Huge Lawsuit Awards Make the U.S. Justice System a Laughingstock

By Linda Orlando

Probably everyone in America has heard the story about the woman who spilled scalding coffee on her lap and successfully sued McDonald’s for a bucket of money. We’ve also heard reports of cat burglars suing homeowners after injuring themselves during a robbery. Oh, and don’t forget the stories about the Winnebago owners setting the cruise control on their motor home, leaving the driver’s seat to go in the back for a snack, and then crashing their vehicle’s only to later win a lawsuit against the vehicle manufacturer for not having enough warning notices advising them that their vehicle didn’t have a mind of its own. Most of us laugh off these stories as urban legends made to demonstrate the absurdity of frivolous lawsuits. But amazingly enough, many of these stories are actually true. Here are a few of the most outrageous, and although they may give you a chuckle at first, this growing trend is not much to laugh about.

The parade of unbelievable lawsuit awards started years ago, but the first widely publicized such award happened in 1992, when Stella Liebeck ordered a cup of coffee to go at the McDonald’s drive-through window. She was seated in the passenger side of her nephew’s car, and he pulled over so she could add sugar to her coffee. While removing the lid of the cup, Liebeck spilled the hot coffee, burning her legs. Her nephew raced her to the hospital, where it was determined that she suffered third degree burns over six percent of her body. So naturally, Liebeck immediately realized it wasn't her fault that she spilled her coffee; it was the fault of McDonald's for serving hot coffee in the first place. So she sued the restaurant chain for $20,000 in damages. McDonald's refused to settle the case out of court, confident that any judge and jury anywhere in the world would agree with them that the lawsuit was ridiculous. Unfortunately, they should have settled, because Liebeck was ultimately awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, which was reduced to $160,000 on appeal when Liebeck was found to be 20% at fault. Still, McDonald's had to pay nearly $2.7 million in punitive damages.

In 1988, to carpet layers in Ohio, Gordon Falker and Gregory Roach, were severely burned when a container of carpet adhesive exploded into a ball of flame. The three and a half gallon container ignited when the hot water heater it was sitting on kicked on, and because of their injuries the men filed suit against Para-Chem, the manufacturers of the adhesive. Both men thought the warning label on the back of the can had been insufficient to prevent their injuries. Apparently words like "flammable" and "keep away from heat" were not strident enough to let them know that an explosion would happen if they set the container on top of a water heater. A jury obviously agreed with Falker and Roach, because they awarded the two $8 million for their injuries at the hands of the negligent manufacturer.

In 1997, Jessie Ingram’s bar in Illinois was broken into by Larry Harris, 37. Harris was under the influence of both alcohol and drugs at the time, so he apparently was too stoned to notice the warning sign posted prominently in the window of the bar, advising potential miscreants that the building was protected by an anti-theft security system. So Harris broke the window and began to climb in, and as he did so, he set off the security trap and electrocuted himself. The police refused to file murder charges, since Harris was quite obviously committing a crime when he was killed. However, Harris’s family saw things differently and filed a civil suit against Jessie Ingram, the owner of the bar. The first jury to hear the case apparently decided that even criminals deserve justice, and they awarded the Harris family $150,000. When Ingram appealed, the award was reduced to $75,000 when a second jury decided Harris should share at least half of the blame.

An incident in 1992 involving another brain-muddled drunkard also ended with a ridiculously huge award to an undeserving family. Karen Norman, 23, accidentally backed her car into Galveston Bay after a night of partying and drinking. Upon discovering that her car was sinking rapidly, Norman tried to release her seat belt to escape, but in her drunken state she was unable to operate the seat belt, and she drowned. Her passenger in the car did manage to disengage herself and make it to shore safely. Norman’s parents were shocked and angry that their daughter hadn’t been able to do the same, despite the fact that her blood alcohol level was measured at .17 "nearly twice the legal limit" so they sued Honda for making a secure seat belt that couldn’t be opened by their drunken daughter. A jury found Honda to be 75% responsible for Karen’s death, and they awarded the Norman family $65 million. An appeals court that later heard the case threw it out.

Apparently the lawsuit ridiculousness is spreading across the borders. Last month a hair stylist in Ontario, Waddah Mustapha, was awarded the equivalent of about $270,000 after he testified that he became wracked with depression after seeing a fly inside a commercial bottle of water at his salon. The court would have awarded more if Mustapha had actually drunk from the bottle’s or even opened it, but as it was, he and his wife both vomited upon seeing the fly. Mustapha required extensive psychotherapy for nightmares, increased argumentativeness, lack of desire to shower regularly, constipation, and loss of sense of humor. (Hopefully he took solace in the fact that stories of his tribulations gave millions of people a good laugh.)

The endless parade of similar lawsuits continues to grow, and the "victims" are claiming increasingly more ridiculous "injuries" and yet they keep finding juries that will agree with their amazing claims. Recently in Seattle, Washington, a woman sued her neighbor after his dog killed her cat. Paula Roemer, a retired teacher, owned a 12-year old cat who was attacked in her back yard by a chow belonging to her neighbor, Wallace Gray. According to the lawsuit, Gray’s dog had escaped in the past repeatedly, and Roemer, 71, had filed complaints to that effect. But in February 2004, the dog attacked Roemer’s cat and mauled it to death. In her lawsuit, Roemer claimed that the death of her constant companion had left her with sleep disturbances, panic attacks and depression, causing her to begin smoking heavily. The judge in the case, Barbara Linde, awarded Roemer a total amount of $45,000--$30,000 for the pet’s "special value" and $15,000 for emotional distress. The amount of the award tied a previous record where a jury in California ordered a veterinarian to pay the owner of a deceased dog $30,000 for the dog’s "unique value" plus $9,000 for veterinary bills. As for Wallace Gray, he also had to serve three weeks in jail and three months under house arrest for an animal control violation, even though he said an acquaintance had been taking care of his dog at the time of the attack and he wasn’t even home. "This is absolutely crazy," Gray said. "I'm sorry she lost her cat, but I had no control over it." Although Roemer said she doubted she would see any of the money, she plans to donate anything she does collect to an animal protection group. Maybe a charitable donation will help alleviate her panic attacks, and then she can use the rest of the money to pay for sleeping pills and cigarettes.