Please excuse my lack of wittiness; I have been battling the flu for three days now. As if I wasn’t losing faith in human beings already. This weekend, while sick at home, I decided that I would do some research on some of the most outrageous lawsuits ever. I was actually quite surprised at some of the ridiculous things that people think they can sue for. I mean it’s nothing new; American’s are way too quick to sue anyone for anything and the world knows it (and jokes about it often). Below are twelve of the most absurd lawsuits ever filed. In no particular order.
Cheers.
Man sues Michael Jordan for looking like him:
Portland, Oregon resident Allen Heckard sued former basketball star Michael Jordan and Nike founder Phil Knight for $832 million, claiming that they have made Jordan such a recognizable figure that he has suffered personal harm from being repeatedly mistaken for the basketball player. Within a month, Heckard had dropped the suit.
Woman sues store for injury caused by own child:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
Boy stealing hubcaps sues man who ran him over:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps.
Man gets stuck in garage after burglary, sues family:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ‘em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish.
Man shoots beagle with pellet gun, sues family when bitten:
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered 4th Place in the Stella’s when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor’s beagle – even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.
Woman sues restaurant slipping on own drink:
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
Woman to cheap to pay cover sues club after accident:
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000….oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
Man Sues Homeless for $1 Million:
Karl Kemp, owner of a ritzy antiques store on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, sued four homeless people who congregate in front of his shop because they scare off potential customers. The amount of the suit: $1 million, payable apparently in shopping carts full of aluminum cans.
Insurance Company Sues 81-Year-Old Woman for Icy Driveway:
A “meals on wheels” program was delivering food to 81-year-old Anne Keipper in Brookfield, Wisconsin when the delivery woman — who wasn’t wearing boots — slipped on a patch of ice in the driveway and fell. Three years later, Keipper was notified that she was being sued by Sentry Insurance for the medical expenses it paid related to the delivery woman’s fall. The moral: senior citizens too frail to leave their house to get food should diligently shovel ice off their driveway.
Girls Sued for Baking Cookies:
Two well-meaning teenage girls in Durango, Colorado decided one summer night to bake cookies for their neighbors. They packaged the baked treats in plastic wrap with a heart-shaped message wishing the recipients a good night. When they knocked at the door of Wanita Renea Young, however, the woman became so terrified that someone was outside her house at 10:30 PM that she suffered an anxiety attack and successfully sued the girls for $930 to cover a trip to the emergency room. Her request for money to cover pain and suffering was denied.
Sued against fast-good giants for being fat:
Caesar Barber, 56, of New York City. Barber, who is 5-foot-10 and 270 pounds, says he is obese, diabetic, and suffers from heart disease because fast food restaurants forced him to eat their fatty food four to five times per week. He filed suit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC, who “profited enormously” and asked for unspecified damages because the eateries didn’t warn him that junk food isn’t good for him. The judge threw the case out twice, and barred it from being filed a third time. Is that the end of such McCases? No way: lawyers will just find another plaintiff and start over, legal scholars say.
Idiot sues Winnebago after cruise control accident:
Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set.
The Oklahoma jury awarded her $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manual as a result of this suit.
Sorta makes you wonder about the future of the human race, doesn’t it?
Tags: Funny, Lawsuits, lawyers, rediculous
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