-- -Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have - -happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ -Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- -individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question? steveo at syslang.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 10:37:16 -0800 (PST) From: Andy and Carolyn Limeri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fwd: True Stella Awards Special Issue: The 2002 Winners! Hi Steve, After last week's confusion, I thought this might interesting to forward to [mbd]. These are the true Stella Awards. Each of these lawsuits really did happen. I have the permission of the author to forward them. Regards, Andy -------------------------------------------------------True Stella Awards Special Issue: 9 Feb 2003 www.StellaAwards.com ------------------------------------------------------- THE TRUE STELLA AWARDS' 2002 WINNERS! by Randy Cassingham This is a Special Issue of the True Stella Awards. It is designed to be forwarded as-is or, if you wish, you may clip it between the lines below to make for easy forwarding without the extra stuff. PLEASE be sure keep the text between the lines complete so that people can confirm the stories! We'll be back on Wednesday with a regular issue. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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/2002.html Copyright 2003 www.StellaAwards.com . This message may be forwarded as long as it remains complete and unaltered. Copyright 2003 by Randy Cassingham, All Rights Reserved. ALL broadcast, publication, retransmission to the WWW, e-mail lists, or paper, or copying or storage, in any medium, online or not, is PROHIBITED without PRIOR written permission. However, permission is granted to circulate this publication via MANUAL forwarding by e-mail to friends PROVIDING THAT the text is forwarded IN ITS ENTIRETY, from the title line on top through the end of this paragraph, and NO FEE is charged. We REQUEST that you forward no more than three copies to any one person -- after that, they should get their own subscription. Stella Awards is a trademark, and "This is True" is a registered trademark, of Freelance Communications, an imprint of THISisTRUE.Inc. To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe man-bytes-dog" (the subject is ignored).
