Lawyers reveal the stupidest ideas potential clients have had to sue someone else — from getting back at a rival street clown to suing for a broken rib after receiving CPR

Pebble for your thoughts

Someone came in because their neighbor had done some gardening along the boundary between their front lawns. The client wanted to know whether she could sue the neighbor for trespass for the pebbles that had come onto the client's side, and theft for the soil that had gone onto the neighbor's side.

| Anye123

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The cost to save a life

I know a paramedic and they told me this story:

I was out at a restaurant with some of my friends. A guy was sitting behind us who went into cardiac arrest. I was still a trainee so I decided to give him CPR. I kept his heart pumping for three minutes before the ambulance arrived. He lived. Three weeks later I received a lawsuit complaining that I had broken one of the man's ribs.

I saved his life and he was suing me because I did minor damage.

| DeanMarais

Clowning around

I did a pro bono case for a street clown who wanted to sue another street clown for stealing his routine. You can't copyright a routine because it isn't stored in a medium. I told him that but he insisted we try to break some new legal ground.

| fatcharlie24

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Shhh (for just one day)

I met with this guy who wanted to sue a library because they had banned him… for one day. He was being disruptive and the administrator told him he was banned for one day.

Fortunately, I convinced him what a monumentally stupid idea this was.

| Deleted User

Caught in the act

My dad is a lawyer, and he had one person come in who wanted to sue McDonald's because she got her cheeseburger upside down in the bag instead of right side up.

He also had a person come in, and he couldn't walk because of some "injury" at work. At the time, my dad was skeptical so he hired a psychologist to examine him, and she found out that something COULD be wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Next week, my dad ended up with a video in his hands of the person WALKING down their driveway to take out the trash. Busted.

So my dad called them and told them "Hey come on in, we have a breakthrough in your case, and you can get some money for your injury."

So the guy comes to his office, and he leaves him sitting in the lobby for almost an hour because my dad knows this guy is a scumbag just trying to get money over nothing (which makes lawyers look bad). So then my dad calls him into the meeting room and plays the video.

| caffe1nated

There’s a price for anything

When I was 19 years old, I was sued by a 50-something-year-old [man] for $10,000 because I "caused him to lose the will to live." Apparently, $10K was the magic number to talk him out of [ending his life].

| hrtaus

Too many wives to keep track off

I had a crazy older client who was suing his minister for seducing his younger wife and convincing her to dump him. He came in with the wife he abandoned for the younger wife. Some idiot signed him up and filed the suit and I inherited it. I spent hours telling the guy he did not have a case and finally had to withdraw against his will. It was a bit sticky because the judge was grumpy.

| Mmmbleach

When a tree branch goes too far

Not a defense attorney, but I work in a prosecutor's office. That job can often be just as ridiculous because you get people showing up on a daily basis wanting other people thrown in jail for random [stuff]. At least once a week, someone comes in wanting to file a protection (restraining) order on someone else for posting lies about them on Facebook.

A few days ago I spent an hour being screamed at by an elderly person because I told him a neighbor's tree branch hanging over the property line did not qualify as criminal trespassing.

In general, people simply do not understand the concept of due process. They will come in with guns blazing, expecting us to arrest and charge someone right now based solely upon their testimony.

Despite having no physical evidence, no other witnesses to corroborate their story, and often no address where investigators could even find the accused to follow up on the report, 100% of them leave convinced the system is biased against them.

| Deleted User

Dependents and property are not the same thing

I used to work for the Attorney General in my home jurisdiction. A guy who'd had his children taken away for some horrible abuse tried to get his kids back by claiming they were his intellectual property. He sent notices that he'd copyrighted the kids, and demanded for their return.

Then he got the idea that his name and all his kids' names were trademarks, so every time he received a court document that referenced any of their names, he sent us an invoice for trillions of dollars for each use of his "trademarks."

| Deleted User

In need of a Dr. because of Dr. Pepper

It would be a tie between two [for stupidest cases]: a woman wanted to sue because Dr. Pepper bottle caps had cut her fingers twice over a three-year period.

A man wanted to sue Walgreens because it used pictures of his secretary's children in its ad without her permission.

|redwagon76

Blame it on Batman

I'm a law student currently so I don't have any cases of my own yet, but one of my favorites I've studied was about a woman who was in a major car accident and her defense was that she knew she could fly because Batman can fly, and therefore it wasn't her fault.

| kranzmonkey

From letter of recommendation to letter of condemnation

A former client wanted to sue an employer for not providing him with a letter of recommendation.

[He] demanded compensation for the accumulated lost wages from all the jobs the client didn't get (which he certainly would have gotten with said letter of recommendation) for the six years following the termination of the employment in question.

Hats off to him for thinking outside the box — the box of sanity.

| LowLaw

Crazier cases have happened

I work for an insurance company where we insure cases going to court and I read hundreds of personal injury claims every week. Most of them are basic tripping over cases, suing the council, etc. but every now and then you get some funny ones and some horrific ones.

One guy sued a huge supermarket chain because he burned himself on a microwavable meal. He got like two grand because he's too stupid to operate plastic film. Another lady sued a nightclub for falling over whilst wearing four-inch heels and after having consumed more than four times the recommended amount of alcohol. She still managed to get a payout of a few hundred.

| Deleted User

Duck, duck, sued

My ex's mum was a lawyer, and one of her clients at the time had a great one. She was riding on the back of her boyfriend's motorbike when a pheasant came flying at them, the boyfriend ducked which meant that the pheasant hit her right in the face and knocked her off the back of the bike.

They broke up about six months later and it was at this point that the woman decided she wanted to sue him for ducking. Pretty ridiculous.

| Dopebob