INTERNET GEM OF THE MONTH
Who is running the asylum?
Thanks to Scott Taylor for his contribution of this month’s Internet Gem of the Month. If you see something that you think is worth repeating, send it to us at: Sales@somocorealestate.com.
It’s time again for the annual “Stella Awards.” For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S . You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella’s for the past year:
7TH PLACE Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $0,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
6TH PLACE Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps. Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.
5TH PLACE Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage.. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ‘em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more...
4TH PLACE Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered 4th place in the Stella’s when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor’s beagle -- even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch.
3RD PLACE Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stellas to go...
2ND PLACE Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.
1ST PLACE May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please. This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set . The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home. Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...? Ya think??!! More than a few of our judge’s elevators don’t go to the top floor either!
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 The Way I See It......by Suzi Taylor, Publisher
Green comes in many shades
“The hills are alive…” to mimic Julie Andrews in that long ago musical The Sound of Music. Last month at this time our hills were a disgusting shade of graybrown last year’s grass, looking dreary and forlorn in the winter cold. We had tallied not even two inches of rain on top of several short years and it looked really glum, to say the least.
When people used to ask Bill if it was going to rain, he would get a little grin on his face and say, “Always has.” February proved him right. The grass was just waiting for some moisture and the hills exploded in a green blanket, almost overnight. The cattlemen are smiling and everyone who knows how depent we are on our sparse winter rains feels a slight sense of relief. It’s still not enough, but if we have a March with four or five inches, it will be sufficient. Ongoing drought is always a problem in California and California certainly doesn’t need anymore problems right now. $$$$$
\Speaking of green…$800 billion here, $400 billion there, $1 trillion here and there and pretty soon you have more than pocket change. The amount of money that is being sucked into the black hole of recession/ depression is beyond belief. Many of us are caught in that sucking sound as we watch the values of our homes plummet, our jobs disappear, our businesses sink, our retirement portfolios vanish and our faith in the American dream waver for the first time in our lives. Not a pretty picture.
Just like when I find an old quilt that hasn’t been finished – I know it has a story. Some woman cut the pieces and patiently stitched them, but put them away before she completed the project. Did she move on to another quilt? Did she move away? Did she become ill? Every quilt has a story. Well, every one of the millions of houses that has a foreclosure sign in front of it has a story. Every one of the hundreds of thousands of small business that has a closed sign has a story. Every one of the millions who are signing up for unemployment has a story. It used to be “those people” but I know people who have lost their homes, who have lost their jobs, who have closed their businesses, who have had their retirement portfolios disappear just as they were going to retire.
None of us knows if any of the trillion here and there is going to help. I have a feeling it will – eventually but at what cost? That will be the story that comes along in another decade. It’s a great paradigm. In order to get the economy moving, we need to spend, but if we have the money we are afraid to spend and many don’t have the money. I believe I read somewhere along the line that the economy engine was powered 70 percent by consumer spending and we just ain’t spending. The only entity that spends now is the federal government because they make the money and they are certainly doing that. I just hope and pray it works.
On a light green note
In sticking with the green theme, after all it is March and St. Patty’s Day is this month, I had to end with a little Irish humor and a very old Irish joke.
An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman each order Guiness in a pub. Upon being served, each finds a fly in their beer. Repulsed, the Englishman sends his back. The Scotsman gently flicks the fly out of his mug and begins drinking. The Irishman carefully lifts the fly up by its wings and screams, “Spit it out! Spit it out!”
An Irishman walks into a bar and orders three glasses of Guiness, drinking them one at a time. Noticing this odd ritual, the bartender explains that the beer goes flat when poured and informs the man his beer would be much fresher if he ordered one glass at a time.
The Irishman explains he began this custom with his two brothers, who have moved to America and Australia, respectively. This is their way of remembering all the time they spent drinking together.
The man becomes a regular at the pub, wellknown for always ordering three beers at once. One day he walks in and orders only two beers. Assuming the worst, a hush falls among other patrons.
When the Irishman returns to the bar to order his second round, the bartender quietly offers his condolences. The man looks confused for a moment, and then explains, “No, everyone’s fine. I gave up beer for lent.”
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