Those stories are fake - as well as almost every story on the net dealing with excessive jury awards.
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.htm
even the mcdonalds case was blown out of proportion by the media - if people knew the true facts they might think differently.
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
http://www.siegfriedandjensen.com/Page9.html