Frivolous Lawsuits- DEBUNKED!!!

[BamaLefty]

Here is a e-mail that I happened to have access to that you all need to read and seriously think about!!! Bo, your garage that we talked about... NEVER HAPPENED!!! Here is the truth and I hope that the next time one of you hears of a frivolous suit, that you check the sources that it came from, because the following are all bold faced lies!!!

August 9, 2004

--- -----, ------
The Court Brief
The Alabama Judicial Building
300 Dexter Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104

Dear Mr. ------:

It has come to our attention that your newsletter for the Alabama
Judicial Building, The Court Brief, ran an article titled "Who Won the
Stella This Year" (6/28/04). This piece is nothing more than an e-mail
chain letter passed off as a news item. The "Stella Award" is a
long-discredited Internet legend that alerts readers to "cases" that are
pure fiction.

While we realize The Court Brief is for internal use only, you must
surely have some standard for factual reporting, whether the article is
original or reprinted.

TruthorFiction.com, Snopes.com, and Atla.org all debunk the supposed
"cases" highlighted in the "Stella Awards" email. I invite you and other
Court Brief reporters to research the garage and Winnebago cases
yourselves. You will be unable to find citations for them because they
do not exist.

Lawsuits are public records. If a lawsuit is filed, if a jury verdict is
returned, if a judgment is rendered, then it is all right there in a
court clerk's office, open to anyone.

"Debunking Urban Legends: Fake and Dismissed Cases Hyped Online"
provides more information about the "Stella Awards" and is available on
the Association of Trial Lawyers of America Web site at
http://www.Atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx
<http://www.Atla.org/homepage/debunk.aspx>

You would benefit your readers and the public they serve by asking
yourself who originated these lies. Why would someone need to make up
fictitious cases? What are they trying to gain, and at whose expense?

We have little doubt that they originated with the special interests
that propagandize daily to take away the legal rights of American
families in the name of so-called tort "reform".

We hope you will consider publishing the truth about these phony
"cases," and warn people not to believe everything they read in
anonymous emails.

Sincerely,

Tom Edwards
President
Alabama Trial Lawyers Association

and

Todd A. Smith
President
Association of Trial Lawyers of Americ