There's long been a widespread myth that the courts are inundated with frivolous lawsuits, although statistically, relatively few lawsuits actually meet the criteria for frivolity. This may be because, between the time they're conceived and the time they're executed, some people realize their lawsuits are a terrible idea. Like these 10 high-profile lawsuits, which range from the almost reasonable to the downright ridiculous.
10. George Lucas's lawyers threaten to sue Mad Magazine
When it comes to copyright infringement, lawyers around the world have emerged from the grip of the internet era to crush all potential infringers. But before the internet, things were a little different. First, it was harder to even infringe copyright. What were you going to do, write your own parody? to Star Wars« ? Well, if you worked at Mad Magazine in 1980, then yes.
George Lucas's lawyers contacted Mad, artist Mort Drucker, and writer Dick DeBartolo for their parody of "«The Empire Strikes Back"» titled "The Empire Strikes Back." They sent a cease and desist letter to the magazine, demanding the recall of all published issues. Today, such a letter might be potentially terrifying, given Disney's power, but even then, it would have been at least a little frightening if not for another letter DeBartolo had received earlier.
The previous letter was from George Lucas himself, who saw the parody in a magazine and liked it so much that he wrote to the team to compliment them and request some original art. They responded to his lawyers, stating that their employer had been very pleased with it and included a copy of Lucas's letter. Unsurprisingly, no further legal action was filed.
9. Disney threatened to sue kindergartens
Speaking of Disney, the House of Mouse has a nasty habit of getting on the wrong side of legal issues, and one of their most egregious Goliath vs. David cases was when they decided to sue some Florida daycare centers. You know, the places where people babysit children all day?
Back in 1989, the company discovered that three separate childcare centers had brazenly painted Disney-copyrighted characters on their walls. Apparently operating from the position that no child should enjoy their intellectual property without paying daily, though the official stance was that they feared people would think Disney was somehow sponsoring the schools. The childcare centers were given time to remove the images before any legal action was taken, which they did. This also gave Universal the opportunity to replace the missing images with images of its own characters, such as Woody Woodpecker, the Flintstones, and other Hanna-Barbera characters owned by the company, making them heroes. And yes, Disney was legally correct in their claims, but the PR hit couldn't have done them any good.
8. Producers threatened to sue Susan Sarandon if she didn't learn to play the cello.
The Witches of Eastwick was released in 1987 and has become something of a cult classic. In the film, Susan Sarandon plays one of three women who fall for Jack Nicholson's slightly demonic character. Years after its release, in 2020, Sarandon spoke at an event dedicated to Eastwick , when she let out some dirt on the film's production.
Besides claiming that her role was stolen by Cher shortly before production began, she also learned she had to learn to play the cello for her new role. She had no idea how to play the cello. You'd think she could fake it for the film, but instead, the producers threatened to sue her if she didn't learn it. Since her character has a very memorable cello scene in the film, it's safe to say she was up to the task.
7. Microsoft Sues for a Lookalike Domain
For the quarter ending March 31, 2023, Microsoft earned $49.36 billion. Financially, the company is doing quite well. And perhaps they're making all this money because they're almost disconcertingly cheap when it comes to running a business, as evidenced by their threat to sue a Canadian teenager.
Seventeen-year-old Mike Rowe registered a website called MikeRoweSoft.com, clearly a joke based on his own name. Microsoft doesn't take jokes lightly. In early 2004, the teenager was threatened with a lawsuit. They demanded he hand over the domain in exchange for $10. That's one zero, or the price he paid for registering the domain name at the time.
Rowe responded with a $10,000 offer, claiming he was just starting his own graphic design business and had spent a lot of time working on the website he was using. Microsoft's lawyers responded with a 25-page letter, accusing him of cybersquatting, among other things, and demanding a plea bargain.
The story attracted massive media attention and made Microsoft look ridiculous. Microsoft doubled down, accusing him of extracting money for a bigger paycheck. They later backed down, claiming they "took it too seriously." As for Mike, he ultimately gave up the domain, but not for $10 or $10,000. He has an Xbox.
6. Uri Geller threatened to sue Nintendo over Pokémon
Uri Geller, as is well known, was exposed on «The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson» for failing to live up to his claimed psychic abilities. Since then, he has been infamous for attacks on his character, so much so that in 2000, he threatened to sue Nintendo over a Pokémon character.
The character Kadabra can bend spoons. Uri Geller famously claimed to bend spoons with his mind, though he couldn't do it in front of Johnny Carson with spoons he didn't have access to beforehand. Geller, known as "Jungerer" in Japan, believed this was a clear reference to him.
Nintendo retired the character, and the lawsuit was later dismissed. It wasn't until 2020 that Geller finally decided he might have overreacted and, based on the fan mail he received, allowed Nintendo to move forward and use the character again.
5. ASCAP threatened to sue the Girl Scouts
When Girl Scouts aren't busy selling addictive cookies, they enjoy crafts, camping, hiking, and doing good for the community. But let's get back to the camping part for a second. What goes with camping? Marshmallows, tents, and camp songs. And then there's the lawsuit, or almost was.
Back in the mid-1990s, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, or ASCAP, infamously protested camp songs. The organization is supposedly a nonprofit that protects the rights of singers and musicians by licensing the rights to their members' music for public performance. This means the singer gets paid when one of their songs is played on the radio. This is how they handle billions of dollars.
Despite the sound of good work, the organization has been accused of outrageously pursuing every copyright dollar it can find. In 1995, they informed the American Camping Association that they planned to charge a fee for music performed at their campsites because it constituted public performance. This may have included campfire songs. The association informed its members, among other things, of potential fines for failure to pay the $250 fee. Among their members were Girl Scouts.
The PR nightmare was swift and brutal. ASCAP rushed to claim they had never threatened the Girl Scouts, which was partly true and partly not. Eventually, they relented, and camp songs became free again.
4. Fyre Festival threatened to sue critics
In 2017, the Fyre Festival was a fiasco. Advertised as a massive music festival, it turned out to be largely a scam. Attendees paid thousands of dollars for luxury accommodations and gourmet food on a tropical island. What they received were repurposed tents, a nonexistent festival, substandard food, and many were left without power, with little food, and water.
Ultimately, the organizer received six years in prison and was ordered to repay millions, although he has since been released. Interestingly, while the trials were ongoing, McFarland and his co-organizer, rapper Ja Rule, threatened critics with their own lawsuits. They claimed that those using social media to disrupt the festival were inciting civil unrest. Despite their threats, they failed.
3. Harrods department store threatened a New Zealand restaurant
Most of us haven't heard of the New Zealand town of Otorohanga, but you know who has? Lawyers for the UK department store Harrods. All thanks to their potential lawsuit in 1986.
The town, which currently has a population of just over 3,000, also had a Harrods restaurant, owned by resident Henry Harrod, who named the place after himself. Despite it being a tiny business in a tiny town, the owner of one of the world's most famous department stores threatened to sue unless the name was changed.
The problem with a lawsuit like this is that you can't really try to have much of an impact on a small New Zealand town. Instead of agreeing, the entire town briefly changed its name to Harrodsville, and nearly every business in the town also changed its name to Harrods. This attracted enough international media attention that it forced the department store owners to drop the lawsuit.
You can visit the city's Facebook page and read conversations from local residents who recall the time when this happened.
2. FOX News threatened to sue «The Simpsons»
«The Simpsons» have been on television since 1989. It's been over thirty years, and they've aired on FOX the entire time, which is important to remember as you delve into the story. Back in 2003, the creator «The Simpsons» Matt Groening revealed how the show was threatened with a lawsuit for including a humorous ticker tape in an episode. The alleged victim? FOX News.
In the cartoon, FOX News's news feed ran several silly headlines intended to mock the notoriously anti-democratic network, including lines like "Are Democrats Causing Cancer?" It's not clear on 100% what violation FOX News believed occurred or what crime they were the victims of, but as Groening noted, the cartoon carried the day. For FOX News to sue FOX Entertainment would basically require CEO Rupert Murdoch to pay to sue himself. So, yeah. There was no lawsuit.
1. Parents sued their children for destroying their house.
No one likes people who show off their ego, but this story takes things to the next level. NFL player Brian Holloway owned a country house. On Labor Day weekend 2013, about 300 local teenagers broke into the empty house for a party, causing about $20,000 in damage.
The teenagers were teenagers, and they organized and celebrated many parties on social media. This included posting photos of themselves at home. So Holloway did what anyone trying to figure out who trashed their home would do: he tracked down the kids using the photos they'd taken to identify them for the police. He posted them on his website, asking for help identifying the culprits.
He eventually collected 170 tweets and photos. This angered the parents of some of the children involved in the crime, and they actually threatened to sue Holloway for publishing photos of their children—the ones the children had posted on social media, depicting themselves committing crimes, for the world to see.
Several teenagers have been charged, and there is no evidence that lawsuits by aggrieved parents have ever gone anywhere.