8 Outrageous Lawsuits
A Hooter's waitress received a new Toyota as a settlement.
One of the benefits of living in a democratic country with
a well-established judicial system is the opportunity to use
the courts to achieve justice and set wrongs right.
But there is a drawback -- some folks go to court about things
that make most of us shake our heads. Take a look at
these odd cases and judge for yourself.
1. All Toys Are Not Equal
Jodee Berry, a Hooter's waitress in Florida, won the restaurant's sales
contest and thought she'd just won the new Toyota that her bosses said
the champion would get. The prize was actually a toy Yoda, not a
Toyota, so she left her job and sued the franchisee
for breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. The force was
with Berry: The out-of-court settlement in May 2002 allowed her to pick
out any Toyota car she wanted.
2. Fingered as a Scam
In March 2005, Ann Ayala filed a claim against a Wendy's franchise
owner, asserting that she had found a fingertip in a bowl of chili. But
authorities found no evidence of missing fingers at the accused
restaurant. Suspicion turned on Ayala, who dropped the suit when
reporters discovered that she had previously accused several other
companies of wrongdoing.
3. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
In July 2004, two teenage girls in Colorado baked cookies and delivered
them to their neighbors. But the door-knocking apparently scared Wanita
Young, who had an anxiety attack,
went to the hospital, and sued the girls' families. A local judge
awarded Young almost $900 for medical expenses but denied her
half-baked demand for nearly $3,000 in itemized expenses, including
lost wages and new motion-sensor lights for her porch.
If you think these lawsuits are outrageous, then you certainly will enjoy the litigation described on the next page.
4. Bubbles Aren't Always Fun
Early on the morning of July 7, 2001, a prankster dumped detergent into a public park fountain in Duluth, Minnesota, creating a mountain of bubbles. A few hours later, passerby Kathy Kelly fell down and suffered several injuries. She sued the city because it had not cleaned up the suds (on Saturday morning) or posted warnings to citizens urging them not to walk through the slippery wall of bubbles. A jury in March 2004 found the city 70 percent responsible for Kelly's injuries -- leaving her with only 30 percent of the blame -- and thus awarded her $125,000.
5. School Responsible for Bad Break-Up
In February 2004, a New York court ordered a school district to pay a
former student $375,000 when his two-year affair with a school
secretary ended. The young basketball star claimed that the break-up
brought "emotional and psychological trauma," ruining any prospects for
a professional hard-court career. The jury determined that the school
was culpable for failing to supervise the secretary properly. It also
ordered the secretary to pay the student another $375,000 -- even
though she had not been named in the lawsuit.
6. Trespass at the Owner's Risk
Let's say you're illegally sneaking onto a railroad's property so you can get a view from the top of a boxcar -- and then an electrical wire above the car electrocutes you. What do you do? Obviously, you sue the railroad! In October 2006, a jury awarded more than $24 million to two young men who were severely burned while atop a parked railroad car in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 2002.
The jury said that,
although they were trespassing, the 17-year-old boys bore no
responsibility. Instead the blame fell entirely on Amtrak and Norfolk
Southern for failing to post signs warning of the danger from the
electrified wires that power locomotives. For medical costs, pain and
suffering, and "loss of life pleasures," one boy received $17.3 million
and the other $6.8 million.
7. Sue the Pants Off Them
In 2005, in one of the most outrageous lawsuits of recent times, Roy
Pearson, a Washington, D.C. judge, sued a small mom-and-pop dry cleaner
for $54 million for misplacing his pants. The shop's owners, Jin and
Soo Chung, returned the pants a week later, but Pearson refused them,
saying they were not his $800 trousers but a cheap imitation. He also
sued the Chungs and their son $1,500 each, per day for more than a
year, claiming that the store's signs, which read "Satisfaction
Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service," were fraudulent. In 2007, a judge
ruled in favor of the Chungs and ordered Pearson to pay the couple's
court costs, and possibly their attorney fees as well.
8. Spilling the (Coffee) Beans
This list can only end with the most notorious of lawsuits: Stella
Liebeck, of Albuquerque, sued McDonald's in 1992 after spilling a cup
of the restaurant's coffee, which burned her lap severely and
hospitalized her for a week. Two years later, a jury awarded her
$160,000 in direct damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages, which
a court later reduced to $480,000. Both parties appealed, and they
eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount -- surely
enough for her to buy McDonald's coffee for the rest of her life.
Liebeck inspired the creation of the Stella Awards, which highlight
particularly "wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits."
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:
Helen Davies, Marjorie Dorfman, Mary Fons, Deborah Hawkins, Martin Hintz, Linnea Lundgren, David Priess, Julia Clark Robinson, Paul Seaburn, Heidi Stevens, and Steve Theunissen
