Suit Porn Thread

The 7 Most Absurd Lawsuits of All Time
April 16, 2010 Ridiculous lawsuits
By Eric


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A ridiculous lawsuit is like a train wreck. You don’t want to see it, but you just can’t help but stare. Below are seven of the most famous, absurd, ridiculous, and (insert your adjective of choice here) lawsuits of all time.

Coffee is hot?—Perhaps the most famous lawsuit in recent American history is the case against McDonalds for brewing hot coffee. It was 1994, and an elderly woman named Stella Liebeck sued McDonalds after she spilled a cup of their coffee and burned herself (the incident occurred 2 years earlier). Liebeck’s attorneys said the coffee was too hot, and the jury bought it, awarding her $2.86 million for her troubles. The judge reduced the total award to $640,000, and the case was even spoofed on a Seinfeld episode. The lesson: Coffee is hot.* Of course, some people are adamant that the McDonald’s coffee case had merit.
These beer goggles aren’t working—Beer commercials are famous for showing how your fantasies could come true if you just try their beer. Richard Overton took these commercials a little too seriously, and in 1991, he sued Anheuser-Busch for emotional distress after his fantasies of meeting beautiful women on an island (like they showed in the commercials) didn’t come true. Thankfully, the case was dismissed, and our legal system avoided another black eye.
This haunted house scares me—You’ve already learned that coffee is hot, and now you find out that haunted houses are scary. Crazy, right? A 57-year-old Florida woman sued Universal Studios in 2000 because she slipped when she and her granddaughter were startled by a haunted house employee who jumped out with a prop chainsaw. The slip and fall caused an unspecified physical injury, and the scary man with the chainsaw caused extreme fear, emotional distress, and mental anguish. She sought $15,000 in damages; the case was settled out of court.
The guy with the $65 million pants—After his neighborhood dry cleaner lost his pants, Roy Pearson decided it was time to sue. But he didn’t go to a small claims court to recover the cost to replace his pants. No, Pearson—a judge—had something much bigger in mind. He demanded more than $65 million from Custom Cleaners to compensate him for the mental suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort caused by the whole ordeal. The plaintiff put in thousands of hours, literally, into representing himself in this case, and it was all for nothing. Not only did he lose, but he had to pay the legal fees for the owners of the dry cleaner.
The video games made them do it—After the Columbine High School shooting tragedy, a class action lawsuit was filed by families of the victims against 25 movie and video game companies. The lawsuit sought $5 billion in damages. They said that video games like Doom and Mortal Kombat, as well as movies like The Basketball Diaries, caused their loved ones’ deaths. The case was thrown out, and the plaintiffs had to pay the legal fees for the movie and video game companies.
When you can’t sue God, sue the church—Matt Lincoln is currently in a legal battle with Lakewood Church in Tennessee. Lincoln claims he was so overcome by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head during a worship service at the church. He’s suing the church for $2.5 million to cover his medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering. At last check, the case was still unsettled.
I’m the only Lindsay!—Last month, Lindsay Lohan announced she is suing the financial company E*TRADE for $100 million because she claimed the boyfriend-stealing, milk-a-holic baby in their newest commercial is modeled after her. The baby’s name in the commercial is Lindsay, and Lohan believes her name “Lindsay” carries the same single-name recognition as “Madonna” and “Oprah.”*
 
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