Only in America

“I wouldn't be surpised if violin or kleetn (where has he been) posted this already. talk about a monkey around your neck ”

“Gee... in the Bad Old Days it used to be an albatross.

Hey, they've got a Giardia tie, too! And HIV/AIDS boxer shorts!”

“And a bargain at 1/10th the price!”

“I had to laugh!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146673,00.html”

“'I tell them it's French.'

Only in America, I guess.”

“ha! shoot, i'd pay good money to live on Satan Wood. those ingrates!”

“Is that anything like "Morning Wood"?”

“Knock knock”

“I thought they did pay good money?

I, on the other hand, am only willing to pay bad money.”

“They paid good money to not live on "Satan Wood"...”

“Mark_o says we live on Satan Island!”

“Don't mean to rub it in, but I went to high school in Morehead City.

Perhaps they should move to Kill Devil Hills, NC
last edited: 2/09/05 8:49:11 AM”

“Very good Zac, now I can be more explicit and constructive when someone pisses me off, I can just sent them the Mapquest Driving directions link (I'd post the link, but it will trash the page).
last edited: 2/09/05 10:29:29 AM”

“Some friends of mine in New York City lived on the intersection of of Seamen and Cummings.”

“LOL ped!

I've been to Hell's Kitchen but it was February”

“There's a subdivision in Michigan birch and I drove by and they have a Scully Dr. and a Mullder Dr.”

“Thing is it would have been more likely that the story would have been about him getting struck by lightning as he said the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time.”

“True. I wonder how often that happens? lol...”

“A Charlotte, North Carolina lawyer purchased a box

of very rare and expensive cigars and then insured them against fire, among other things.

Within a month, having smoked his entire tockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued. and WON!

In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer "held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire" and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the
lawyer for his loss of the cigars lost in the "fires".

NOW FOR THE BEST PART!

? After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance

company had him

arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own

insurance claim and testimony

from the previous case being used against him, the

lawyer was convicted of

intentionally burning his insured property and was

sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This is a true story and was the First Place winner

in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

ONLY IN AMERICA! No wonder third world countries

think we're nuts?
last edited: 12/14/05 10:34:18 AM”

“This needs to be on chili's Lawyers Rawk! thread. LOL!”

“Quick on the draw Bit! Still, IT COULD HAPPEN! Any country that allows a burglar to sue a homeowner because he got hurt breaking into the home...THIS CIGAR THING COULD HAPPEN!!!”

“It was obviously fake to me by the time I got to " The lawyer sued. and WON!"

It could only happen if an insurer was so stupid as to write a policy which did not make an exemption for property that was intentionally destroyed.”

“Is he still committing the practice of law?”

“Tango - I see no problem with a burglar being able to sue. The question would be how was the suit handled. It's only logical that a suit would have to get to a judge before it was determined not to have merit. Who else should be allowed to make that determination? And, what risks of abuse would be opened up by allowing lawsuits to be stopped before a judge reviews them?

A lot of the shocking stuff I see that bashes court decisions is either 1) false, like the above case, 2) based on badly written contracts or adly written laws (Remember the judicial sysgtem is suppiosed to uphold and apply law, not make law), or over-blown due to bad information.

Of course there are bad decisions made, but the problem is over hyped and over-exaggerated.

When tobacco companies or drug companies deliberately mislead people who use their products - lawsuits are our #1 recourse. Some of the lawyer and lawsuit bashing stuff comes from big businesses that would like to disarm the public.
last edited: 12/14/05 11:23:34 AM”

“So following your reasoning Ped, I could sue the car companies because I wreck a car even though I was breaking the law by driving 150 mph? That I think is silly, if you are breaking the law you should have NO standing to be able to sue. You are going against society and then want to possibly be rewarded for it? NO sorry not even in the realm of common sense to me. But that's just my opinion.”

“The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.

5th place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving toddler was Ms.Robertson's Son.

5th place (Tied)
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th place (Tied)
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage door. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He could not reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The Jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

4th Place
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbour's Beagle dog. The Beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been a little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the fence into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd place
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania$113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms.Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd Place
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms.Walton was trying to crawl in through the window of the Ladies Room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
1st Place
This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a new Winnebago motorhome. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.

http://jdsmithinsurance.com/jds-claims.htm
last edited: 12/14/05 11:33:00 AM”

“http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/onlyinamerica.htm

and

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
last edited: 12/14/05 11:43:05 AM”

“:p
last edited: 12/14/05 11:43:41 AM”

“All right then I should have known better than to believe an insurance co.”

“Kill these ones boys! Go at it!

http://members.aol.com/schwenkler/wcc/index.htm#Wacky%20Cases

funny!
last edited: 12/14/05 11:45:17 AM”

“Of course you should be able to sue the car manufacturer, Tango, and it should be thrown out of court as soon as it goes to a judge.

Of course, those thumbnail sketches leave out details that could change the whole picture of the situation.

As for those extreme cases you site on the aol page, I looked at a couple and it looks like they got thrown out of court. I see no problem with making people pay full court and legal fees (for both sides) for the most extremely ridiculous cases. But the judge throwing the case out of court is the best device for getting rid of stupid law suits.
last edited: 12/14/05 1:01:41 PM”

“There are some pretty funny ones on that page:

* A soldier was dancing with a girl when she collapsed in his arms, after which he took her to his car and was intimate with her. He thought that she was drunk, but she was actually dead--convicted: attempted rape

* Prisoner is not Raymond Collins, but the Prophet Muhammad who was convicted under the wrong name by Christians and was mistakenly sent to jail for 175 years by the "Masonic Regime" that now holds him hostage”

“America: Pros and Cons

PROS:

* The Beautiful

* Land of free

* Home of brave

* God shed His grace on thee

* Your choice of red of blue states

* Invented that semi-edible processed cheese

* Real football

* Only one civil war so far

* Plenty of parking

CONS:

* Funny shape

* Gaudy flag

* Thinks NASCAR is a sport

* Alaska and Hawaii too far to walk

* Horse With No Name sucked

* Rhode Island: not an island

* Attention span too short for soccer

* What's with naming it after some Italian dude?

* George W. Bush”

“Ah, the voice of reason, Mister Kleetn.”

“There's Football... and there's American Football.  

Ciao!”

“Ye Gods that's one ugly little bugger!”