Donny Deutsch, of The Big Idea, had a fantastic idea. He says most lawsuits in this country are frivolous and if there were penalties to the loser of the lawsuit, say 5% of the filed claim, it would eliminate 90% of lawsuits in America. I guess that would put a lot of lawyers out of work so its guaranteed to never happen. A good idea, nonetheless. This idea came about while discussing a stupid lawsuit where Allen Heckard of Portland, Oregon is suing Michael Jordan and Nike Founder, Phil Knight, for $832 million because "for the last fifteen years he has been accused of looking like Michael Jordan which makes him very uncomfortable." Heckard is suing Michael Jordan for defamation and permanent injury, emotional pain, and suffering. He is suing Knight for defamation and permanent injury for promoting Jordan and making him one of the most famous athletes in the world. Yeah right! With that in mind, here is a short list of some other funny lawsuits: - Jack Ass sued the television show "Jackass" for plagiarizing his name, copyright & trademark infringement, and defamation of character. In 1997, this Montana man had legally changed his name to "Jack Ass." What a jack ass!
- An Ohio woman sued Washington's Pend Oreille County because she had a car accident which left her passenger critically injured. She claims that cops should have pulled her off the road prior to the accident because she'd been drinking and hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.
- A resident of Cincinatti sued NBC, The Tonight Show, and Jay Leno because during a Tonight Show warm-up, free t-shirts were blasted into the audience with one hitting him in the face. He claimed for pain and suffering, lost wages, emotional distress, and humiliation.
- In Orlando, the estate of a woman killed by a drunk driver sued the rental car company that rented the car involved in the crash to an Irish tourist. In her claim she stated that the rental car company should have been more careful when renting cars to the Irish because the Irish are drunks.
Actually, I no longer agree with Donny Deutsch's idea of making the plaintiff pay to reduce lawsuits. If we made the plaintiff pay, we would not be entertained by funny lawsuits like these anymore. |
