THRiLL KiLL

#5: Marcy Meckler.
While shopping at a mall, Meckler stepped outside and
was "attacked" by a squirrel that lived among the trees and bushes.
And "while frantically attempting to escape from the squirrel and
detach it from her leg, [Meckler] fell and suffered severe injuries,"
her resulting lawsuit says. That's the mall's fault, the lawsuit
claims, demanding in excess of $50,000, based on the mall's "failure
to warn" her that squirrels live outside.

#4: Ron and Kristie Simmons. The couple's 4-year-old son, Justin, was
killed in a tragic lawnmower accident in a licensed daycare facility,
and the death was clearly the result of negligence by the daycare
providers. The providers were clearly deserving of being sued, yet
when the Simmons's discovered the daycare only had $100,000 in
insurance, they dropped the case against them and instead sued the
manufacturer of the 16-year-old lawn mower because the mower didn't
have a safety device that 1) had not been invented at the time of the
mower's manufacture, and 2) no safety agency had even suggested
needed to be invented. A sympathetic jury still awarded the family $2
million.

#3: Robert Clymer. An FBI agent working a high-profile case in Las Vegas,
Clymer allegedly created a disturbance, lost the magazine from his
pistol, then crashed his pickup truck in a drunken stupor -- his
blood-alcohol level was 0.306 percent, more than three times the
legal limit for driving in Nevada. He pled guilty to drunk driving because,
his lawyer explained, "With public officials, we expect them to own
up to their mistakes and correct them." Yet Clymer had the gall to sue
the manufacturer of his pickup truck, and the dealer he bought it
from, because he "somehow lost consciousness" and the truck "somehow
produced a heavy smoke that filled the passenger cab." Yep: the
drunk- driving accident wasn't his fault, but the truck's fault. Just the
kind of guy you want carrying a gun in the name of the law.

#2: KinderStart.com. The specialty search engine says Google should be
forced to include the KinderStart site in its listings, reveal how
its "Page Rank" system works, and pay them lots of money because they're
a competitor. They claim by not being ranked higher in Google, Google
is somehow infringing KinderStart's Constitutional right to free speech.
Even if by some stretch they were a competitor of Google, why in the
world would they think it's Google's responsibility to help them
succeed? And if Google's "review" of their site is negative, wouldn't
a government court order forcing them to change it infringe on
Google's Constitutional right to free speech?

AND THE WINNER of the 2006 Stella Award: Allen Ray Heckard. Even though
Heckard is 3 inches shorter, 25 pounds lighter, and 8 years older
than former basketball star Michael Jordan, the Portland, Oregon, man says
he looks a lot like Jordan, and is often confused for him -- and thus
he deserves $52 million "for defamation and permanent injury" -- plus
$364 million in "punitive damage for emotional pain and suffering",
plus the SAME amount from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, for a grand
total of $832 million. He dropped the suit after Nike's lawyers
chatted with him, where they presumably explained how they'd counter-
sue if he pressed on.

__________________