http://www.stellaawards.com
May it please the court:
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! We search for true cases, and you can subscribe by e-mail for free to get the case reports as they're issued.
Yes, we mean to be entertaining. But there's also a deeper consideration that we'll be addressing: are the people involved in the cases we present to you (a juror in the Court of Public Opinion) using the courts to redress justifiable grievances that can't otherwise be settled? ...Or are they trying to extort money from anyone they can? Are the lawyers involved champions of justice? ...Or are they helping to abuse the system in the name of getting a piece of the action? You be the judge!
Unlike most "tort reform" sites, we are not a front for any special interest group. We are completely independent.
We do not publish the case reports on this web site. Just subscribe below and we'll e-mail you the case reports as they are issued! Subscriptions are free. (See our Privacy Notice. Summary: we never give out our address list to anyone, since we hate spam at least as much as you do). Details on our free subscriptions and terms of service are here. See this page for a sample issue.
Stella Awards is a project of This is TrueŽ -- a weekly news commentary column featuring bizarre-but-true stories from newspapers all over the world, all with snippy commentary by Colorado humorist (and Society of Professional Journalists professional member) Randy Cassingham. If you like the Stella Awards, you'll love the weird-but-true stories sent out once each week in This is True.
To submit a case for possible use in the True Stella Awards, see this page.
Back issues are available for a small fee. See the case log for details.
New! While TSA does not host or moderate it, a Discussion Board is now available to readers who wish to debate the issues raised in TSA with other readers. (Link opens in a new window.)