Category:
Lawsuits

“Pregnancy forces granny to quit work at age 101”

In October 1990, the Sun ran a story about a 101-year old woman who supposedly had to quit her job as a newspaper carrier because she got pregnant after being seduced by a reclusive millionaire on her route. The story, of course, was totally false. However, the Sun also ran a picture with the article of a real woman, 96-year-old Nellie Mitchell of Arkansas.

Mitchell sued, charging invasion of privacy (she had never given them permission to use her photo) and emotional distress, because she now had to endure people asking her when the baby was due. During the trial, the editor of the Sun explained that they had needed a picture to go along with the fake story, and had found in their archive a photo of Mitchell taken in 1986. They had used it, assuming she must have been dead by then. And dead people can't sue for damages.

Mitchell won and was awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $850,000 in punitive damages.

Baxter Bulletin - Oct 19, 1993

Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 20, 2020 - Comments (7)
Category: Elderly and Seniors, Journalism, Lawsuits, 1990s

Paul Kim v. IRS

2013: Paul Chulhie Kim filed suit against the IRS for $20 million in damages, alleging that he had been waiting 24 years for them to get back to him about his job application. On account of this long wait, he said, he had suffered various health problems including "starvation, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, pneumonia, seizures, cancer [and] mental illness." It seems that he never bothered to try to get a different job. He wanted the $20 million to "restore [his] trust in the American people and restore confidence in [his] natural United States citizenship."

The judge noted that Kim appeared to be hinting that some kind of employment discrimination had occurred, without stating this explicitly. But even so, because Kim had waited so long to file his case, the statute of limitations had long since expired. So the judge dismissed the case.

Kim appealed the decision, but the appeals court affirmed the District Court's decision.

More info: Penn Record, law.villanova.edu

Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 04, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, Lawsuits

Court refuses one-cent suit

October 1939: The Supreme Court refused to hear the case of C. Leon De Aryan, thereby ending his legal campaign to recover the one cent of sales tax he believed he had been incorrectly charged.

Actually, it was worse than that. The actual amount of the excess charge in question was closer to one-half a cent. De Aryan had bought 15 cents worth of cardboard, and had been charged one cent of sales tax on this purchase. He noted that the tax was three percent. Therefore, he should only have been charged approximately one-half cent of tax, but the retailer rounded up.

I'm guessing De Aryan spent a lot more than one cent in court costs.

San Pedro News-Pilot - Oct 9, 1939



This recalls the 1979 case of Frank Makara who felt he had been overcharged $1.95 at the gas station and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court — which then refused to hear it, as it did with De Aryan's case.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 04, 2020 - Comments (5)
Category: Lawsuits, 1930s

$10,000 handshake

Must have been quite a handshake.

Redlands Daily Facts - June 30, 1977

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 31, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Lawsuits, 1970s

The Only Legal Non-Burger King Burger King

I discovered this story in SECRET AMERICA: A GUIDE TO THE WEIRD, WONDERFUL, AND OBSCURE.

See preview here.

The book is part of a series devoted to different cities, and if the national version is a good example, the individual volumes are probably worth your attention as well.

In any case, here's the lowdown on the Burger King of Mattoon, IL.






Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 17, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Food, Regionalism, Lawsuits

Marriage ruined by Rod Stewart’s soccer ball

Rod Stewart is known to be a huge soccer fan, and at his concerts he often kicks soccer balls out into the audience.

At a 1989 concert, a ball struck the hand of a woman in the audience, Patricia Boughton, who subsequently sued Stewart claiming the incident had permanently injured her middle finger.

Her husband later also filed suit, on the grounds that his wife's hand injury had led to the breakup of their marriage. He explained, "If she hit that hand on something it was all over. To get into sexual activity, it was very difficult... It was like walking around trying not to break something."

Stewart eventually settled the suit for $17,000, which was less than the Boughtons had been hoping for.

Lansing State Journal - Oct 11, 1992



However, Stewart didn't stop kicking balls at his concerts. And as UltimateClassicRock.com reports, the injuries continued. At a 2002 concert, a man suffered a broken little finger after shielding his face from one of Stewart's balls. And another fan had his nose broken when it was hit by a soccer ball at a 2012 concert in Las Vegas.

In response to the lawsuits, Stewart has said that fans should know that his concerts are a "contact sport."

The video below shows Stewart kicking soccer balls at a concert.

Posted By: Alex - Wed May 06, 2020 - Comments (4)
Category: Lawsuits

The Rewards of Heroism

If there were a Cheapskate's Hall of Fame, the Chicago Board of Education would surely have to be in it. In 1994, after gym teacher Clarence Notree heroically saved a group of children from a gunman who had entered the school gym by shielding them with his body, the Board of Education informed him that he wasn't entitled to Workers Compensation for his injuries because saving children wasn't technically part of his job.

After a protracted legal battle, he did finally get a settlement of $13,447.

More info: NY Times

Opelousas Daily World - Sep 30, 1994



Franklin Daily Journal - Sep 30, 1994

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 14, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, Lawsuits, 1990s

Flying Body Parts Lawsuit



Ruling in what it called a "tragically bizarre" case, an appeals court found that the estate of a man killed by a train while crossing the Edgebrook Metra station tracks can be held liable after a part of his body sent airborne by the collision struck and injured a bystander.

In 2008, Hiroyuki Joho, 18, was hurrying in pouring rain with an umbrella over his head, trying to catch an inbound Metra train due to arrive in about five minutes when he was struck by a southbound Amtrak train traveling more than 70 mph.

A large portion of his body was thrown about 100 feet on to the southbound platform, where it struck Gayane Zokhrabov, then 58, who was waiting to catch the 8:17 a.m. train to work. She was knocked to the ground, her leg and wrist broken and her shoulder injured.




More details at the source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 20, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Accidents, Body, Death, Lawsuits, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, Twenty-first Century

Man sues God

Donald Drusky, of McKeesport, Pa. (which happens to be my mother’s hometown) specifically wanted God “to grant him the guitar-playing skills of famous guitarists, along with resurrecting his mother and his pet pigeon.”

Suing God, and perhaps even winning, would seem to be the easy part. Collecting payment is what’s hard.

Asbury Park Press - Mar 16, 1999

Posted By: Alex - Sat May 18, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Religion, Lawsuits, 1990s

The Mayonnaise Lady

In 1973, UC Davis fired Doris Judd from her job as a sandwich maker in the school's cafeteria, citing her "failure to spread mayonnaise to the edges of sandwich bread." Her supervisors also complained that she was slow putting sauerkraut on hot dogs, and had once made too many sloppy joes, which then had to be thrown out.

Judd subsequently sued the university for unlawful termination, arguing that the real reason she was fired was because the university was trying to save money by eliminating older workers. In the ensuing media coverage, she was nicknamed the "Mayonnaise Lady."

The judge agreed with her, remarking that the charges against her seemed "trivial" and ordered that she be rehired. Back on the job, she was assigned to work the grill, rather than sandwich duty. But apparently she didn't stay long, retiring soon after with the money from the settlement.



via Center for Sacramento History



More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Sat May 04, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Lawsuits, Mayonnaise, 1970s

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Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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