50 Ridiculous Lawsuits and Their Unexpected Outcomes – Part 5

26 Max Mosley Defeated Nazi Claim

In 2008, British motorsport executive Max Mosley sued media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World after the tabloid secretly recorded a five-hour S&M session with prostitutes and branded it a “sick Nazi orgy.” Mosley acknowledged the bondage, beatings, and domination but insisted that the gathering contained no Nazi theme. A High Court judge found no evidence that the participants reenacted Nazi behavior or mocked Holocaust victims and ruled that Mosley had reasonably expected privacy. The court awarded Mosley 60,000 pounds plus legal costs but rejected his request for punitive damages.

27. In 2014, delivery drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy in Maine for about $10 million in unpaid overtime because Maine’s overtime law omitted an Oxford comma. The disputed exemption ended with “packing for shipment or distribution,” and the drivers argued that it covered workers who packed goods, not those who only distributed them. In 2017, the First Circuit found the law ambiguous and allowed the drivers’ claim to proceed.

28. In August 1981, KMBC-TV removed American news anchor Christine Craft from its Kansas City anchor desk after a focus group deemed her “too old, too unattractive, and wouldn’t defer to men.” The station acted eight months into her two-year contract, even though its newscasts had risen from third to first in the ratings after she joined. Craft rejected the demotion and filed a Title VII lawsuit against station owner Metromedia. Two federal juries awarded her $500,000, but the Eighth Circuit overturned the verdict, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal.

29. The Navajo Nation, which registered “Navajo” as a trademark in 1943, sued Urban Outfitters in 2012 after the retailer sold “Navajo Hipster Panties” and “Navajo Print Flasks.” Urban Outfitters had used the name since 2001 and argued that the tribe had waited too long to object, but a federal judge rejected the company’s motion in 2016. The two sides reached an undisclosed settlement that November and signed an agreement to collaborate on a line of Native American jewelry.

30. In 1989, the Beatles filed preliminary legal papers against the Beastie Boys over the Beatles’ samples on Paul’s Boutique, according to Beastie Boys member Mike D. The album used samples from 105 songs, including 24 individual samples on its final track alone. When asked whether the legal risk had caused hesitation, Mike D replied, “What’s cooler than getting sued by the Beatles?” The group eventually cleared most of the samples and spent about $250,000 on licensing rights.

31 Brown Recluse Verdict Went Unpaid

In 2007, a Missouri couple named Brian and Susan Trost bought a $450,000 home in Weldon Spring, only for brown recluse spiders to start “bleeding out of the walls.” They sued the previous owners in 2008 for allegedly failing to disclose the infestation. At the 2011 civil trial, a University of Kansas biology professor named Jamel Sandidge estimated that the house contained between 4,500 and 6,000 spiders. A jury awarded the couple $472,110, but they never collected because the previous owners filed for bankruptcy and their insurer refused to pay.

32. By 2016, state regulators had found that some of America’s largest life insurers knew policyholders had died but failed to pay benefits when families did not file claims. In many whole-life cases, insurers continued taking premiums from deceased customers’ accumulated cash until it ran out and the policies lapsed, even as they used the Social Security Death Master File to stop annuity payments. At that point, 25 insurers had agreed to pay more than $7.5 billion, while about 35 remained under investigation. By August 2018, 27 insurers representing over 80 percent of the market had accepted reforms, and the investigation had returned approximately $9.7 billion to beneficiaries nationwide.

33. In 2018, a BP employee named Scott Tracey helped create and circulate a “Hitler rants” parody at Australia’s Kwinana Oil Refinery while workers negotiated a new pay and conditions agreement. The video used a scene from Downfall to mock BP management’s bargaining tactics, prompting the company to fire Tracey for allegedly breaching workplace policies. His first unfair dismissal claim failed, but the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission ruled that viewers familiar with the meme would not seriously believe it compared BP managers to Nazis. In 2020, the Federal Court rejected BP’s appeal, Tracey returned to work, and the commission awarded him AU$201,394.92 in lost wages and retirement benefits.

34. In August 1998, Pizza Hut sued rival restaurant chain Papa John’s, claiming that its slogan “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” and ingredient-comparison advertisements amounted to false advertising. A jury sided with Pizza Hut in 1999, and a federal judge awarded it $467,619.75 for corrective advertising and ordered Papa John’s to stop using the slogan. In 2000, the Fifth Circuit reversed the ruling, calling the slogan non-actionable advertising puffery and finding that Pizza Hut had not shown it affected customers’ purchasing decisions.

35. In 1981, five-year-old American actor Sarah Michelle Gellar starred in a Burger King commercial that became the first television advertisement to criticize a fast-food competitor by name. She declared, “McDonald’s makes their burgers with 20% less meat than Burger King. Unbelievable!” McDonald’s sued Burger King, its advertising agency, and Gellar before the companies settled out of court and pulled the advertisements. During the lawsuit, Gellar was not allowed to eat at McDonald’s, forcing her to miss birthday parties held there and what she later called “a lot of apple pies.”

36 Sailor’s Death Voided Voyage Payment

In 1793, a sailor named T. Cutter agreed to serve as second mate on a 10-week voyage from Kingston, Jamaica, to Liverpool for 30 guineas, payable only if he completed the journey. Cutter died seven weeks into the voyage, and his widow sued Captain Powell for wages covering the time her husband had worked. On June 9, 1795, the Court of King’s Bench denied her claim because Cutter had not completed the entire contract, even though his death was not his fault. The case became an important English contract-law authority on substantial performance and contracts that require complete fulfillment before payment.

37. In 1951, a Texas couple named Ray L. and Edith Batman challenged the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, creating the curious federal case named Batman v. Commissioner. The dispute concerned Ray’s claim that his farming and ranching business had formed a partnership with his 14-year-old son, Gerald, for the 1944 and 1945 tax years. The Tax Court found that Ray still controlled the business and that Gerald was not a genuine partner, so it upheld the couple’s tax deficiencies. On May 22, 1951, the Fifth Circuit unanimously affirmed the ruling and called the arrangement a family tax-avoidance scheme disguised as a partnership.

38. British Airways once barred adult male passengers from sitting beside unaccompanied children under 15, leading a Luxembourg businessman named Mirko Fischer to sue the airline for sex discrimination in January 2010. Staff had forced Fischer to change seats beside a child, separating him from his pregnant wife. British Airways admitted discrimination in Fischer’s case and paid him £750 in damages plus £2,161 in costs, while Fischer donated the damages to child-protection charities. British Airways ended the policy that August, although Qantas and Air New Zealand continued defending similar rules at the time.

39. In 2011, a woman named Choo Hong Eng won S$410,000 on a slot machine at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The casino claimed that the machine had malfunctioned and offered her a car worth S$250,000 instead, but Choo refused and successfully demanded the full cash prize. She sued, won, and was known afterward as “Jackpot Aunty.” She donated the entire sum to various charities.

40. In 2011, American actor Joe Pesci gained 30 pounds, or 14 kilograms, to play real-life mobster Angelo Ruggiero in the planned crime film Gotti. After Fiore Films withdrew the role despite allegedly promising him $3 million, Pesci sued the production company for that amount. The parties settled out of court in 2013 for an undisclosed sum, and American actor Pruitt Taylor Vince eventually received the role.

41 Spain Reclaimed Black Swan Treasure

In 2007, Florida-based treasure-hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration recovered roughly 500,000 gold and silver coins, estimated at $500 million, from an Atlantic wreck it called the “Black Swan.” Spain identified the site as Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate that British warships sank off Portugal in 1804, and sued Odyssey for the entire haul. US courts ruled for Spain, and Odyssey transferred the coins and artifacts to Spanish authorities in February 2012. In September 2013, a federal judge also ordered Odyssey to pay Spain $1,072,979 in legal fees after finding that the company had litigated in bad faith.

42. In February 2011, an amateur cartoonist named Jayme Gordon sued DreamWorks Animation, claiming its 2008 film “Kung Fu Panda” copied his “Kung Fu Panda Power” pitch. Gordon withdrew the lawsuit in 2013 after DreamWorks lawyers discovered that drawings he presented as early-1990s originals had been traced from a 1996 Disney “The Lion King” coloring book. A federal grand jury indicted him for wire fraud and perjury in 2015. A Boston federal jury convicted him in November 2016, and the crimes carried a maximum combined sentence of 25 years.

43. In March 1991, staff at Carl Sandburg High School in Illinois noticed that a 16-year-old student named Brian Cornfield appeared unusually well-endowed, but a teacher and dean decided the bulge in his sweatpants might be hidden drugs. They took him to a locked boys’ locker room and strip-searched him even after his mother refused permission. They found nothing, but Cornfield’s lawsuit against the staff and Consolidated High School District No. 230 still failed. In 1993, the Seventh Circuit ruled that previous drug-related reports and the unusual bulge gave staff reasonable suspicion to conduct the search.

44. After Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee confined a man named Kenneth Donaldson against his will for 15 years, he sued the hospital and its staff for violating his constitutional right to liberty. Officials had never proven Donaldson dangerous, yet they repeatedly refused his attempts to secure his release. In 1975, the US Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot confine a non-dangerous person who can live safely outside an institution. The landmark decision became an important part of the US deinstitutionalization movement.

45. In the 1990s, a British conservationist named Dr. Mike Bingham reported that the Falkland Islands’ penguin population had fallen from an estimated 6 million in 1984 to about 1 million in 1996, a decline of more than 80 percent. Falklands Conservation dismissed him after he opposed the appointment of Desire Petroleum director Lewis Clifton as its chairman, and Bingham reported that his family then endured five years of police harassment, death threats, property attacks, and attempted deportation. In 2003, he sued the Falkland Islands Government for human rights abuses after its Executive Council rejected his residency application because he had criticized its environmental record. In 2003, the Falkland Islands Supreme Court ruled in his favor, finding that senior officials had acted illegally for improper motives and calling their conduct “morally and constitutionally indefensible.”

15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History

46 Birthday Phrase Escaped Copyright Protection

In January 2006, American rapper 50 Cent faced a copyright lawsuit from a former 2 Live Crew manager named Joseph Weinberger. Weinberger claimed that the line “it’s your birthday” in 50 Cent’s 2003 hit “In da Club” copied the same phrase from a song on American rapper Luther Campbell’s 1994 album Freak for Life 6996. US District Judge Paul Huck dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the phrase was a “common, unoriginal, and noncopyrightable element of the song.”

47. Nicolas Cage did not steal a Chihuahua, despite a claim that American actress Kathleen Turner published in her 2008 memoir Send Yourself Roses. Turner alleged that Cage stole the dog and received two drunk-driving arrests while they made the 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married, and the Daily Mail repeated those claims. Cage filed a libel action in London’s High Court against Turner, Headline Publishing Group, and Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers. The defendants acknowledged that the allegations were false, apologized, agreed to cover Cage’s legal costs, and made a substantial donation to his chosen charity.

48. In 1996, American singer Janet Jackson’s legal team filed a lawsuit against the Madison-based satirical newspaper The Onion soon after it launched online. The case targeted an article titled “Dying Boy Gets Wish: To Pork Janet Jackson,” and a former editor said the dispute nearly “sued The Onion out of existence.” The Onion settled the case by printing a letter of apology in its next issue and giving Jackson a complimentary subscription.

49. In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attempted to ban most asbestos-containing products, including building materials. Asbestos industry supporters sued, and the Fifth Circuit largely overturned the ban in 1991 after questioning the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis and evidence about safer substitutes. The ruling left the United States without a complete asbestos ban for decades. In 2024, the EPA banned chrysotile, the country’s only commercially used asbestos type, across six uses, although some phaseouts extend through 2037.

50. American trivia author Fred L. Worth planted a false entry in his books claiming that TV detective Columbo’s first name was “Philip,” although the series never revealed one in dialogue. When Trivial Pursuit repeated “Philip Columbo,” Worth filed a $300 million copyright lawsuit against the game’s creators and distributors in 1984. The defendants admitted using Worth’s books but argued that facts could not receive copyright protection, and the court dismissed the case. The Ninth Circuit upheld that decision in 1987, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it in 1988.

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