It’s no secret that we live in a litigious country, but we often forget just how ridiculous people can be in a society that permits anybody to sue
anybody. These are 15 of the most frivolous lawsuits we could find, and even worse — some of them actually won.
Guilty Until Proven Dead
The RIAA has been behind some disgustingly nefarious litigation in the past few years, but one of their crowning achievements in dirtbagdom came when they tried to sue 84-year-old Gertrude Walton. The suit wasn’t ridiculous because of the old woman’s extreme age, but because Gertrude had
died when she was 83, a full year earlier. Of course, being a corpse didn’t stop the RIAA from saying that she “illegally downloaded” over 700 music tracks.
Why Didn’t You Stop Me?
We’ve seen a lot of crazy excuses given by seriously wrong people, but this one may just take the cake. Edward Brewer was working in a hospital in Ohio, when he raped a woman afflicted with cerebral palsy in 1998. In 2002, while still in prison, Brewer sued the hospital for a sum of $2 million — because the hospital staff and security failed to
stop him. According to him, the ordeal caused him
pain and suffering. The case was thrown out of court.
Sexual Whiplash
Whiplash is already widely seen as a completely fabricated injury in many cases, but this is just taking things too far. A 27-year-old man from Michigan was driving his car one day when another car hit him from behind in an extremely minor rear-end collision. Four years later, the man sued the driver of the other car
for changing his sexuality. Apparently he had turned gay over those four years and left his wife, and he felt that the only cause could be the accident. The disgusting part about this is that he actually won the case, and $200,000 from the other driver.
Violent Games Made Them Murderers
We’ve all heard the arguments before; video games and movies “desensitize” children toward violence. Linda Sanders and her band of grieving family members of the deceased Columbine High School shooting victims took those arguments to the extreme. These people, who had previously received sympathy for their losses, tried to get their hands on $5
billion in “damages” from the entertainment industry — for creating violent movies, and games like
Mortal Kombat and
Doom. Not only was the case thrown out, but the money-grubbers were ordered to pay for the industry’s legal fees.
The Case of the $54 Million Pants
A DC Administrative Law Judge got more than a bit upset when a local dry-cleaner misplaced his pants. He sued them for $54 million in damages, kicking off what is now the infamous
Pearson v. Chung and the Great American Pants Suit. The case went all the way to trial, in which Judge Pearson represented himself, and lost. He then lost his seat as a judge, along with any credibility he had left in the legal ranks. The Chungs, on the other hand, shut down the shop where it all took place.
Suing God
Being able to sue just about anybody is something that Ernie Chambers, a Nebraska State Senator, took to his advantage back in 2007 when he
sued God for making terroristic threats against the citizens of his constituency. Chambers was out to make a point; he wanted to demonstrate that the laws of his state were too lax when it comes to enabling people to sue anybody for anything, frivolously or not. To make the case truly hilarious, Chambers said that since God was omnipresent, he was within the court’s jurisdiction, and that since he was omniscient, he didn’t need to be served (since he already knew he was being sued).
Man Kills Dog (then Sues Owners)
Remember this guy? Andrew Burnett had a fit of road rage on a San Jose freeway in 2001, and threw Sara McBurnett’s lap-dog into oncoming traffic. He was arrested and convicted of the crime, but later decided to try and
sue both Mrs. McBurnett, along with the local newspaper, for causing him to suffer PTSD and mental anguish. The case was thrown out.
The Case of Jack Ass v. Jackass
Viacom found themselves slapped with an unusual lawsuit in 2002, when a man formerly named Bob Craft cited infringement and defamation. His reasoning? He had legally changed his name to Jack Ass in 1997 (seriously), which predated the Jackass franchise, and obviously meant that Viacom “plagiarized” and made foul use of his good name. His case, not that it had any merit to begin with, died when he did in 2003 — of suicide.
The Allegedly Ageist Sexpot
In Germany, an aging playboy got upset when the girl he had taken out for a night on the town refused to sleep with him. Apparently, Rolf Eden had been quite the ladies’ man back in the 50s and 60s, so he felt entitled to everything the 19-year-old had to offer. When she said that he was simply too old for her, he took her to court citing “ageism” as a form of discrimination. Obviously, his case didn’t last.
The Distressed Doppelganger
Most people find it amusing, or even beneficial, to bear a striking resemblance to somebody famous. Alan Heckard, on the other hand, found it to be a horrible experience, and decided to sue both Michael Jordan, his look-alike, as well as Nike’s top man Phil Knight for a tidy sum of $832 million. He felt that he was entitled to the amount since he had suffered “permanent injury, defamation, and emotional pain.” He dropped the suit just months later.
The Case of the “Eye-Catching” Thong
Macrida Patterson is a special kind of pathetic. In 2008, the highly unattractive 52-year-old Los Angeles woman sued Victoria’s Secret after claiming that a metal clip flew off her thong and hit her in the eye, causing excruciating pain. Let’s be honest here; the lady had no business wearing a thong to begin with — but even if she were a bikini model, this suit would still be frivolous.
Weak Stomach, Weaker Case
Austin Aitken decided to sue NBC back in 2005 for $2.5 million in damages after losing his lunch while watching
Fear Factor. He said that the sight of people being forced to eat rats caused him “suffering, injury, and great pain” — along with dizziness, apparently. He says that upon seeing this, he vomited and then ran into a doorframe. The judge threw him out of the courtroom.
Defective Beer Goggles
Beer makes a lot of people do stupid things, but none of them has ever been so grandiose as this. Richard Overton sued Anheuser-Busch in 1991 for false advertisement. He claimed that commercials depicting men who drink Budweiser beers had made him believe that drinking the beer would surely get him beautiful women in mass quantities, and that this belief had driven him to buy and drink more than he would have otherwise. This of course resulted in emotional distress, mental injury, and financial loss — in his own mind. The case was thrown out.
Batman v. Batman?
Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros woke up to quite a surprise one morning back in 2008 when the mayor of Batman, Turkey sued them for name infringement. The mayor, who had apparently just seen
The Dark Knight, was incensed that the name of his fair oil-town had been usurped by those wily Americans. When questioned, nobody from the town of Batman could explain why it took them so long to come up with this one, since the comic had been out since 1939.
Man sues Bank of America for “1,784 Billion, Trillion Dollars” (Yes, Really)
This one is the most recent of the suits on this list, and definitely our favorite. Late last year, a man by the name of Dalton Chiscolm decided he had had enough of Bank of America’s terrible customer service, and sued the company for “1,784 billion, trillion dollars.” As if that weren’t enough, he also demanded an additional $200,164,000 on top of it, probably for what he perceived to be the likely court fees. A US District Court judge called the suit “incomprehensible,” and a professor at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences said that numbers like that are only dealt with “on a cosmic scale.” A judge gave Mr. Chiscolm a couple of weeks to come up with some explanation for his outlandish claims, but since he was just off his rocker the suit was quickly dismissed.
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