seat)mate might demand. 

#6: "The Godfather of Soul" James Brown has a "grudge" against his
  daughters Deanna Brown Thomas and Yamma Brown Lumar, they allege. They
  say Brown "vowed to the media that his daughters will never get a dime
  from him" and "James Brown has kept his word." So they have done what
  any kid would do when cut off from their rich daddy's bank account:
  they sued him for more than $1 million, claiming that they are owed
  royalties on 25 of his songs which, they say, they helped him write
  even though, at the time, they were children. For instance, when
  Brown's 1976 hit "Get Up Offa That Thing" was a chart-topper, the
  girls were aged 3 and 6. It's enough to make Brown switch to the
  Blues.

#5: Utah prison inmate Robert Paul Rice, serving 1-15 years on multiple
  felonies, sued the Utah Department of Corrections claiming the prison
  was not letting him practice his religion: "Druidic Vampire". Rice
  claimed that to do that, he must be allowed sexual access to a
  "vampress". In addition, the prison isn't supplying his specific
  "vampiric dietary needs" (yes: blood). Records show that Rice
  registered as a Catholic when he was imprisoned in 2000. "Without any
  question we do not have conjugal visits in Utah," said a prison
  spokesman when the suit was thrown out. Which just goes to prove
  prison life sucks.

#4: Every time you visit your doctor, you're told the same old things:
  eat less, exercise more, stop smoking. Do you listen? Neither did
  Kathleen Ann McCormick. The obese, cigarette-smoking woman from
  Wilkes-Barre, Penn., had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a
  family history of coronary artery disease. Yet doctors at the
  Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center "did not do enough" to
  convince her to work to improve her own health. Unsurprisingly, she
  had a heart attack which, she says in a federal lawsuit, left her a
  "cardiac invalid". In addition to eight doctors, she's suing their
  employer -- the U.S. government -- demanding a minimum of $1 million
  in compensation.

#3: In 1997 Bob Craft, then 39, of Hot Springs, Montana, changed his name
  to Jack Ass. Now, he says that MTV's TV show and movie "Jackass" was
  "plagiarized" from him, infringes his trademarks and copyrights, and
  that this has demeaned, denigrated and damaged his public image. No
  attorney would take the case, so he has filed suit on his own against
  MTV's corporate parent, demanding $50 million in damages. If nothing
  else, Jack Ass has proved he chose his name well.

#2: Hazel Norton of Rolling Fork, Miss., read there was a class action
  suit against the drug Propulsid, which her doctor had prescribed to
  her for a digestive disorder. Despite admitting that "I didn't get
  hurt by Propulsid," Norton thought "I might get a couple of thousand
  dollars" by joining the lawsuit. When her doctor was named in the
  suit, he quit his Mississippi practice -- where he was serving the
  poor. He left with his wife, a pediatrician and internist. That left
  only two doctors practicing at the local hospital. So while Norton
  wasn't harmed by the drug, all her neighbors now get to suffer from
  drastically reduced access to medical care because of her greed.

AND THE WINNER of the 2002 True Stella Awards: sisters Janice Bird, Dayle
  Bird Edgmon and Kim Bird Moran sued their mother's doctors and a
  hospital after Janice accompanied her mother, Nita Bird, to a minor
  medical procedure. When something went wrong, Janice and Dayle
  witnessed doctors rushing their mother to emergency surgery. Rather
  that suing for malpractice, the lawsuit claimed "negligent infliction
  of emotional distress" -- not for causing distress to their mother,
  but for causing distress to THEM for having to SEE the doctors rushing
  to help their mother. The case was fought all the way to the
  California Supreme Court, which finally ruled against the women. Which
  is a good thing, since if they had prevailed doctors and hospitals
  would have had no choice but to keep YOU from being anywhere near your
  family members during medical procedures just in case something goes
  wrong. In their greed, the Bird sisters risked everyone's right to
  have family members with them in emergencies.


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[Courtesy of Randy Cassingham]