Best 10 Unusual Lawsuits

Frivolous lawsuits waste billions of dollars in civil courts, but they show no signs of slowing down, and every year they seem to get more ridiculous. We’ve all heard about the woman who sued McDonald’s (and won!) after she spilled coffee on herself, or the thief who sued a family after injuring himself while trying to break into their house, but those are just the tip of the iceberg. Here are ten of the most outrageous and unusual lawsuits to ever make their way into a courtroom.

10. Man Sues Michael Jordan For Looking Like Him

Everybody wants to be like Mike, except for Allen Heckard of Portland, Oregon. In 2006, Heckard sued Michael Jordan and the Nike corporation for over $800 million after alleging that his uncanny resemblance to the NBA superstar had led to defamation, permanent injury, and emotional pain and suffering. “I’m constantly being accused of looking like Michael,” Heckard said at the time, “and it makes it very uncomfortable for me.” Heckard included Nike founder Phil Knight in the case for his role in promoting Jordan’s public persona, saying that he couldn’t go out in public without people mentioning he looked like Jordan. Heckard, who is only six feet tall, said that people at his gym had even accused him of playing basketball like Michael Jordan.

9. Man Sues Budweiser For False Advertising

In 1991, a man named Richard Overton filed a lawsuit against Anheiser-Busch for false advertising that had led to emotional distress, mental injury, and financial loss. Harris alleged that, unlike the what happens to guys in their ads, when he drank Bud Light the ladies weren’t attracted to him, nor did beautiful women and tropical settings appear out of thin air, as they did in another Budweiser commercial that was airing at the time. To add insult to this grave injury, he also asserted that when he drank beer, he would often wake up hung over. Overton sued for $10,000, but the case was thrown out before ever making it to trial.

8. Man Sues Himself

In 2006, Curtis Gokey filed a lawsuit against the city of Lodi, California when one of their dump trucks accidentally backed into his car. The problem? Gokey, a city employee, was the guy driving the dump truck. Even though he freely admitted the accident had been his fault, Gokey sued the city for $3,600 in damages. After the city denied the claim and asserted that he couldn’t legally sue himself, Gokey filed a new lawsuit, this time in his wife’s name. A city attorney alleged that this too was illegal, but Gokey’s wife went through with suit anyway, and even raised the damages to $4,800, saying, “I’m not as nice as my husband is.”

7. Surfer Sues Over Stolen Wave

One thing all surfers hate is when someone “snakes” a wave that they were in a better position to ride. A California man once took this anger to the courts when he supposedly sued another surfer for “stealing a wave” that he believed was meant for him. The man alleged that he had endured “pain and suffering” as a result of not being able to carve up the surf, and attempted to take the wave thief to court. The case was eventually dismissed when the court stated that there was no way to put a price on the pain and suffering of being denied a chance to ride a monster wave.

6. Student Sues For Right To Smelly Feet

Teunis Tenbrook, a philosophy student at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, sued his school after he was thrown out for having unusually smelly feet. Professors and other students had complained that the smell was overpowering and made it impossible to conduct classes, and Tenbrook was eventually expelled from both the school and its library. He sued, and after a ten-year legal battle, a judge ruled in 2009 that having smelly feet is no excuse to prevent a student from continuing their studies. Upon delivering this verdict, the judge stated: “Our considered opinion is that the professors and other students will just have to hold their noses and bear it.”

5. Russian Astrologer Sues NASA

The Tempel 1 comet is shown after the probe from the Deep Impact spacecraft collided with it early Monday, July 4, 2005. (AP)

Marina Bai is a Russian astrologer who sued NASA in July of 2005 for allegedly “disrupting the balance of the universe.” At the time, NASA had just fired the Deep Impact space probe into the comet Tempel 1 in the hope of studying its interior. Bai sued for damages and “moral sufferings,” alleging that the comet and “the natural balance of forces in the universe” would never be the same, and that her astrology business would be adversely affected as a result. Bai’s case was originally thrown out, but was reintroduced after her lawyer was able to show that NASA’s office in the American embassy fell under Russian jurisdiction. She sued for over $300 million, which was roughly the same as the space mission’s total budget, but her case was eventually rejected after a physicist argued that the probe had no real effect on the comet’s trajectory.

4. Man Sues Corporations For Witchcraft

In 2008, a Canadian man brought a $2 billion lawsuit against several corporations after claiming that the companies had repeatedly dabbled in witchcraft, satanic rituals, and brain wave control in an attempt to bolster profits. The man, named Jerry Rose, alleged that companies like Microsoft and Wal-Mart had subjected him to “invasive brain computer interface technology, research, experiments, field studies and surgery.” Rose also named several universities and professors as defendants in the case, saying that they had helped engineer the “brain-drain” technologies that had made the mind control tactics possible. Lawyers from the companies argued that the case was outrageous and deserved to be dismissed on the spot, but the judge in charge of the proceedings agreed to hear it, arguing that all of the charges were capable of being litigated.

3. The Cable Car Nymphomaniac

In San Francisco in 1964, a woman named Gloria Sykes was injured after the cable car she was riding on malfunctioned and careened down a hill. Sykes suffered a black eye and some scratches in the accident, but she filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the city for a much more curious reason: she claimed the accident had triggered a “demonic sex urge” in her. Sykes said the trauma from the accident had led to her developing an uncontrollable nymphomania, and that after it happened she’d had sex with over 100 men, as many as 50 in one week. The case made headlines in the Bay Area when it went to court, and many called it one of the most egregious abuses of the legal system in history. But after Sykes’ attorneys successfully argued that she had developed a bizarre form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, she was eventually awarded $50,000 in damages.

2. Man Sues God

In 2005, a Romanian prisoner named Pavel Mircea attempted to sue God for fraud and gross negligence. Mircea, who had spent twenty year behind bars for murder, claimed that God had failed to deliver him from evil, as he had been promised at his christening, and that this was tantamount to a breach of contract. Mircea sued for an undisclosed amount, partially to be reimbursed for money he had spent on prayer candles and other religious goods, and directed his case toward the Officials of the Romanian Orthodox Church, whom he considered to be God’s representatives on Earth. The courts eventually rejected the case, with at least one report claiming that it was thrown out because God is not subject to ordinary law.

1. The World’s Most Litigious Man Sues

Lawsuit against Steve Job (Apple) from Jonathan Lee Riches

When it comes to filing unusual lawsuits, few compare to Jonathan Lee Riches, who has filed an enormous amount of them in U.S. District Courts. Known variously as “Johnny Sue-Nami,” “the Litigator Crusader,” and “the Patrick Ewing of Suing,” Riches has been known to try and take anyone and anything to court. Targets of his over 4,000 lawsuits have included George W. Bush, the Somali pirates, NASCAR, NFL quarterback Michael Vick, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, Martha Stewart, and Steve Jobs. Riches, who is currently doing time in an Oklahoma City prison, has even attempted to sue historical figures like Plato, Nostradamus, and Che Guevara, as well as inanimate objects like the Eiffel Tower, the Lincoln Memorial, and Plymouth Rock. Arguably his most famous–and certainly his most ironic–lawsuit occurred in May of 2009, when Riches sued the Guinness Book of World Records for naming him “the World’s Most Litigious Man,” claiming that the company had no right to publish his “legal masterpieces.”