I get an alert every morning about what national holiday it is, and today is apparently National Absurdity Day. I always think about how I can celebrate these holidays as the editor of Follow Our Courts. I love this stuff.
I thought about the McDonald’s-coffee lawsuit and then googled “absurd lawsuits.” I am not the first to have this idea. There are like 20 top-10 lists. I read about 15 before the cases I hadn’t read yet ran out.
There is definitely a greatest-hits list, and almost every one of these posts starts with some version of “You’ve all heard about the lady who sued McDonald’s for having hot coffee….”
Here are my favorites.
- Let’s start at home.
In 2017 Jessica Gomez, who lived in San Bernardino county, sued Jelly Belly Candy Co. when she learned the Sport Beans, which are billed as “energizing jelly beans,” had sugar in them. The package lists “evaporated cane juice” as the first ingredient. The list does not include the word “sugar.”
The case was dismissed. - In 1995 Robert Lee Brock sued himself while incarcerated in the Indian Creek Correctional Center in Chesapeake, Va. He sought $5 million in damages after he violated his own civil rights by drinking alcohol, which was against his religious beliefs. Drinking is why he committed the crimes of breaking and entering and grand larceny, he said. Because he was a ward of the state, he felt the state should foot the bill.
The case was dismissed. - In 2013 Subway was the target of a class action suit when customers realized the signature Footlong Sandwiches were only 11 inches long.
Subway settled and agreed not only to make the sandwiches longer by an inch, but also to measure sandwiches in front of customers going forward. - In 2014 a pimp in Oregon named Sirgiorgio Sanford Clardy sued Nike from prison because Clardy’s Air Jordans were not labeled as a dangerous weapon. See, Clardy was wearing them when he had repeatedly stomped on a john’s face for not paying, and the john died.
Clardy sought $100 million. He served as his own litigation lawyer, appearing by video feed.
The case was dismissed. - In 2005 a San Jose Wendy’s was sued by a woman named Anna Ayala, who claimed she was sold chili with a severed finger in it, which she said she bit into. She “then walked throughout the restaurant with the finger on a napkin as she told customers, ‘Don’t eat the chili[;] look what I found in mine,’ ” (from the ruling).
Wendy’s business dropped dramatically as the company frantically inspected employees’ hands. They were all found to be intact.
It turned out she had planted the fingertip, which had belonged to Ayala’s husband’s co-worker. The co-worker had recently lost it in a work accident and gave it to the couple to settle a $100 debt.
Ayala pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to nine years in prison, of which she served four years. - In 1991, a man sued the maker of Budweiser beer for false advertising after he drank lots of the stuff and failed to attract hot women. The commercials were clear: Bud Light was all about “beautiful women and men engaged in unrestricted merriment,” (from the complaint). He sought $10,000 for emotional and physical distress.
The case was dismissed. - In 2007 a Nebraska senator sued God.
Ernie Chambers filed the complaint for directly and proximately causing “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plague.” He also used the lawsuit as a cease and desist order to “cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.” Chambers said he could sue God, because “that defendant, being omnipresent, is personally present in Douglas County.”
The judge rejected the case, “because the Almighty did not have a recorded address.” - In 1997 a man who had legally changed his name to Jack Ass sued MTV’s parent company, Viacom, because the show “Jackass” prompted defamation to his good name and damaged his reputation.
He wanted $10 million. He did not win.
The 30th will be National Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day. This holiday is many years old, but 2020 was really its year.
