15 Strangest Courtroom Cases Ever

From a loyal TV audience suing because the weather wasn’t right to a severed finger found in a bowl of chilli, we count 15 of the strangest cases ever seen in a courtroom

15 – Homeless Man Sues His Parents,

• This one comes in from early last year when Bernard Bey a homeless man living on the streets and in jail for over 20 years sued his parents – to get them a job
• He asked for $200,000 in emotional damages, to mortgage the parent’s home and acquire two Domino’s Pizza restaurants in order to provide jobs for his entire family
• He quoted his parents as indifferent to their children’s problems, relationships, poverty, status and station in life – but that he would drop the case if they would just sit down and talk to him like a normal human being

14 – Guy Sues Apple Because His iPad Can Display Porn,

• A lawyer from Tennessee from accidentally misspelled Facebook.com and instead wrote Fuckbook.com, where the images traumatised him
• He apparently could no longer tell the difference between internet porn and real life sex because of the dangerous content he accessed on an Apple device – and now he wants to have sex with girls younger than his wife who he claims to be old
• He suggests that Apple should implement a type of safe mode for devices that blocks easy-to-access porn from those unprepared

13 – Subway,

• Two New Jersey men sued Subway because their footlong sandwich, typically 12 inches long, was one inch from being an entire foot
• Their lawyer went on record saying, the case was about holding companies responsible for delivering the products they promised
• Since then many people have taken photos of their sandwich being 1 inch too short, and there had been talk of a class action lawsuit in order to bring justice to those emotionally scarred by this betrayal

12 – Happy Birthday,

• Everyone who has ever celebrated a birthday with their family knows this song, but not many people are aware that it’s legally owned by a music group known as Warner/Chappell
• It means every time the song is sung on TV or in movies, you have to pay a licensing fee to these guys – but Jennifer Nelson a documentary filmmaker decided to turn to the legal system to get the song moved into public domain
• It turns out that the melody has been around since the 1800s, used with different lyrics for a song called “Good Morning To All” – the case is: if true, that means the song is long out of copyright

11 – Bubbles,

• A case that started in 2001 when someone poured detergent into a public fountain and created a mountain of bubbles
• A passerby Kathy Kelly tripped on the bubbles and suffered a cut, which later became infected and worsened her diabetes
• She sued the city and in 2004, the jury ruled that the city was responsible for 70% of the injury because nobody had come to clean up the bubbles, and Kathy 30% because she was a klutz – they awarded her over a hundred thousand dollars and encircled the fountain with railing

10 – Pants,

• 2005, a dry cleaner loses Roy Pearson’s pair of pants, and in return he tries to sue them for 54 million dollars
• His entire case hinged on the tear-jerking tiny violin story about how the sign out the front of their office read “satisfaction guaranteed” and that he’d been defrauded by their incompetence
• The judge took his story to heart, laughed a bit, then ordered Roy to pay for the dry cleaner’s legal fees, and also advised him never to open a case claiming his pants were worth 50 million times their actual value again

9 – Weather,

• Weather stations aren’t usually accurate because of how difficult it is to foresee conditions that change day-to-day
• One woman from Israel got so fed up with the inaccuracy that she sued one station for leading her to believe the day would be sunny when it was wet and miserable
• She cited her dressing light, catching the flu, missing the work and getting medicated claiming the whole ordeal had caused her stress
• She sued the station and won a thousand dollars

8 – Job,

• One 27-year-old woman who passed her bachelor’s degree in info tech was so furious that she didn’t have a job lined up for her as soon as she finished the course, that she sued the school
• Not even 3 months after she graduated, she stepped up to say the career portion of her education hadn’t been sufficient enough in providing work opportunities for when she left
• She sued for $70,000 to recoup her tuition and an extra $2,000 for the stress of job hunting

7 – Batman,

• The mayor of a Turkish town called Batman, totally oblivious about a character also named Batman, to the point that he actually sued Warner Bros because of the Dark Knight films
• In his case, he demanded they agree there to be only one Batman in the world – his town, that he should receive royalties for use of the Batman name
• He cited a number of suicide cases in the town of Batman as psychological trauma felt by residents – yes, the reason they killed themselves is due to the shame of Batman getting his own film and the town ignored
• I’m sure that wouldn’t piss off their families

6 – Field Trip,

• A father annoyed at his daughter decided the punishment was to ground her from a field trip she wanted to go on – simple, right? Except this 12-year-old girl decided to take her father to court instead
• Since her parents were divorced, they allowed an objective third party to step in and rule in the girl’s favour – her mother had already punished her, rendering the father’s attempt to stop her from attending the field trip redundant
• Safe to say that girl will grow up not taking crap from a single person on Earth, especially from the people who raised her

5 – Finger,

• 2005, a woman called Anna tried to sue a Wendy’s restaurant because she found a severed fingertip in her bowl of chili
• The resulting publicity lost Wendy’s a huge amount from lost sales exceeding 20 million dollars, but no authorities could figure out where the finger had come from
• Eventually it was revealed a contact of Anna’s had lost the top of their finger in a work accident, and Anna had acquired it to settle a hundred dollar bet – she then decided to frame Wendy’s in the hope of getting some money
• She ended up getting a four years probation

4 – Taser,

• A double-pronged case stemming from one incident, a man who was acting crazy while getting arrested, so the officer drew her taser and fired but – oh noes – she accidentally drew her gun and shot him to death
• The city sued the taser company because of how similar they’d designed their weapon to a gun, and the man’s family sued the city for, well, shooting the dude in the chest for no reason
• Despite the officer’s attempt to use non-lethal force, courtrooms still frowned upon their excessive force against some handcuffed – breaking the fourth amendment

3 – Johnny Depp,

• Johnny Depp once had a crazy stalker, a girl in love with him under the illusion they were dating when, in reality, they weren’t
• She went driving one day and got into an accident, killing another driver – in court, her lawyer thought it might strengthen her case to get Johnny Depp to come down and tell the jury he had no idea who she was – that she was more than likely insane
• They wanted Johnny Depp to testify against a relationship he had no idea he was involved in, to prove a woman was insane – pretty typical weekend in Hollywood

2 – Cookies,

• Two teenage girls that had the audacity to go knocking on their neighbours door with a plate of homemade cookies
• The middle-aged woman who lived there broke into an anxiety attack upon hearing the knocks, and so did what any sane human being would do – she sued the teenage girls
• Even though they apologised, and offered to pay for her medical bills, the woman still took them to court asking for $900 – and for some reason, she won, teaching the kids a valuable lesson about never helping anyone because they’ll turn around and sue you

1 – Michael Jordan

• One guy who happened to look like Michael Jordan got so fed up with people stopping him in the street to ask for his autograph that he decided to sue Michael’s promotional agent
• For 15 years worth of trauma and personal injury, this Michael look-a-like asked for the grand total of $832 million dollars
• When asked why he decided on such a ludicrously high amount, he responded, I just took my age multiplied it by seven and two and then times it by a million – because I guess that’s what I deserve
• Suffice to say, he didn’t get diddly squat

 

 

 

 

 

LINKS
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