Most cases that accident and personal injury lawyers handle are very serious, where they have to deal with the well-being and safety of people who were hurt due to others’ negligence. But similar to other areas of the law, personal injury is also susceptible to truly weird cases that are hard to believe unless you hear them yourself. Counting down from 7 to 1, here are some of the most unusual personal injury cases in legal history:

7. Missing Pants

Of course, you would find it inconvenient and annoying if your dry cleaner lost one of your garments. However, administrative law judge in Washington, D.C., Roy L. Pearson, Jr., took it a level further by suing for $54 million when his dry cleaner lost a pair of his trousers, claiming a failure of the company to live up to the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign displayed and the mental anguish he had. The case came to an end in favor of the dry-cleaning business owners after years of legal battle.

6. Eating Rats

In 2005, a man in Ohio in 2005 thought NBC’s Fear Factor went too far when contestants were challenged to eat rats. This display caused him to become nauseous, throw up and made him dizzy as he tried to make his way out of the room. He claimed that NBC should pay $2.5 million for his suffering, but the case was thrown out.

5. Befriending a Killer Whale

The word “killer” in a certain name should deter you from getting close to an individual, or in this occasion, an animal—a killer whale. However, not in this tragic case. A 27-year-old man in Florida went to great lengths to achieve his dream of swimming with this animal at Sea World. Having managed to hide from the establishment’s security at closing time, he entered the mammal’s tank, so you should know what comes next—he was killed by the whale. Then, his parents thought the park was responsible and sued it for their son’s death, ironically claiming that it should have displayed signs stating the killer whale’s killing capacity. However, the parents dropped the case not long after it was filed.

4. Knife in a Sandwich

One man in New York had a very unpleasant dining experience at Subway when he found a serrated knife in his sandwich bread. Though he noticed it, preventing him to sustain any cuts from shard, he did still claim to get sick after eating part of the sandwich, which may have been contaminated, granting him to receive $20,000.

3. Not the Weather As Expected

A woman in Israel actually sued a television station for stress and irreparable damage that resulted from an inaccurate weather forecast, which caused her to dress inappropriately and caught in the rain unexpectedly in light clothing, even making her sick, pay for medication and miss work. She won her $1000 from the legal battle.

2. Stopping for Doughnuts

It is not always good to stop for doughnuts, especially when you are driving an ambulance to transport an injured boy to the hospital—well, one man did! Unsurprisingly, the boy’s mother filed a complaint leading to the driver’s termination.

1. Enter at Your own Risk

When you enter an attraction that includes the word “horror”, then you should know what to expect. However, a 57-year-old woman visiting Halloween Horror Nights haunted house at Universal Studios claimed to have still feeling unreasonably frightened after the experience, stating that she resultantly suffered mental anguish and psychological trauma. Though these are legitimate injuries, they may have not been so legitimate in a case of someone opting to enter a haunted house, which means her case was dismissed.

Resource

http://www.lawfuel.com/blog/7-of-the-strangest-personal-injury-cases-in-history/

The well-known law firm of Motley Rice (not to be confused with Motley Crew) has been ordered to pay $400,000 in a frivolous lawsuit. The lawsuit was aimed at ITT Educational Services in a whistleblower case.

According to the plaintiff, Debra Leveski, however, she did not have any complaints against ITT Educational Services while she was associated with them. It was only after she was gone that she was approached by representatives for Motley Rice that she had gotten the idea that she may be able to win a lucrative whistleblower case.

One of the flaws with the case, however, according to the judge is that she did not blow the whistle until after the fact. Another flaw is that she was pursued by her attorneys in going forward with this case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt created a 31-page order which laid some responsibility on both parties for continuing this frivolous case that wasted the court’s time and the defendant’s money.

If it wasn’t for the fact that a frivolous lawsuit takes up the time of the plaintiff, defendants, the courts and many times lawyers and staff, some could be called entertaining. Such is not the case, however, in Northern California at a San Rafael restaurant where two men sued the restaurant for “exploding escargot”.

Supposedly garlic butter from the Seafood Peddler snails escaped from the shells and got splattered upon the shirts of the two men. The $7,500 lawsuit alleged negligence, pain and suffering along with staff indifference.

It’s these kinds of frivolous lawsuits that clog up the courts and push back dates for actual personal injury lawsuits that have merit. This case would have been better suited for Judge Judy than Judge Chernus who had to hear and rule on this ridiculous case. Mark another one up for the Darwin Awards.

Judge Roy Pearson had brought forth a $54 million lawsuit against South Korean immigrants who own a dry cleaning company saying they had lost a pair of his pants. Pearson who was an administrative law judge in Washington D. C. has now lost his job over the incident.

Pearson was suing Customs Cleaners for the loss of his trousers, mental anguish and attorneys fees, which he calculated to be $67 million, but later reduced to $54 million. Pearson claimed the cleaners did not live up to their “satisfaction guaranteed” motto.

Pearson was deselected for another term as judge as apparently his performance was not satisfactory.