DISORDER IN THE COURT
These are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters – who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July fifteenth.
Q: What year?
A: Every year
Q: What gear were you in at moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something you’ve forgotten?
Q: How old is your son, the one living with you.
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning?
A: He said, “Where am I, Cathy?”
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.
Q: And where was the location of the accident?
A: Approximately milepost 499.
Q: And where is milepost 499?
A: Probably between milepost 498 and 500.
Q: Did you blow your horn or anything?
A: After the accident?
Q: Before the accident.
A: Sure, I played for 10 years. I even went to school for it.
Q: Trooper, when you stopped the defendant, were your red and blue lights flashing?
A: Yes.
Q: Did the defendant say anything when she got out of her car?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: What did she say?
A: What disco am I at?
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male or a female?
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.
Judge: “Well Sir, I have reviewed this case and I’ve decided to give your wife $775 a week.”
Husband: “That’s fair, your honor. I’ll try to send her a few bucks myself.”
And my favorite …
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.
STELLA AWARDS
The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who
spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald’s (in
NM). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous,
ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.
5th Place (tie): Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded
$80,000 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 little toddler was Ms. Robertson’s son.
5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps.
5th Place (tie): Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was
leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage.
He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic
door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn’t re-enter 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 eight 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. In my opinion this is so outrageous that it should have been 2nd Place!
4th Place: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded
$14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor’s beagle. 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 just a little provoked at the time by Mr.
Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and 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, successfully sued
the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from
the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front
teeth. This occurred while Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through
the window in 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 Mrs. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new
32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU
football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise
control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the
back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the
freeway, crashed and overturned.
Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner’s
manual that she couldn’t actually do this. The jury awarded her
$1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other
complete morons around.