In 1992, Stella Liebeck, 79 at the time, got third-degree burns after spilling a hot cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap. These burns required skin grafts and two years of treatment. Liebeck tried to settle for $20,000, more than enough to cover her medical bills, but Liebeck took it to court in 1994 after McDonald's only offered $800.
The jury awarded Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages, but McDonald's and Liebeck reached an undisclosed settlement to preclude the possibility of appeals.
In 1995, a Virginia prison inmate called Robert Lee Brock sued himself. In a handwritten seven-page lawsuit, Brock claimed that he made the lawsuit against himself "for violating my religious beliefs, I want to pay myself $5 million, but I ask the state to pay it since I can't work."
Judge Rebecca Beach Smith praised Brock for his "innovative approach to civil-rights litigation" before dismissing his case.
In 2005, Anna Ayala went to a Wendy's in San Jose, California, and got a bowl of chili. Ayala claimed to bite into a 1 ½ inch "crunchy" finger. Yikes. Ayala filed a claim with the franchise, and she gained tabloid notoriety. However, Ayala's story started to sound… wrong.
In September 2005, Ayala and her husband (who bought and planted the finger) pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file a false insurance claim and attempted grand theft with damages totaling over $2.5 million. Ayala got a nine-year prison sentence, and her husband, Jaime Plascencia, got 12.
Everyone knows those 'bad first date' stories, but this one ends in a lawsuit. Brendan Vezmar sued a woman who accompanied him to see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 because she was texting during the film.
The suit sought the cost of the ticket for the movie, just a little over $17. The two eventually settled and the woman reimbursed him, but this suit was ridiculously petty.
Okay, hugs may not be everyone's cup of tea, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Jennifer Connell attended her nephew's, Sean Tarala, eighth birthday party when her nephew, who was so excited to see her, leaped into her arms. Sounds cute, right?
Except, Connell fell and broke her wrist. Tarala's next present from his "Auntie Jen" was a $127,000 lawsuit. Connell claimed that Tarala's "negligence and carelessness" caused her injuries. The jury deliberated for only 20 minutes, and Connell was awarded nothing.
A gas explosion devastated New York City's East Village, which killed two people and injured 22 others. Many people lost their homes and belongings, but that didn't include Lucie Bauermeister and Anna Ramatowska. The two women filed a $40 million lawsuit over the blast. Ramatowska said she got "like, five or six scratches" when she went and investigated the blast.
Bauermeister didn't have any physical injuries but did say she had been seeing a $175-an-hour psychologist to deal with the trauma from the blast.
Terry Hendrix, an inmate in a Colorado correctional facility, loved the Dallas Cowboys. So much, that he decided to slap NFL officials with an $88 billion lawsuit for an overturned call in the Cowboy's 2015 playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers.
Hendrix felt that the Cowboys and its fans were cheated, so he specifically named NFL VP of Officiating Dean Blandino, referee Gene Steratore, and Commissioner Roger Goodell in his lawsuit. Unsurprisingly, the lawsuit was dismissed after a month.
This is going to sound very similar to Stella Liebeck's story. A Raleigh, North Carolina, cop spilled hot Starbucks coffee in his lap back in 2012. Police Lt. Matt Kohr was seeking $750,000 in damages from Starbucks for serving him hot coffee, which he spilled all over his legs after the lid popped off.
And to think, Starbucks gave him that coffee for free. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose. Starbucks wound up winning the lawsuit, and Kohr got nothing.
A British woman took her former lawyers to court in 2014 for professional negligence. Jane Mulcahy claimed that her lawyers failed to advise her that finalizing her divorce proceedings would cause her marriage to end.
That should've been common sense, right? The appeal wound up being dismissed in the end.
Emile Ratelband attempted to con the Dutch legal system by requesting his birthday be changed from March 11, 1949, to March 11, 1969. That would make him seem 20 years younger. In court, Ratelband argued that temporal existence is fluid, and that time is an unfixed concept.
So why did he want to change his age? Because it would help him get more Tinder dates. The court ruled that no one could overrule time.
A New York City man sued the city, NYC Transit, Au Bon Pain Store, two local hospitals, Kmart, and a dog owner for two undecillion dollars. Yes, you read that right. Two undecillion dollars. The hand-scribbled lawsuit was filed in the Manhattan federal court asking for more money than even exists on the planet.
The New York Post reported that this likely set a "new record for a lawsuit money demand." If you're curious, two undecillion is written with a two followed by 36 zeros.
Andrew Robert Rector was caught on camera taking a nap during the Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees game in April 2014. Rector filed for a $10 million lawsuit against ESPN for" defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress," saying he was mocked after being caught sleeping.
Rector claims the commentators, Dan Shulman, and John Kruk, unleashed an "avalanche of disparaging words" to him. The case wound up being dismissed.
A D.C. judge took his pants for dry-cleaning at a family-owned business known as Custom Cleaners. According to the judge, the correct pants were never returned and betrayed the 'satisfaction guaranteed' sign in the store.
This was apparently enough of a reason for the judge to sue the business for $67 million. The man eventually dropped the case down to only $54 million, how nice.
Apparently, technology has obliterated all common sense in the human race. Lauren Rosenberg was trying to walk from 96 Daly Street, Park City, Utah, to 1710 Prospector Avenue. So, like many other people, she pulls up Google maps on her phone, puts in her destination, and off she goes.
Part of the directions she received included a half-mile walk down Utah State Route 224, a road with no pedestrian pathway or sidewalks. Rosenberg, however, continued to follow the directions down the busy road until she was hit by a high-speeding car. She sued Google, demanding $100,000
Cleanthi Peters and her daughter exited a ride at Universal Studios to find an employee with a chainsaw who leaped out and chased them out of the ride. The two ran out, screaming when they slipped on a wet spot, leaving them helpless when the man caught up and brandished his chainsaw at them.
Peters sued Universal Studios for $15,000, swearing that Leatherface was attacking them and causing "emotional distress." So why didn't she win? Because the park was going through "Halloween Horror Nights," and this happened in a haunted house.
You would think that death would get you out of a lawsuit, the Recording Industry Association of America disagrees. Lawyers filed a suit against 83-year-old Gertrude Walton, who had died a few months before, claiming that she made 700 songs available on the internet.
So, if you can't sue the woman? Sue her daughter. Robin Chianumba was targeted by the RIAA in lieu of her mother. Chianumba claimed that her mother hated computers, and after sending the RIAA her mother's death certificate, they said they'd try to dismiss the case.
This brings a whole new meaning to the relationship between church and state. Ernie Chambers, the State Senator from Nebraska's 11th Legislative District, sued God for "directly and proximately [causing], inter alia, fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plague."
The lawsuit was used as a cease and desist order to God, complaining that He must obey the law. The judge rejected his case.
In 1997 a man sued Viacom, the parent company of MTV because they aired a show called Jacka*s, which prompted defamation to his good name and destroyed his reputation. His good name? Jack A*s.
A man legally changed his name to that, and he was seeking $10 million dollars for the "injury to a reputation I have built and defamation of character I have created." He didn't win the lawsuit, unsurprisingly.
A British nature photographer called David Slater set up a camera for a 6-year-old Macaque monkey for a popular "monkey selfies" series. When PETA heard about the photos, they sued on behalf of the monkey and claimed the monkey owned the rights to the photos and not Slater.
The U.S. Copyright Office has a policy that states copyrights "only for works produced by human beings." PETA then turned around and said that policy "is just an opinion." PETA and Slater eventually reached a settlement in 2017.
There's a famed restaurant in Missouri known as Lambert's Cafe, and if you've ever been, then you know to expect flying rolls. Lambert's is the "Home of the Throwed Roll" because servers will toss rolls to the customers.
One woman, however, forgot to duck and sued Lambert's for $25,000 because she claims she was injured after the roll hit her eye.
