The Stella Awards were inspired by Stella Liebeck. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, but that's not the whole story. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits -- including bogus cases! To find out more and for a free subscription goto SellaAwards.com. Here's a sample of what you get with the subscription ::
A Dog Eat Dog World by Randy Cassingham
Doug Baker, 45, of Portland, Ore., said he met "Fremont" while driving four years ago. The German Shepherd was in the road, cars swerving around him. He was limping. Baker says he believes God steered him to the dog, and he stopped to pick the animal up. "Our eyes met, and we connected," he says. "My life's never been the same." Baker spent $4,000 in vet bills to get the dog well. "People thought I was crazy," he remembers, "but I'm telling you, God wanted me to save him." Baker, who lived on a houseboat, would leave the dog with Lisa Klein, his girlfriend, during the night and bring him to his office during the day. "He was with one of us nearly 24 hours a day, and he really only trusted us," he says. "He was scared of people." Indeed the dog had a "reputation" for lunging and snapping at strangers. When he had to go out, Baker would hire a dog sitter. In September, Baker took Klein to dinner and paid the dog sitter $30 to watch Fremont. When they got home, they found a message from the sitter: Fremont had run away. A truck driving by backfired and scared the skittish dog, and he got out of the yard -- through an open gate, Baker alleges. Baker went far beyond the usual procedure of looking for the dog and putting "Lost and Found" ads in the newspaper. He bought a display ad so he could include a photo. He offered a $1000 reward. He circulated fliers and put up a web site. Then it gets drastic. He let his auto repair shop go out of business so he could devote full time to the search. To pay the search expenses, he started taking early disbursements from his retirement fund. He says he had planned to ask Klein to marry him by tying an engagement ring to Fremont's collar so he could "deliver" it to her, but since the dog wasn't there to do that he postponed the engagement. Then it gets weird. Baker hired an animal tracker to follow the dog's scent. The tracker declared the dog had been bducted, so Baker hired four different "animal psychics" to divine where the dog was. Each session cost $55 to $100, and every one of them said they "communicated" with the animal. But when their leads came to a dead end, Baker hired a witch to cast spells to bring Fremont home. Then it gets scary. "I went out and put my own urine in the area where Fremont was last seen," Baker says, reasoning "he might smell my scent and then stay put." By day 60, Baker had spent over $20,000 on finding Fremont. Shortly after that, the Portland Oregonian newspaper ran a long story on his search, just as Baker was ready to hire a fifth psychic. The story noted he cries over Fremont every day, and has a hard time going into his dining room because of memories of Fremont being in there. But Baker got his happy ending: two days after the newspaper article ran someone who saw the story phoned in a tip. Baker went to the neighborhood the tipster suggested and found Fremont in the street, about two miles from where he had disappeared. Baker's vet says the dog very likely roamed the area for the two months he was gone -- he was apparently not "abducted" at all. Well, that's not really the end -- if it was, this wouldn't be the Stella Awards. That's right: Baker is suing. Although upon finding Fremont he told the newspaper "All I want to do now is rebuild my life," apparently he wants someone else to pay for that rebuilding. Two days after getting the dog back Baker and Klein hired Geordie Duckler, a Portland attorney who says he's the only Oregon attorney to specialize in representing pet owners. Duckler brags that he has 50 open cases and has represented animals from birds to alligators. Duckler has filed suit against Lisa Dunbar, the pet sitter, in Multnomah County Circuit Court demanding $160,000: $20,000 for the cost of his search, $30,000 for the income he lost by letting his business collapse, $10,000 for "the temporary loss of the special value of Fremont based on his qualities, characteristics and pedigree," and $100,000 in "emotional damages". "I lived a nightmare," Baker says. "Yesterday was the first day I didn't cry, and last night was the first night I didn't go out and scream." At a news conference, Duckler said he hopes the lawsuit "helps redefine personal-property laws," saying pet sitters should be held to "a higher standard of care" than people watching, say, someone's car. Dunbar of course has hired an attorney to help defend her, and says her lawyer has told her not to comment on the case. "All I can say is they are lying," she told the Oregonian, "and they're taking advantage of the media." While the suit says she didn't do enough to help find Fremont, she says she "was out looking from the minute it happened. I even took time off from work to help look." People indeed can form close, loving, even deep bonds with their pets. But who thinks it's reasonable to spend over $20,000 to find a lost dog, and let their business fail in the meantime? Obviously one person did think it was worth it -- and that's his decision to make. Once he made that decision, he needs to live with its consequences. He knew his dog was skittish around strangers. The newspaper reported that the first thing he did when he found the dog was put a collar on him; didn't he take the most basic precaution of having tags on the dog all along so that if he did get lost, his owner could be found? And if it was "God's will" for him to find the dog in the first place, why wasn't it "God's will" for him to lose it later? Perhaps Baker "lived a nightmare," but now he has gone and created a far, far worse nightmare for the woman who tried to look after his cowering animal. Surely that's not part of God's plan.
The Funnies, The Spins, The Humourous and The Humourless......
"I do not aim at fusion. Each religion has its own contribution to make to human evolution.
I regard the great faiths of the WORLD as so many branches of a tree, each distinct from the other though having the same source.----Mahatma Ghandhi.
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