Ridiculous Lawsuits
Top 10 outrageous legal battles
In honor of a New York City woman suing her college because she can't find a job, TIME reviews the most ridiculous lawsuits ever filed, settled or dismissed.
A "class" action
Like many other recent college graduates, 27-year-old Trina Thompson has struggled to land a job since getting her diploma in April 2009. But instead of blaming the recession for her employment woes, the New York City native filed a lawsuit against her alma mater, Monroe College in the Bronx, N.Y., to recoup the $70,000 she spent on a bachelor's degree in information technology — saying the school's Office of Career Advancement has failed miserably at helping her advance her career.
Thompson is also asking for $2,000 to make up for the stress of her fruitless three-month job search. But it doesn't look as if the folks at Monroe College are going to pony up anytime soon. "It is clear that no college, especially in this economy, can guarantee employment," officials said in a statement. So much for teaching them a lesson.
What you want isn't what you get
In 1992, Stella Liebeck, then 79, was in the passenger seat of her parked car when she spilled a scalding 49¢ cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap, causing third-degree burns that required skin grafts and two years of treatment. After attempting to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 — enough, she said, to cover her medical costs — Liebeck brought the case to court in 1994 when the fast-food giant countered by offering a paltry $800. Although a jury awarded Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages, McDonald's and Liebeck reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement to preclude the possibility of appeals.
Liebeck's lawsuit became a media sensation — and, fairly or otherwise, transformed her into the poster child for frivolous lawsuits. Today Liebeck is the namesake for the Stella Awards, which are distributed annually to the most laughable legal claims. Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the crazy clash is that Liebeck, who died in 2004 at the age of 91, didn't live to see the addition of iced coffee to McDonald's menu.
Regrets, he's had a few
In 1995, a Virginia prison inmate named Robert Lee Brock sued ... himself. "For violating my religious beliefs, I want to pay myself $5 million, but I ask the state to pay it since I can't work," Brock wrote in a handwritten seven-page lawsuit.
Brock's claim argued that when he "partook of alcoholic beverages" in 1993, he breached his own religious and civil rights by getting himself drunk enough to break the law. "When I get out I'd pay it back," Brock promised. His case didn't move Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, who dismissed the lawsuit even while she praised Brock's "innovative approach to civil-rights litigation." Seriously, Judge — don't encourage him.
Aren't you the guy from Space Jam?
Apparently not everyone wants to be like Mike. In 2006, Allen Heckard of Portland, Ore., sued Michael Jordan for $416 million on the grounds that his resemblance to the hoops legend caused emotional pain and suffering, defamation and permanent injury. (He sued Nike for the same amount, faulting them for making Jordan a celebrity.)
Heckard, who stands about 6 in. shorter than His Airness, said he could not attend religious services, ride public transportation, play sports in public parks or eat at a restaurant without getting mistaken for the former Chicago Bulls guard. Maybe Heckard's shaved head, earring and Air Jordan sneakers had something to do with that? "I'm constantly being accused of looking like Michael, and it makes it very uncomfortable for me," Heckard said. "Even when I go to the gym I'm being accused of playing ball like him." Yes, it's easy to see how that would cause emotional pain and suffering. Heckard eventually dropped the suit.
No Laughing Matter
The talk was tough, but definitely not cheap. After director Woody Allen filed a $10 million lawsuit against American Apparel Inc. for unlawful use of his image to sell merchandise, attorneys for the clothing company fired back by requesting information about Allen's family life, personal finances and career. The company's motive? To construct the argument that Allen's image wasn't worth that much. "After the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America's desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is," said corporate spokesman Stuart Slotnick, who added that Allen's ex-wife, actress Mia Farrow, and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, whom Allen married, could be subpoenaed to testify.
On May 18, 2009 — the day the trial was set to begin in a Manhattan courtroom — American Apparel settled the suit and agreed to pay the director $5 million. But the verbal sparring wasn't over. From the courthouse steps, a still miffed Allen proclaimed, "Threats and press leaks by American Apparel designed to smear me did not work ... I suspect this dose of legal reality led to their 11th-hour settlement." For his part, Dov Charney, president of American Apparel, remained nonchalant about the kerfuffle: "We would never try to malign the dignity of Mr. Allen ... I hope to meet him on more friendly terms at a different point."
Finger Foods
In 2005, while eating chili at a Wendy's in San Jose, Calif., Anna Ayala claimed to bite into a 1½-inch "crunchy" finger. In the first step toward a potentially lucrative lawsuit, Ayala filed a claim with the franchise, earning her tabloid notoriety and turning the fast-food chain into a national punch line. Ayala's story started sounding fishy, however, when lab tests turned up no traces of saliva on the offending digit. A "CSI type of investigation," as San Jose police chief Rob Davis put it, soon revealed that the finger "was not consistent with an object that had been cooked in chili at 170° for three hours," per Wendy's policy — and therefore must have been planted in the chili after the fact. As it turned out, Ayala's husband, Jaime Plascencia, had bought the severed finger from a co-worker — who had recently lost it in an on-the-job accident — for $100. The couple had offered the man, Brian Rossiter, $250,000 to keep the plan under wraps.
In September 2005, Ayala and Plascencia pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file a false insurance claim and attempted grand theft with damages exceeding $2.5 million. Ayala was sentenced to nine years in prison; Plascencia got 12. In a tearful courtroom appeal for leniency, Ayala called the scam a "moment of poor judgment." The lesson here: if you're going to plant a finger in your food to extort money from a corporation, make sure it's fully cooked.
He'll sue the pants right off ya!
Roy L. Pearson Jr. was just your average judge in Washington, D.C. — until a neighborhood dry cleaner misplaced a pair of his trousers. Arguing that he never received "same-day service" or "satisfaction guaranteed" as advertised by the mom-and-pop owners of Custom Cleaners, Pearson sought satisfaction the only way an overeducated lawyer knows how: by filing a $67 million lawsuit against store proprietors Soo and Jin Chung. (He later lowered his demand to $54 million.)
In 2007 a judge ruled in favor of the Chungs, and Pearson walked away with nothing. But that didn't stop him from filing an appeal (which was also rejected). In the end, though, everybody lost. The Chungs had to shutter two of their three stores to finance their defense, and Pearson lost his job four months into the lawsuit after a review board found he lacked "appropriate judgment and judicial temperament."
This Lawsuit's for You
Most of us acknowledge that the beer-commercial fantasy of beaches, babes and booze is just that — a fantasy — and move on. Not Richard Overton. In 1991, he sued Anheuser-Busch for $10,000, citing false and misleading advertising that allegedly caused emotional distress, mental injury and financial loss. Overton said the company's ads — which depicted beer's magical ability to facilitate "scenic tropical settings [and] beautiful women and men engaged in endless and unrestricted merriment" — turned out to be "untrue." The case was dismissed.
Overton didn't back down, though. In a 2007 interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette, he took umbrage at his popular image as "a sexually frustrated guy who drinks Bud Light so he can find pretty girls." Overton is a teetotaler with three children by his wife of three decades. The spark for the suit, he said, was seeing his young kids captivated by Spuds MacKenzie, the dog depicted in Bud Light commercials. "I looked at them, and I thought, 'This isn't right,' " Overton said. "Here are my kids being drawn to part of the culture of alcohol because of this advertising. That's when I figured something needed to be done." Fair enough. But perhaps targeting the company's failure to turn boozy fantasies into reality was the wrong tactic.
Swing and a Miss
Plenty of people think professional athletes earn too much money, but former newspaper carrier Mark Guthrie probably isn't among them. While working for the Hartford Courant, Guthrie received payments intended for another Mark Guthrie employed by the Tribune Company — in this case, a relief pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. The payroll mistake resulted in the poorer Guthrie getting a $301,000 boost to his bank account.
When the company recouped $275,000 of that sum, Guthrie froze his account and informed the Tribune Co. that the rest would be returned when they ensured him that he would receive his own salary — and that the snafu wouldn't force him to contend with tax snags stemming from the overpayment. Instead, Tribune lawyers sued him for the rest of the money.
A Rose by any other name
Good luck paging Robert Craft at a department store. In 1997 Craft legally changed his name to Jack Ass as part of a movement to raise awareness about drunk driving. When MTV's popular TV series by the same name debuted three years later, Mr. Ass lived up to his moniker, suing Viacom for $10 million in damages for plagiarism and defamation. His claim: that the crude, stunt-based show damaged his, well, good name. The show's stars — no strangers to stupidity themselves — were unperturbed. "I can't wait to get served the papers. What could be more American than just suing the living s___ out of someone for no reason at all?" said Johnny Knoxville. The case was eventually dismissed.
(Published by Time Magazine – July 5, 2010)