The TRUE Stella Awards -- 2006 Runners-Up and Winner

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True Stella Awards #79: 31 January 2007              www.StellaAwards.com
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The TRUE Stella Awards -- 2006 Runners-Up and Winner
by Randy Cassingham

  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/2006.html

  PLEASE DO FORWARD this issue -- it's allowed so long as you send it in
its entirety. MEDIA OUTLETS: See http://www.StellaAwards.com/2006.html
*BEFORE* running the awards as that page has permission info and will
have any needed updates and corrections.

                                   -v-

2006 Runners-Up and Winner:

#5: Marcy Meckler. While shopping at a mall, Meckler stepped outside and
  was "attacked" by a squirrel that lived among the trees and bushes.
  And "while frantically attempting to escape from the squirrel and
  detach it from her leg, [Meckler] fell and suffered severe injuries,"
  her resulting lawsuit says. That's the mall's fault, the lawsuit
  claims, demanding in excess of $50,000, based on the mall's "failure
  to warn" her that squirrels live outside.

#4: Ron and Kristie Simmons. The couple's 4-year-old son, Justin, was
  killed in a tragic lawnmower accident in a licensed daycare facility,
  and the death was clearly the result of negligence by the daycare
  providers. The providers were clearly deserving of being sued, yet
  when the Simmons's discovered the daycare only had $100,000 in
  insurance, they dropped the case against them and instead sued the
  manufacturer of the 16-year-old lawn mower because the mower didn't
  have a safety device that 1) had not been invented at the time of the
  mower's manufacture, and 2) no safety agency had even suggested needed
  to be invented. A sympathetic jury still awarded the family $2
  million.

#3: Robert Clymer. An FBI agent working a high-profile case in Las Vegas,
  Clymer allegedly created a disturbance, lost the magazine from his
  pistol, then crashed his pickup truck in a drunken stupor -- his
  blood-alcohol level was 0.306 percent, more than three times the legal
  limit for driving in Nevada. He pled guilty to drunk driving because,
  his lawyer explained, "With public officials, we expect them to own up
  to their mistakes and correct them." Yet Clymer had the gall to sue
  the manufacturer of his pickup truck, and the dealer he bought it
  from, because he "somehow lost consciousness" and the truck "somehow
  produced a heavy smoke that filled the passenger cab." Yep: the drunk-
  driving accident wasn't his fault, but the truck's fault. Just the
  kind of guy you want carrying a gun in the name of the law.

#2: KinderStart.com. The specialty search engine says Google should be
  forced to include the KinderStart site in its listings, reveal how its
  "Page Rank" system works, and pay them lots of money because they're a
  competitor. They claim by not being ranked higher in Google, Google is
  somehow infringing KinderStart's Constitutional right to free speech.
  Even if by some stretch they were a competitor of Google, why in the
  world would they think it's Google's responsibility to help them
  succeed? And if Google's "review" of their site is negative, wouldn't
  a government court order forcing them to change it infringe on
  Google's Constitutional right to free speech?

AND THE WINNER of the 2006 Stella Award: Allen Ray Heckard. Even though
  Heckard is 3 inches shorter, 25 pounds lighter, and 8 years older than
  former basketball star Michael Jordan, the Portland, Oregon, man says
  he looks a lot like Jordan, and is often confused for him -- and thus
  he deserves $52 million "for defamation and permanent injury" -- plus
  $364 million in "punitive damage for emotional pain and suffering",
  plus the SAME amount from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, for a grand
  total of $832 million. He dropped the suit after Nike's lawyers
  chatted with him, where they presumably explained how they'd counter-
  sue if he pressed on.

                                   -v-

TO CONFIRM THE VALIDITY OF THESE CASES, get more information on the True
  Stella Awards, or sign up for a free e-mail subscription to new cases
  as they are issued, see http://www.StellaAwards.com/2006.html

BLOGGERS AND WEB SITE OWNERS: http://www.StellaAwards.com/2006.html also
  links to a pre-formatted copy you can post online.

WANT TO SEE THE FULL WRITE-UPS of all of these cases? A PDF file is
  available for a small fee. See http://www.StellaAwards.com/2006.html
  for info.

NOTE: If the summary doesn't state an outcome for a case, it's probably
  still pending. Unlike the fantasy world of the urban legend Stella
  Awards, in real life the courts are so clogged, and "justice" so slow,
  that it can take many years for a case to conclude. Sorry, but there
  are no pat endings in the real world. If YOU hear of an update, please
  DO send us a URL so we can update our readers. Thanks.

Copyright 2007 www.StellaAwards.com . This message may be forwarded as
  long as it remains complete and unaltered.