Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Lawsuits

I received an email today which had an attachment listing the "Stella Awards" for the year. The Stella Awards are named after the infamous lawsuit in which Stella Liebeck was awarded $2.9 million dollars in damages against McDonald's Corporation. Her claim was that the coffee was brewed too hot and scalded her when she spilled it in her lap.

The Stella Awards are real but this particular email contained bogus examples and as is usual will circulate on the Internet for years to come. There are real cases that you can find on The Stella Awards website but the unfortunate thing is this seriously distorts reality. The Stella Awards are seeking to exploit these judicial awards and make money. They have a stake in distorting the truth.

Our judicial system has major imperfections and yet provides one of the fairest and thoughtful approach to jurisprudence in the world. Instead of being titillated by the bogus and the extreme, lets keep our perspective. This article says it well.

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