25 Silly and Interesting Lawsuits You Probably Didn’t Know About

A woman named Janine Sugawara tried to sue the Captain Crunch cereal company because she believed crunch berries were real fruit for 4 years before she found out they were just cereal.

2. In 2015, a man named Hiram Jimenez attempted to sue Applebee's after he leaned over a plate of sizzling fajitas to pray and burned his face, neck and arms. A trial judge dismissed the suit, finding Applebee's was not required to warn the man “against a danger that is open and obvious.”

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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. 

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

12. 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.

13. A judge named Roy L. Pearson Jr. once tried to sue an immigrant dry cleaners for $67 million after they "lost" his pants, claiming inconvenience, mental anguish, attorney's fees for representing himself, and as a result of their failure to live up to a "satisfaction guaranteed" sign that was displayed in the store.

14. In 1999, Robert De Niro threatened to sue the owners of a restaurant called 'De Niro's Supper Club' under section 3 of the BC Privacy Act. In response, the restaurant changed its name to 'Section (3).'

15. Slovak filmmaker Juraj Herz wanted to sue Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List but he couldn't come up with the money to fund it. According to him, the scene where a group of women confuses a shower for a gas chamber was taken directly from his own The Night Overtake Me (1986) shot for shot.

In 1998, a group of cattle ranchers sued Oprah Winfrey after she made disparaging comments about beef. About 13 states in USA have food libel laws which allow companies to sue people who speak badly about their food.

17. American actress Lindsay Lohan attempted to sue Rockstar Games stating the character Lacey Jones in GTA 5 was based on her.

18. In 1995, an inmate named Robert Lee Brock tried to sue himself for $5 million because he violated his own civil rights by getting arrested. He then asked the state to pay because he had no income in jail.

19. Two boys tried to sue Nintendo in 1999 alleging that Pokémon caused their gambling addictions.

20. In 2014, a Harvard business school professor named Ben Edelman in Boston threatened to sue a Chinese restaurant because the prices on their website were out of date. He was over charged a total of $4.

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture threatened to sue farmers who tested their cattle for Mad Cow Disease on the grounds that it "might create the false impression that beef that is not tested is unsafe."

22. In 2003, Creed fans sued the band over their notoriously poor performance during which frontman Scott Stapp allegedly appeared drunk, had trouble singing and passed out. The suit asked the band to refund ticket and parking costs for all 15,000 fans who attended, at a cost of about $2 million.

23. A former employer of dating website Ashley Madison tried to sue the company because she hurt her wrists and forearms typing up 1,000 “fake female profiles” for their site over a few weeks for a new Portuguese-language version of the site.

24. A guy named Troy Walker once tried to sue SpongeBob creators for $1.6 billion for copyright infringement of a character from a 1991 comic strip Bob Spongee, the Unemployed Sponge.

25. George Lucas sued a musical group for using the name “Jedi Knights”. Lucas only caught wind of said Knights in the media when they unjustly tried to sue “The Prodigy.”