22 Stupid Lawsuits That Were Too Crazy To Ignore

The stalker named Uwe Vandrei who inspired Sarah McLachlan to write the song "Possession" tried to sue her for a songwriting credit and royalties. He committed suicide before the trial began.

In 2014, the former dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, attempted to sue Activision from his prison cell for his "negative" portrayal in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The case was thrown out of court.

In 2012, Apple attempted to sue Samsung in the UK court system and lost. It was ruled that the look of Samsung's Galaxy Tab computers was not too similar to designs registered in connection with the iPad and Apple Inc. was ordered to display advertisements on their website and billboards stating that Samsung had not infringed upon their rights.

James Joyce's grandson, Stephen Joyce, as executor of his grandfather's estate would sue anybody who attempted to write about, quote, recite, display, or perform any of James Joyce's work or personal effects and effectively halted any scholarly research on any of James Joyce's work for decades. 

A woman threatened to sue MGM after viewing the 1932 movie Freaks, claiming it caused her to miscarry. The movie features actually deformed circus "freaks" and has been banned in Ireland, Sweden, the UK, and several other areas over the years.

In 1970, an atheist named Madalyn O'Hair attempted to sue NASA for the reading of Genesis by Apollo 8 astronauts, arguing that it violated constitutional separation of church and state.

American baseball catcher Yogi Berra threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera for naming their character "Yogi Bear." Hanna-Barbera claimed the similarity was a total coincidence, but almost nobody believed this defense since Yogi Berra was already a household name at the time Yogi Bear was created. Berra later relented.

The Hollister store chain threatened to sue merchants in the city of Hollister, California who sold shirts that had the city's name on it.

In 1971 someone in Pennsylvania tried to sue Satan for having “threatened him, caused him misery, impeded his course in life, and generally precipitated his downfall.” The case was dismissed, partly because it couldn't be shown that Satan lived in the court's jurisdiction.

A man named Anthony Beninati who was burned by the burning mat at Burning Man tried to sue the event's organizers, claiming that they should have prevented him from walking into the fire.