- If a problem comes around, you must sue it.
The courts of law are a valuable tool for receiving justice. When you’ve been slighted, they can be the only avenue that can help the responsible party get what’s coming to them.
And then there are the times when people sue each seemingly for s***s and giggles.
Frivolous lawsuits are nothing new, and we’ve covered our fair share of them here at Oddee. However, we decided to throw together this (absolutely unexhaustive) list of ridiculous court cases that we thought were particularly stupid or entertaining.
Here are six of the most ridiculous lawsuits ever filed.
1. A Bad Date
In 2017, Brandon Vezmar from Texas was having a bad date. She’d taken Crystal Cruz to see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, but he grew irritated when she kept texting during the movie.
Finally, he asked her to step outside if she couldn’t stop texting. That she did — and she didn’t come back.
Later, Vezmar sued Cruz for the price of the movie ticket he’d paid for. All $17.31 of it.
We’re not exactly sure what his end goal here was, since the court costs alone probably would’ve set him back more than that. Maybe it was about principle, since in his court filing, he described Cruz’ behavior as a “threat to civilized society.”
In the end, Vezmar dropped the lawsuit after Cruz handed him the 17 bucks. Which he then proceeded to count in front of her.
No, there wasn’t a second date.
2. A Slight Typo
Dr. Edward Gamson of Maryland was about to attend a conference in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2014. He figured the couple of days before his conference would be a perfect time to also visit Granada, a Spanish city he’d always wanted to see.
Gamson and his wife started their journey, but After they boarded their last flight in London, they were confused. The seat screen showed their plane flying west, away from Spain.
That was because Gamson had accidentally bought tickets for the island of Grenada instead of Granada.
He later blamed the mistake on being in “vacation mode.” He then proceeded to sue British Air for $34,000.
Courts eventually dismissed the case.
3. Whiplash by Giant Breasts
Visiting a strip club is something of a bachelor party tradition. For Paul Shimkonis from Florida, however, his bachelor part in 1998 ended in injury.
He claimed to have received whiplash after a stripper at Diamond Dolls, a club in Clearwater, dropped her breasts onto his head. We’re talking about 60-HHH breasts, so they did have some heft behind them.
Shimkonis then sued the club for $15,000 for the “mental anguish” he experienced after being hit in the head by what he likened to “cement blocks.” Ultimately, he lost the case.
So, being a good loser, he and the club then went on the TV show The People’s Court to settle their differences. Ultimately, Shimkonis lost again.
4. Firefighter’s Fear of Fire
To be a firefighter, you often have to get close to fires. That was a problem for Shayn Proler, a Houston, Texas, firefighter who repeatedly failed to perform his duties due to his crippling fear of fire.
Still, the Houston Fire Department was being surprisingly understanding. While they couldn’t keep Proler on the fire suppression team, the department transferred him to the training academy and let him keep his job.
That didn’t sit right with Proler, who believed he belonged in his previous role. So, he sued the fire department for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Proler claimed he was being discriminated against due to his “disability” of being afraid of fire. Although he initially received $362,000 in compensation, over several appeals his case reached the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled Proler was not disabled.
The court ruling likened the situation to that of a short basketball player who didn’t make it to the championship team — he wouldn’t be disabled, just short.
5. Flawed Weather Forecast
One day in 2015, an Israeli woman from Haifa checked the weather forecast. It was supposed to be a mild, sunny day, so she dressed lightly and went outside.
Yet, she got showered in a sudden thunderstorm and caught a cold. In what we can only describe as a reasonable series of events, she then sued the Channel 2 TV station for their flawed weather forecast.
In the lawsuit, the woman demanded $1,000 in damages and an official apology from the TV station. The courts, of course, laughed and threw the case out.
Right?
Well, we’ll never know, because Channel 2 ended up settling out of court by apologizing and paying the woman the requested $1,000. That might seem ridiculous, but there’s a good reason the TV channel didn’t let the case go to court — if they’d lost, it would’ve set the precedent that anyone in Israel can sue weather forecasters for not being 100% accurate at all times.
6. Monkey Business
David John Slater, a wildlife photographer, was on a photo tour of Indonesia in 2011, when something unexpected happened. A crested macaque snatched his camera and took a few selfies. Amused, Slater later printed the photos in a book he published.
Then, in 2015, he received a summons to court for copyright infringement. He wasn’t sued by the monkey, though, but PETA.
The infamous animal welfare organization claimed Slater had violated the monkey’s right by printing the photos it took. Although they were taken on Slater’s camera, PETA argued the monkey was the photographer and therefore owned the copyright to the pictures.
In the end, the case was dismissed as courts ruled animals couldn’t hold copyright (at least under current laws). Yet, Slater and PETA parted their way surprisingly amicably, with the photographer saying he’d donate 25% of his photo book’s future revenues to help protect Indonesian crested macaques.