This pensioner spilt coffee on her lap in 1992 in the carpark of a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico and won $2.9 million in damages in 1994. The story became the stuff of legends and punch lines yet it wasn’t till a video was produced by Retro Reports in October 2013 that it was revealed that Liebeck suffered burns to 16% of her body and nearly died. This “touchstone for cases about excessive litigation” resulted in McDonald’s reducing the holding and serving temperature of their coffee from 180–190°F to 170–180°F. It turned out there had been over 700 similar reports of burns incidents caused by coffee in McDonald’s between 1983 and 1992. The annual The True Stella Awards®, named after her, now seem rather inappropriate. Here, indeed, was a case of “You can’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers”.
Category: OBSERVERS
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Stella Liebeck (1913 – 2004)
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Henry Wyndham
A collector of English drawings and watercolours since the age of 14 and second to none as an auctioneer, Eton educated Wyndham hammered down Giacometti’s Walking Man sculpture for £65 million in 2010 and Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents for £49.5 million in 2002. His glasses saved his sight in a shooting accident in Scotland in 2012 and as a result, he’s turned to raising funds for eye hospitals. Donations reached £579,000 by the end of September 2013 and given that he also just happens to be the model for the tall, distinguished auctioneer portrayed in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, it looks as if he’ll be raiding a few more coffers for this good cause yet. -
Jack Monroe (also known as “A Girl Called Jack”)
This acid tongued blogger describes herself as a “freelance food-and-politics-gob” and responded to one of our articles by stating “I want no association with your s**t”. The Independent are the ones who ought to be ashamed: Why on earth do they choose to be associated with this lentil loving moralising menace? -
Lloyd Scott MBE
This former professional football goalkeeper and cancer survivor completed the 2002 London Marathon in a deep-sea diving suit and took 12 days to walk the length of Loch Ness in 2003. He’s completed countless other endeavours in the name of charity and raised millions in the process. His efforts are commendable and of his MBE, Scott once commented: “It should stand for ‘Mad, Bonkers and Eccentric’”. -
Stella Creasy MP
This rising star of the Labour Party entered the House of Commons in May 2010. Nicknamed “St. Ella” and referred to as “Labour’s most interesting Member of Parliament” by ConservativeHome, Creasy is widely tipped as a future leader and lauded for valiantly standing up to the “morons” who attacked her on Twitter. A Cambridge and LSE graduate who was formerly head of public affairs for the Scout Association, here is a bold lady who has also taken on the scourge of society that are payday lenders. -
Meghan McCain
The tattooed daughter of Senator John McCain once suggested that “Republicans are scared shitless about the future” and voted for John Kerry. (more…) -
Amanda Hearst
This “Hearst with a heart” is a special projects editor at Town & Country magazine and the founder of Friends of Finn, a committee dedicated to stopping the “inhumane treatment of dogs in puppy mills”. A graduate of Fordham University, Amanda Hearst also happens to be the great-granddaughter of the inspiration for Citizen Kane, William Randolph Hearst, and once modeled for Tommy Hilfiger. She loves the ocean, California, the Hearst Ranch Winery and doing good. -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (born Yasmin Damji)
This Ugandan-born journalist is a self-confessed racist who loathes “white, middle class men”, yet describes herself as being a “leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim, part-Pakistani, and … a very responsible person”. She believes Osama bin Laden didn’t get a “respectful burial” and asked: “Why does anyone black, Asian or Arab ever vote Tory?” on Twitter in July 2013 before talking about the urinal her husband had “pissed in” at a pub in Loughton, Essex in August of the same year. A true mouthpiece, Alibhai-Brown is just the kind of person no right-minded person would ever invite to dinner. -
Dr. Elisabeth Maxwell (better known as Betty Maxwell, 1921 – 2013)
Her “fat fraudster” husband called this French Hugenot Protestant “the keeper of my Jewish soul”. Of her life with him, she wrote an autobiography titled A Mind of My Own: My Life With Robert Maxwell and in it described him “as bullying, unfaithful and frequently absent as he amassed his empire”. This mother of nine children’s expertise on the Holocaust was renowned. She put up with a lot and of the media tycoon concluded: “God forbid I run into him again”. -
Charlie Cooper
After being convicted of stealing £1,500 worth of jewellery from Vandra Henderson of Whitstable, Kent in July 2013, this cleaner took to Facebook to berate a local newspaper who featured an image of him. Claiming his human rights had been breached didn’t win him any sympathy with his mother. In reply, Teresa Cooper wrote: “You should not have done it in the first place… That lady didn’t want her jewlery [sic] taking but you did it anyway, end of”. It is high time a few other parents took just such a stance.