In the realm of bizarre lawsuits, truth is often stranger than fiction. Here, people share the most absurd reasons they were sued—and how their laughable cases met a resounding legal victory.
All stories have been edited for clarity.
Proud Parent
“When I was younger, I clipped someone and swerved off the road. My car was totaled from the impact when I hit an embankment. The other car just lost their rear light. I went to the hospital with minor injuries. Meanwhile, the other driver, who was sixteen, declined any medical help. I was determined completely at fault for the accident. Over time, I did driver’s ed classes and paid my insurance along with other things.
3 years later, I find myself in court being sued for two-hundred fifty thousand dollars from the other driver and her mother for ‘years of physical therapy and medical bills.’ Before the hearing, everyone was having quiet conversations with our lawyers and insurances. I was there with my dad because I was only nineteen. I realized that the plaintiff wasn’t there, only her mother.
Suddenly my lawyer asked, ‘Why isn’t the plaintiff joining us?’
Her mother smiled and said, ‘She’s at school in California! She has a very important tennis match that she couldn’t miss because she got into the school on a tennis scholarship!’
Her lawyer looked like he wanted to kill her. My dad just started laughing.
Needless to say it never even went to trial, and they didn’t get a penny.”
Cold Feet
“I was representing a nonprofit organization that I volunteered for. The plaintiff was a sixty-something year old grandma who was looking for a retirement settlement after falling out of her raggedy pick up truck in our parking lot. The premise of her case was that our parking lot was in bad shape (it was) and that she fell into a pothole and broke her leg which resulted in her having to take Coumadin and diminished the entire day she had planned.
Everything was fine until my lawyer pulled up a photo of the pothole that was taken the on the day of the incident. In the picture, the hole was filled to the brim with water after a recent rain. My lawyer then asked the old lady if she had gotten her foot wet, to which she replied that she couldn’t recall.
The lawyer then suggested that perhaps if her foot wasn’t wet, it might have been because she fell out of the truck and didn’t really fall into the pothole. He asked again if her foot was wet, and she affirmed that yes, her foot was wet.
The lawyer then went back to his desk, flipped through her deposition and read the part where she was extremely adamant that her foot wasn’t wet.
The case was thrown out and I went back to work.”
Bragging Gets You Nowhere
“When I first started driving, I accidentally tapped into a guy’s bumper at a red light. I just wasn’t paying attention and had no time to stop. It was a very minor impact because the car was almost completely stopped. When I pulled off to the side of the road and starting giving the guy my information, he seemed pretty calm.
That all quickly changed when I got the first motion in the mail. After that, I spent the next 5 years getting sued by the guy who alleged all sorts of ridiculous injuries.
When it finally came to trial, news somehow came out that the guy did 3-mile hikes everyday. When he was on the stand, my attorney asked him if he was, in fact, able to walk for up to 3 miles at a time.
‘I can walk ten miles!’ he bragged.
After that, the jury didn’t give him a dime, and he had to pay court costs.”
Here’s A Bit Of Advice
“I represented myself in small claims court against a former landlord who illegally evicted me.
I was in college at the time. I was renting a top-floor room in a home shared with 2 house-mates on the same floor and the landlord living in the basement. We all shared a ground floor which held the kitchen and living room.
One day, the landlord came up to my room and announced that I had until 2 pm to clear out because I was being evicted. I had paid rent on time for over 4 months, had provided a security deposit, and had never been in conflict with either of the housemates. All told, I was confused. However, the landlord refused to provide a reason for eviction, so I called the police.
The attending officer informed me that he couldn’t compel the landlord to let me stay. I only wanted an official record of what happened on a police report.
So, I sued the landlord for the cost of my security deposit, rent that had been paid for the month I was evicted, the cost of having to find new lodgings on zero notice, the cost of the motel I stayed in until those lodgings were secured and ‘damages’ – for a grand total of around three-thousand bucks. To my surprise, the landlord counter-sued for damages to property.
Damages that didn’t exist.
During the trial, I had all my documents and records. The landlord came with an idiot advisor who acted as counsel for him. He had documents, but one witness. The landlord had tried to convince other housemates to testify against me in court, but they refused. Most of them didn’t even know what the hell was going on.
Well, right off the bat, the idiot advisor actually told the judge that they could do whatever they wanted with tenants and had been doing so for years.
The judge bench-slapped the moron for not understanding the basic tenets of the Landlord/Tenant Act.
Then the judge asked if the landlord would take the stand to present their evidence. The idiot advisor informed the judge that the landlord would not be taking the stand at all in order to plead their case, or refute mine.
The judge then said, ‘Well, I don’t understand how you expect to win without presenting any evidence, but OK.’
The final act of stupidity was when their witness took the stand. He was the handyman the landlord called to do little things around the house. He painted the room after I was evicted. In cross, I asked him the cost of painting (less than half of the counter-suit) and, as he was called as an ‘expert’ on the repairs required by the landlord, I asked if in his expert opinion were repairs (painting) necessary.
He said, ‘No, but I painted anyway because the landlord paid me to do it.’
After their witness proved to be a better witness for me, the case was essentially over. The judge asked us to wait a moment as he pulled out a calculator. He looked up from the calculator and stated he found the case in my favor, and awarded me the actual costs I incurred, less the inflated damages (around $1800) which is exactly what I expected. I asked the judge for a ruling on their counter-suit, which brought my favorite moment of the whole ordeal.
The judge said: ‘The suit against you is entirely dismissed, with prejudice, for failure to provide any evidence, and a testimony to justify this eviction. Your previous landlord is ordered to pay for all court fees associated with filing this suit. For both parties.’ After the official ruling was passed he said to the landlord, ‘I recommend you find a better advisor, because this guy (referring to idiot advisor) has no idea what he’s talking about.’
It was beautiful.”
