7 Most Bizarre Lawsuits on Earth

Image: Milan Boers

In the world of lawsuits it seems that no case is too trivial, no claim too extravagant, no complaint too outlandish. We’ve looked through the records of recent history to try and ascertain which, in the Western world, have been the most bizarre. From anomalous disputes to unexpected litigation, we’ve brought you some of the strangest legal cases from the last few decades.

7. Expensive Toy Car: Cathy McGowan Vs Radio Buxton

Image: cosmic_spanner

When 26-year-old video shop manager Cathy McGowan was told by a DJ on a local radio station (the now defunct Radio Buxton) that she had won a Renault Clio for answering a competition question correctly, her first reaction was one of joy. Yet elation soon turned to deflation after she arrived to claim her prize – which instead of being the real thing turned out to be a 4-inch miniature model of the car instead. Humiliated by the hoax, McGowan decided to sue the radio station in 2001, pleading she had been duped into believing she would be given a new car and so should be compensated for the price of one. While the DJ claimed it was just a joke to amuse his audience, McGowan failed to see the funny side, and the judge at Derby County Court ruled that the station had established a legally binding agreement to supply a real vehicle, not a toy. McGowan was awarded £8,000 compensation.

6. Hot Stuff: Stella Liebeck Vs McDonald’s Restaurants

Image: deryckh

In a landmark liability lawsuit, 81-year-old Stella Liebeck from New Mexico was awarded a super-sized $640,000 (£410,000) after filing suit against McDonald’s for “gross negligence” in selling her a 49¢ cup of coffee, deemed “unreasonably dangerous”. Having visited a local drive-through, Leibeck placed the offending beverage between her knees to add cream and sugar. The contents of the cup spilt in her lap, causing third-degree burns and leading to eight days in hospital to undergo skin grafting. Liebeck’s attorneys argued the coffee was “defectively manufactured” and the jury found the fast food chain responsible. After refusing several opportunities to settle for less, McDonald’s were ordered to pay Liebeck $2.7m (£1.7m) in damages before an appealed reduced the total award. Excessive? Never.

5. Deep impact: Marina Bai Vs NASA

Image: NASA

In 2005, Russian astrologer Marina Bai sued NASA for a cosmic $300m (£170m) in damages for crashing an experimental space probe into a comet. Her claim? That the collision had “deformed” her horoscope. In a court case that seemed to hark back to the old Star Wars hostilities of the 1980s, Bai contended that by impacting on Comet Tepel 1 – an event she dubbed a “terrorist act” – the oven-sized Deep Impact probe interfered with her work by ruining “the natural balance of forces in the universe”. After initially being thrown out of court on the grounds that Russia holds no jurisdiction over NASA, the ruling was overturned when Bai’s lawyer showed the case was based on solid legal ground because the space agency has an office in the US Embassy in Moscow. Even so, the compensation claim – which amounted to nearly as much as the cost of the mission itself – was eventually rejected.

4. Couch Potatoes: Timothy Dumouchel Vs Cable TV Company

Image: stars alive

In a nation of couch potatoes, maybe it was only a matter of time before someone in America decided it was time to take the fight back against the cable TV companies – but it doesn’t make this case any less bizarre. In 2004, Timothy Dumouche, a man from Wisconsin, sued a television company that had apparently been providing him channels – for free – for four years despite his requests that they stop. His argument was that watching too much TV was the reason he smoked and drank every day, his wife was fat, and his children had turned into “lazy channel surfers”. As compensation, Dumouche hoped to bag damages of almost $3,000 (around £2,000), or at least a lifetime’s supply of free internet service (as if that would somehow lead to a healthier lifestyle). Eventually he dropped the claim after pressure from the cable company – before too many lawyers had their time wasted.

3. Sex Rationing: David Mason Vs Brenda Mason

Image: Alter Eco

In 1980, a couple’s divorce case raised more than a few eyebrows in legal circles, not to mention the British tabloids. David Mason, aged 30, sought the split from his wife Brenda, 31, on the basis that they only had sex once a week – rather too measly a diet for the Basingstoke mechanic. Although Mason took steps like having a vasectomy to allay his wife’s fear of a third pregnancy, he pleaded that his sex life remained “rationed”. The case turned on how much sex it is fair for a man to expect from a wife of ten years. After Mason initially succeeded in his bid, the order was overturned two weeks later by judges at the Court of Appeal who found it “quite impossible for any court to find that the refusal by a wife to have sex more often than once a week is unreasonable”. This prompted quite a to-do in the popular press, who wondered as to the thoughts of the judges’ wives.

2. Exploding Toilet Seat: Frank D’Alessandro Vs New York City

Image: Takayama

2004 was a vintage year for bizarre lawsuits, for it was also then that Frank D’Alessandro, a 40-year-old New York City court clerk, sued the city for $5m (over £3m), claiming that he had suffered serious injuries when a toilet he was sitting on “exploded” beneath him without warning. One minute the 102 kg (225 lbs) senior official was ensconced snugly on a toilet seat in a judge’s private washroom and the next he was “on top of a pile of broken porcelain, in a puddle of water and filth.” After initially feeling fine, D’Alessandro claimed his back began to give him pain, and a doctor’s diagnosis revealed he had suffered four herniated disks. D’Alessandro’s debilitating condition together with the demanding physical therapy he must now routinely undergo prompted him to kick up a stink with the heavy compensation claim. But as he explained: “It’s a pain in the ass to do all this stuff.”

1. Killer Whale: Duke Family Vs SeaWorld

Image: Milan Boers

In 1999, a bizarre death led to an equally bizarre lawsuit when Daniel Dukes, a 27-year-old man from Florida, apparently made the dubious – and deadly – decision to go for a late night swim with Tillikum, the resident killer whale at SeaWorld, Orlando. After slipping past security guards once the park had closed, Dukes entered the water with the 5,600 kg (2,300 lbs) bull orca. The next morning his naked body was found floating in the animal’s tank. After death by drowning was initially suspected, the cause of death was eventually determined to have been hypothermia. Even so, Duke’s family sued SeaWorld, claiming the park failed to warn people that killer whales could kill people and falsely portrayed them as a friendly creatures – which convinced their son he would not be harmed. However, less than a month after filing it, the Dukes mysteriously dropped their multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

• Written by Admin4
• Filed under Legal Business
• Leave a comment