A court of law is a good place to get justice, defend your honor, or get compensation for wrongdoings. But, in the U.S., suing other people has become quite a common occurrence. Every year, people file over 100 million lawsuits in state trial courts and around 400k cases federally.

Some people say that there’s a ‘lawsuit culture’ in America, and some of the cases from this list might just prove that. We’ve scoured the Internet and found the most absurd and hilarious reasons people sued someone, courtesy of this, this, this, and this Quora thread.

So, scroll down and see for yourself how suing Redd Bull for not growing wings panned out for the person who filed the suit.

#1

When I was taking business law in night school I came across the following case.

A family in Kansas goes out one night to a movie. While they are gone a burglar climbs up to the second story of the house and enters through a window. While going downstairs he trips on a piece of loose carpet. He tumbles down the stairs and breaks his leg. The family returns home and at the time the father could have legally k**led the intruder. Instead he calls the police who arrest him and take him to a hospital. The burglar proceeds to sue the homeowner over the dangerous piece of loose carpet and the homeowner’s insurance company settles with him.

Image credits: Robert Martin Pollack

#2

This was an actual case I was involved in at work.

A bunch of kids stole a car and drove it round at high speed eventually crashing it.

One of the kids in the back suffered life changing injuries. He sued the driver (his mate, who he’d encouraged to steal the car). The uninsured drivers scheme (paid for by a levy on all drivers) paid out a figure of over a million pounds.

Make of this as you will.

Image credits: Andrew Turvey

#3

When I was a young lawyer, one of my relatives came to me and said that a woman owed him $45.00. He said that she had told him several times that she would pay him, but she didn’t. For some reason, it really bothered him. There were other people who owed him a lot more money. He asked me if I would sue her. I told him I would.

This was about 30 years ago, and the filing fee in Justice Court was $35.00. I sued her, got her served, and took a judgment against her for $45.00.

After the judgment was signed, I sent her a demand letter. When she didn’t respond, I begin post-judgment collection procedures.

Shortly after that, she died. She was only 36 years old. I don’t know what she died of. We never collected the judgment.

Image credits: Mark D. Dunn

#4

My maternal grandfather used to own a car lot, he sold trucks and vans to businesses and stuff. I think he also junked some cars as well. Anyway he had this big fence protecting the lot, inside their two guard dogs (I think Dobermans). There was a Beware of Dog sign as well, yes that’s important.

One night this young guy climbed the fence trying to find stuff to burglarize him (I also want to make clear that the offices were inside the fence’s perimeter, he might of been looking for the cash). Unsurprisingly the two dogs find him, and jack his s**t up. He got arrested for breaking and entering. A little later he tries to sue my grandfather claiming that he couldn’t read english and because of that he didn’t know of the dogs. He claimed that if he had a sign in Spanish that he would of never burglarized the lot, and because of that my grandfather was responsible for his injuries (he might of also tried to use that to plead his innocence, but don’t quote me).

The thief lost.

This one is less stupid, more sad, bit it was a worthless lawsuit nonetheless. My mother used to work at another car lot (kinda the same situation, mostly selling to contractors and stuff). This one was associated with Ford. Now in Delaware we have a 3 strikes your out rule. If you’re arrested for a felony three separate times, you can go to prison for life. This young guy, less than 25 yrs old, stole some parts off the trucks. He had two felonies, this was his third. He was arrested and they found the stuff on him. They also had recordings of him on the cameras popping off hubcaps. So obviously he was accused of theft. He then sued Ford, saying that they falsely accused him. I don’t know how it would of worked out for him if he had just accepted it. I don’t know if mercy could of been given, but this lawsuit meant they had no choice but to press charges and countercountercharge. That kid signed away his rights for sure when he sued them.

Full disclosure, I was in middle school when that happened, so it’s possible I misunderstood some details or misremembered.

Image credits: Zachary Mcginness

#5

Red Bull doesn’t actually give you wings

In 2014, Red Bull was sued by Benjamin Careathers who argued that despite drinking Red Bull for 10 years, he hadn’t developed a pair of wings (welcome to America everyone). He argued that their motto ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ obviously implies that drinking their energy drink would lead to feathers growing from your back.

Red Bull agreed to pay $13 million to settle the dispute and they even created a website so that everyone who bought a Red Bull from 2002 to 2015 would be eligible for a $10 compensation.

Image credits: Matthew Prince

#6

My wife and I were sued for a cat.

More specifically, a woman stole our cat, then sued us after we got him back. He entered our lives when he ran into our upstairs neighbor’s apartment and hid behind their washer/dryer. My son, at over 6′ tall, was the only one whose arms were long enough to reach him. My son pulled him out, brought him downstairs, and handed him to my wife, at which point the cat melted into her arms as if it was the first time in months that he’d felt safe.

We took pictures of him and posted “found” posters around the neighborhood, then took him to the local animal shelter. A week later, when no one had contacted us or the shelter looking for him, we adopted him.

Several months later, someone came to our door claiming to have seen their cat in our window. Since we had three cats, we asked them to describe it. They gave a fairly accurate description of this cat, except for saying that he was a girl. The shelter had neutered and chipped him before adoption, but he was quite obviously male when we first found him! Several days later, a woman came to our door and asked if she could just hold the cat for a moment. My wife’s heart went out to her, so she agreed. She handed the cat to the woman, who then took off running. My son chased her, and saw her get into a waiting SUV and drive away. The car looked familiar, so we kept a lookout for it whenever we walked our dog.

After a few weeks, we spotted the woman getting into the same car in the next building over from ours. We called the police and gave them the address and the woman’s description. They actually recognized both, having had multiple run-ins with her before. They went to talk to her, and got her to bring the cat back. She showed up with the cat and her three young children, all looking very sad. We promised to go to the vet the next day to have him checked for the chip. If it wasn’t there, they could have him back. If it was, they wanted to be able to visit him occasionally.

Well, the chip was there, proving that he was the cat we’d adopted. We informed them, but they never contacted us about visitation. The next contact we had was a summons from Small Claims Court demanding that we either return the cat or pay whatever the maximum dollar amount allowed by Small Claims. Then we got a letter inviting us to have the case tried on the Judge Joe Brown TV show. That ended up falling through because the woman didn’t respond to her invitation.

We wound up in court where we had the adoption papers, chip records, and multiple vet receipts, and she had three sad-looking kids and some blurry cat pictures on her cellphone. I think it was all the judge could do to not laugh in her face. At one point during the whole fiasco, I looked up her name in public records. From what I found, I can only surmise that she apparently makes her living suing people.

Image credits: Dennis Kovacich

#7

Just a few years ago, a man tried to take his cleaners to the court! A local dry cleaner shop had lost a pair of his pants. He refused them when they were found, refused compensation for them, and just kept upping the ante to a lawsuit asking 67 million dollars for this pair of pants. The shop had a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign in their window, and he said he was not satisfied with their service, so the sign was fraudulent.

The owners of the dry cleaners were tied up in litigation for years and stood to lose their business and everything, despite several good faith efforts to correct a not-uncommon situation. Eventually, the judge rightfully denied the claim, beyond the original value of the pants, and fined the plaintiff an amount for acting in bad faith. The man, who was a lower court judge (!) soon found himself without a job. His position was not renewed, for showing lack of judgement in misusing legal resources and making a mockery of the justice system. Guess who was sued next?

Image credits: Aileen Olsen Hampton

#8

1) One Dog Bite = $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

After being bitten by a dog on a bus – and then, worse, having his photo taken without permission during treatment – a man named Anton Purisima, 62, filed a 22-page lawsuit demanding the City of New York and other defendants to pay $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or two undecillion dollars, or more money than actually exists on the planet.He claims his suffering can’t be repaired by money and is therefore “priceless” – hence his hilarious demand.

2) Astrologer sues Nasa for $30m

A Russian astrologer ,Marina Bai, filed a case against Nasa for crashing a probe into a comet, claiming it has distorted her horoscope.
She demanded $300m (£170m) in damages, saying the probe’s impact on Comet Tempel 1 in July 2005, had violated her “life and spiritual values”.

3) Sued for theft of godly powers
Self-Proclaimed God-man Christopher Roller sued magician David Copperfield for $50,000,000 in 2005.The basis of the suit? Mr. Roller claims Mr. Copperfield has stolen or improperly used Mr. Roller’s “godly powers without permission to perform magic on stage.”

Image credits: Deepak Madhu

#9

A brazilian lady had a lawsuit against Banco do Brasil (one of the largest retail banks in Brazil) because some old account her grandfather had opened in her name when she was a child, but the bank closed it without permission… so the lawsuit was based on all the interests for 50 years… but in those 50 years, Brazil had several periods of hyperinflation and currency changed some 5 times, each time it changed they would cut several zeros from the currency (like… $50000 Cruzeiros became $5 Reais)

Somehow, she and her lawyer came to a figure of 2 duodecillion Reais.

The news articles made fun it was larger than Brazilian GDP.

And that was actually such an UNDERESTIMATION of the giant value that it shows how people can´t really visualize such numbers.

Larger than the brazilian GDP?

It was probably larger than the value of the entire Galaxy. (value, not GDP).

Earth’s GDP is 100 trillion dollars.

So if we divide 2.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 by 100.000.000.000.000…

You get 20.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000… 20 septillion…

Meaning… that value is equal to 20 septillion Earth GDPs.

If the Milky Way had 100 billion Earths… that would mean the value would be equal to the GDP of 200 trillion galaxies, each one with 100 billion Earths.

lol

Image credits: Rogerio Penna

#10

I was contacted by a client who told me that her car was hit by another motorist while the car was parked and claimed she was injured as a result; she wanted to sue for her injuries. This sounded quite routine and told her, sure, no problem. Come to my office and let’s talk some more, get the facts down and we will take it from there.

After about 10–15 minutes of discussing the details, I came to find out that my client’s initial description of what happened (I.e., my parked car was hit by another motorist and was claiming injury) was factually true, but she was not in the car when it was hit! She only witnessed her car being hit and was so emotionally distraught over the ordeal she fell to the ground and claimed injury yet neither sought medical treatment nor manifested any obvious signs of being hurt.

OMG! What I did next was evil. I told myself I would not accept the case because it was all bulls**t, but I did not tell her that. What I did tell her was that this case needed the attention of an attorney who was steep in experience with this very fact pattern. So, I recommended my law school classmate, a very close friend with whom we reciprocate referrals (and also play practical jokes on one another).

I told her that her case should not go uncompensated, it was an egregious act of negligence on the part of the driver who hit her parked car, and that the harm she suffered was quite foreseeable (yes, I am evil). I recommended she call this attorney renown for his expertise with such cases ASAP (not disclosing he was my good friend); he is the only one in town that can help you.

She thanked me and looked quite encouraged. However, before she left, I told her that the attorney I recommended was quite busy and that he will probably decline to take the case claiming such “busy-ness” or some other excuse. I told her do not accept any excuse. You should stand your ground and be unyielding in getting him to take the case.

A few days later I got the call I expected from my friend, “You SOB! You are a complete a*shole. Remember, paybacks are a b***h!” A smile on my face for the rest of the day!

Image credits: Aidan Kelly

#11

My daughter worked in a law office for years and saw some of the craziest stuff. The one that comes to mind immediately was a renter who found out that the previous tenant had committed s****de in his apartment. He sued for anguish and a laundry list of other things and who knows, he might have gotten away with it.

However, he took it just a little too far, claiming that the landlord had not even switched out the curtains and said he’d found globs of brains on them. He claimed he was so distraught that he could no longer work. He produced the curtains as evidence, which did appear to have dried out clumps of some sort of pale yellow organic material clinging to it.

The landlord knew this was a scam, as he’d had a hazmat cleanup crew scour the place after the previous tenant had left in a body bag. He’d had walls replaced and painted, carpets, blinds and drapes removed and replaced, so he knew that if the stuff on the curtains were indeed brain matter, they had not come from the previous tenant.

The lawyer asked if they might be able to have DNA work done (at considerable expense back then!) and the judge agreed, They didn’t have to wait long, however, as the organic material was discovered not to be human brains…but chicken fat. The scammer lost his case soundly and was ordered to pay all of the landlord’s attorney fees and all charges and losses related to the scam.

Clever…just not clever enough.

Image credits: Ali Ziegler

#12

My uncle enjoyed fishing and hunting and he twice bought outfitter resorts in the woods, that he would operate for a few years and then resell. After he purchased a small hotel in the Laurentians, a bit over an hour from Montréal. He apparently expected similar experience to his outfitting days but without having to live in the boondocks.

And that’s when things started to unravel. Despite the name hotel the establishment was mostly a restaurant and bar. Something he had operated in the boondocks. But while his outfitting customers would have a few drinks at the bar before retiring early so as to rise early to go fishing or hunting the patrons of the hotel were birds of a different feather. There was a handful of them who would stay, forcing my uncle to man, or pay someone to tend, the bar. And this annoyed him to no end.

When spring came and the lake on shore of which his hotel was located thawed he noticed that a small corner of the grounds was flooded. Just a few square metres and nothing that threatened the buildings. But he jumped on that and sued the seller for this being a hidden defect and asked the court to nullify the sale.

He didn’t go very far with that and later try to sue his lawyer for taking such a ridiculous case.

Image credits: Daniel Poissant

#13

I saw someone who took a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission (aka “joyriding,” a minor felony in Washington.). Surprisingly, such people are arrested pretty quickly. The car had been taken from a used car lot. Within an hour he was arrested, the car returned to the car lot, and he was booked into the jail, where he promptly bonded out. An hour after that, the owner of the car lot called the police, reporting that the car had been stolen again. This time, the police went directly to where the defendant worked, and stopped him as he was pulling into the parking lot.

When he had his arraignment, the judge read the charge aloud to him, and when he got to count II, he stated that it must be a typo because it listed the same date and the same VIN in both counts. When the prosecutor noted it was in fact two counts, the judge was at a loss for words, finally stammering incredulously “you stole the same car twice?” necessitating my jumping in to assert my client’s Fifth Amendment Rights. Very unprofessional thing for a judge to do at an arraignment, but the judge just couldn’t help himself.

I guess the “dumb” here was not the prosecutor’s alleging two counts, but my client’s having made two attempts.

Image credits: Al Rossi

#14

Bodine v. Enterprise High School

Ricky Bodine, a 19-year-old high-school graduate who, with three other friends (one of whom had a criminal record), decided the night of March 1, 1982, to steal a floodlight from the roof of the Enterprise High School gymnasium. Ricky climbed the roof, removed the floodlight, lowered it to the ground to his friends, and, as he was walking across the roof (perhaps to steal a second floodlight), he fell through the skylight.

Bodine suffered terrible injuries.

Question: Is the school legally responsible for burglars’ safety?

Bodine sued for $8 million and settled for $260,000 plus $1200/month for life.

Image credits: D. Weed

#15

Can I join in? After all, I’m “only” a legal secretary (retired at that), not a lawyer.

Decades ago a new Chief Justice took his seat on the Supreme Court of Kentucky. In a magazine article he reminisced about his career that had led him to this position, including the years when he was a judge granting divorces.

One day a couple and their lawyers appeared before him. The couple were divorcing and they had agreed on all the things that had to be settled — alimony, child custody, child support, property distribution — with one exception. Which was, they hadn’t been able to decide who was going to keep their waffle iron.

The judge assumed that the waffle iron held some sentimental value for both spouses. But it wasn’t explained to him, and anyway, he was angry that the court’s time was being taken up with such a trivial matter. He told the parties that he was going to call a 15-minute recess. If after that time they still hadn’t agreed on who’d keep the waffle iron, he would order a sale of all the marital property on the courthouse steps, waffle iron included. With the proceeds split 50–50, they could both buy as many waffle irons as they wanted.

True to his word, he called the recess. When everyone reconvened 15 minutes later, he was informed that the spouses had decided who would take the waffle iron. Having read the article this far, I was deeply disappointed that it didn’t say who ended up with the appliance, and could only think of three possible explanations. One, the reporter had forgotten to ask (unlikely). Two, the judge had forgotten (almost as unlikely). Or three, he didn’t ask because he didn’t care. He was only concerned about two signatures on the settlement agreement so he could sign the order granting the divorce.

Drat.

Image credits: Angela Stockton

#16

It was 1973 in the Chicago court room of a U.S. District Court judge (later Judge of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.) 10 am status calls. Federal judges hear all kinds of civil and criminal cases involving federal statutes and regulations. The bailiff called a case and a woman appeared pro se in her case against the federal government.
The judge perused the file and then asked her “If you win this case, how much will you receive as damages?” I think she said 10 dollars. The rest of the court room began to wake up. (it cost more than that to file the suit.)
Then the judge reached under his robe and pulled out his wallet. He offered her a $10 bill if she would settle and get the case off of his docket. She refused saying it was the principle of the thing. (It could have been an important principle, but it wasn’t a class action suit.) The judge set the next status date and I think the government attorney received a silent hint that the Judge did not want to see the case again.

Image credits: James Videbeck

#17

About 3 years into my newly minted career I bought a practice. One of the patients that I had inherited sued the prior physician whose practice I bought due to his death. The suite named me in his place ( not for records but actually me).

The actual filing papers were so poorly written with numerous grammatical and spelling errors in the patient’s own handwriting.

She was requesting “ One Trillion dollars”,

I read it and thought it was a joke, so put it aside. While at a function a couple of months later I mentioned it in passing to a friend who was an attorney. His reaction that I had not notified my malpractice company alarmed me and I rushed home to do so.

Their discovery showed that the plaintiff had been using C****ne and fell asleep on her infant son and accidentally suffocated him causing his demise.

In turn, she proceeded to sue EVERY PHYSICIAN, HOSPITAL, CLINIC ABD EVEN THE OBGYN WHO HAD DELIVERED THE INFANT.

I was the last remaining entity that answered this suite and would have had to SETTLE

That shows how some malpractice suits are downright frivolous.

Image credits: Eve Sang-Bryan

#18

In 2015 in the UK, a dispute between two neighbours got out of hand.

The main problem was noise complaints after a lady claimed her next-door neighbours and their children were making too much noise. She constantly complained to them and even shouted at them to shut up.

Eventually, the lady got so fed up that she threw a bucket of water out of her window at them.

Her neighbours reported her to the police for assault and sued her for personal injuries.

The courts actually sided with her neighbours and she was ordered to pay them compensation.

Image credits: Laura McCallum

#19

Well, Fox tried to sue itself once. The cartoon The Simpsons made a satirical comment about the network, and Fox opened a lawsuit before being reminded that they were suing their own network. They dropped it almost immediately.

Image credits: Kristin Leitner

#20

1-Richard Overton woke up one day, and after going through life, he switched on the TV.

Surprisingly, he encountered an ad for Anheuser Busch’s Beer.

It featured women in bikinis on tropical islands who were chatting with men over a drink of Beer. Impressed by the ad, he must have realised the benefits of beer and probably went to the nearest store to try the heavenly nectar.

Spoiler alert, nothing happened. No women were near him. No water to swim in. The gall! How could Anheuser Busch promote the idea that fantasies could become true! Oh no! They were still at large, duping all of America and stealing their innocence.

Worst of all, he realised that alcohol was dangerous. Scary and so unexpected!

Valiantly, he decided to fight for the rights of beer drinkers worldwide. On June 6 1991, our hero sued Anheuser Busch for $10000 because the Tv commercials “involving tropical settings, and beautiful women had caused him physical and mental injury, emotional distress and financial loss.

The poor man! He must be scarred!

Remember kids, BEER IS BAD. Especially Anheuser Busch.

Unfortunately, he didn’t win. However, we will never forget him. Blessed be that man.

Image credits: Aakash

#21

An Garda Síochána is the Irish police force. This happened at their training college. This is a true story.

The trainees were about to begin a class in restraint and physical intervention. The instructors had the trainees do a warm-up first which involved some running on the spot. One individual had failed to tie his shoelaces properly, he stepped on the one lace as he raised his other leg and fell over on his side. The instructors immediately attended to him, to see if he was injured and if he required first-aid. Besides some minor bruising, he was fine.

The trainee then proceeded to sue the police force, of which he was not yet a fully-fledged member but just a police student because apparently it was their fault that he was such a f**king moron that he had failed to properly tie his shoelaces and subsequently fallen over and suffered little or no injury.

The case went nowhere.

Another case where the Guards (as they are referred to) were sued involved a Crime Scene photographer. This young woman had graduated from college with a degree in forensics and/or criminology and after a vigorous recruitment and vetting procedure had secured a position with the CSI unit with the cops in Dublin. These jobs are very rare so she must have been very good. Six months into the job she had attended a murder scene, a gangland shooting in Dublin. From what I read it was gruesome, blood everywhere, but then what do you expect when the victim has been shot multiple times. Afterwards she went on sick leave and then sued the Guards for emotional and psychological distress, because she had to photograph a crime scene of a murder, which was her job, which was the career that she had pursued. How can you possibly sue your employer for having to do your actual f**king job ?

Image credits: Gerard Wall

#22

Someone was attacked by a bum who was wielding a meat cleaver. He then waited almost 2 years without any medical treatment, probably because his injuries healed and didn’t result in anything permanent. He called about 1 month before the statute of limitations would expire and he wanted to sue the government instead of the bum. His reasoning was that the police allowed it to happen because they were in on the secret communist party following him from his homeland and that the bum was also a communist agent. He also had absolutely no proof. The scar was barely visible. There was no footage, no documents from police or anyone. To me there were also no damages at that point. The guy was nuts. I explained that the statute of limitations for government would be 6 months according to the facts I see, so he should check around for someone else’s opinion.

Oh, and a funny guy who had $10,050 in property damage so he insisted on a civil limited lawsuit. This was for property only. I explained that small claims would be much cheaper and faster and that civil limited wouldn’t be worth the time, added costs, and attorney fees for litigation despite the cap of small claims being $10,000 causing him to lose $50. He still insisted on civil limited. Like…why? He would rather the case languish for a year in litigation with contested liability and lose $5,000 instead.

Image credits: Hanson Hsu

#23

The client is a lumber yard out in a rural part of the country. Another company had sent over a driver to pick up a load of lumber using a flatbed semi truck. After all the lumber was loaded and strapped down, the driver left.

The driver left the lumber yard driveway, and then crossed a Railroad Track. (This was maybe 600 feet away from the lumber company office.) After crossing the bumpy Railroad Tracks, the driver stops again to re-tighten his load.

Then the lumber yard got a phone call from that driver’s employer, asking for him. They said, “Just a minute; we’ll see if we can grab him.” Then the lumber yard manager stepped outside, and honked the horn on his pickup truck to attract the truck driver’s attention, and then waved him back motioning that he had a phone call. The driver waved back to acknowledge.

So when the driver was done tightening his load, he got back into his truck, and proceeded to back up over the Railroad Tracks. Suddenly, a fast moving TRAIN smashed into the flatbed truck, k**ling the driver. It was a tragic accident.

And they sued the lumber yard suggesting the accident was their fault.

I’m not an attorney. I was the claims adjuster on the claim. I had our defense attorney file an Answer, and we also counter sued, based on a new statute pertaining to frivolous lawsuits.

What really ticks me off is that the management of the insurance company had some big push to dispose of cases because they felt our claim inventory was getting too large. They assigned a special team of adjusters to just throw fast money at each claim in an effort to CLOSE FILES. And they paid $5,000 to settle the claim.

Image credits: Sara Olson

#24

I was T-boned by a motorist who was speeding and ran a red light (I had the green light and was travelling far below the speed limit as I was making a turn from a stopped position).

It took 2 months for me to recover from my injuries and subsequent surgery. The police marvelled that I was not k**led when they saw the damage to my car. I would have been k**led if I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt (this was before airbags).

The other driver sued me for his own injuries. There were independent witnesses so there was little doubt as to who was at fault. He gave up after two years of doing battle with my insurer’s lawyers.

Image credits: Ken Dunham

#25

My favorite was this couple who sued Americsn Express for “upping” their credit limit “ostensibly” leading them to charging more and then finding themselves in financial ruin. The judge said, “Usually raising one’s credit limit is viewed as a good thing.” It was a bench trial, and he ruled against them.

Image credits: PJL

#26

A lawyer sued a Chinese restaurant for some cold takeout he received. He sued not only for the $50 in food, but also thousands in damages for mental distress. That is ridiculous.

Image credits: Beau Baez

#27

Subway got sued because their footlong wasn’t actually a foot long.

Back in 2013, a lawsuit against Subway went viral, claiming that their footlongs weren’t always 12 inches. I think the whole thing started when an Australian teen posted a picture on Facebook of the footlong next to a tape measure.

Subway eventually said that they would try and take more measures (hah) to make sure that their footlongs were actually a foot long. And apparently the 9 customers who brought the case forward got $500 each.

And you know what’s crazy? Apparently the lawyers got more than $500,000 in legal fees just for filing the case.

Image credits: Olivia Grace

#28

There was a man named Doug Costello who sold a used $40 USD printer on Craig’s list. He sold it to a man who frequently filed lawsuits and was known within the county for filing lawsuits about ridiculous things. The man who purchased it was named Gersh Zavodnik.

According to him, the printer was broken—not functional. Gersh sued Doug for ‘falsely advertising a malfunctioning printer with missing parts, and taking Gersh’s money.’

Zavodnik threw away the printer, although he sued Costello for a whopping 6k USD.

Now poor Zavodnik, he is emotionally distressed, as all people would be when they get a printer that doesn’t work… so he files another lawsuit. Taking it to the county superior court, he files a lawsuit for ‘breach of contract, fraud, conversion, deceptive advertising and emotional distress.’

…this guy is creative.

He tried 27 more times to get him to pay $30k USD for the sale of the $40 printer. He’s denied each time.

So Zavodnik, creative as he is, files a $300k lawsuit against Costello for conspiring with a judge. He also files a $600k lawsuit against Costello for liabilities for the sale of a $40 printer.

By this time, you are surely thinking: WTF?

And Costello ended up having to pay that $900k accumulated from multiple charges.

Six years after the sale of the $40 printer sale, Costello pays $30k for breach of contract.

Remember, this is a $40 printer on Craig’s list.

Image credits: John Anderson

#29

There was a rich businessman here in Toronto, a widower with three kids, all of whom he had already made arrangements to provide for so most of his estate was going to go to charity. He was getting on in years and found companionship with an older lady.

Naturally, as people do when they get older, he became increasingly unable to handle his own affairs. However, he had thought ahead and had already created a committee of three other men, all titans of industry, to manage his affairs if that happened.

So when it did, our rich man’s lady friend found that they were essentially putting her on a generous allowance rather than allowing her to buy whatever she wanted.

So she came to us to go to court and install her as the rich man’s substitute decision maker. Now, please note that this would not have been a problem had they been married, and they were on the verge of doing so, but one of the rich man’s friends reminded him before the ceremony that if he did get married, his carefully laid out estate plan would be thrown into absolute chaos which would most likely attract massive tax consequences, so he backed out.

Here’s the thing – we took on the case thinking we would get a big payout. There was a massive amount of money involved.

But problems presented themselves immediately. First, if a person chooses a substitute decision maker, the court is unlikely to replace them unless they’re doing something self-serving. Like I said, these three guys were all of the highest reputation and they had all known the rich guy for decades. They were doing a first rate job and were working well together.

However, our client had a series of old fraud convictions. Also, she stood to massively benefit if she was appointed.

It took virtually no time for the court to reject our application entirely. Her previous fraud convictions were the nail in the proverbial coffin.

The rich guy eventually passed and she worked out a settlement with the estate for ongoing support, which she was entitled to. The amount she received was about three times what I made in a year.

And we never did get paid.

Image credits: Steven Haddock

#30

I’ve seen many people file lawsuits for trivial reasons. A few that come to mind off the top of my head include:

The woman who sued the phone company in federal court for making a minor billing error, despite the fact that the phone company immediately corrected the error when she pointed it out to them.
The couple who sued the company that built their housing development because they thought a house four blocks away from theirs had an ugly chimney.
The man who filed a lawsuit in federal court against some children who had done a minor prank that took less than a minute to clean up.

Image credits: Alice Baker

#31

My policyholder operated food service in many jails and prisons around the country.

We got lots of lawsuits filed pro se by prisoners, usually complaining that they didn’t get salt packets with their meals, that the vegetarian meals just omitted the meat the other inmates got, that the halal meals were the same as the kosher meals, that they didn’t like the sandwich meat, and other trivialities.

The pro se suits were usually dismissed by the court. These nuisance claims still cost plenty in defense costs.

Image credits: Ingrid Halvorsen

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