10 Ridiculous Lawsuits that Cost You Money
Tara Obenauer (Right), A Long Island woman, filed a claim to sue Nassau County in 2012 for $10 million saying it failed to supervise Police Officer Mike Tedesco with whom she was having an affair, and with whom she spent more than 100 nights while he was on duty.
ABC
An inmate in Illinois sued local cities, counties, police departments and the Southwestern Illinois College for close to $1.7 trillion alleging he was falsely arrested and unfairly banned from the college campus, even though the 48-year-old man pleaded guilty to a felony aggravated battery charge after inappropriately touching a classmate at Southwestern Illinois College.
A woman in Huntington Beach, CA, filed 47 lawsuits against various government agencies including the Orange District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sherriff’s Department, asking for at least $25,000. In one of her cases, she sued the city claiming it was negligent for not planting vegetation in parking lots, sidewalks and near gutters to beautify the area.
Wikimedia Commons
An Ohio French and Spanish teacher sued her school district last year for discrimination because of her phobia of young children after she was reassigned in 2010 from high school to junior high and then pressured to resign. The suit sought unspecified damages, but the plaintiff claimed she lost out on at least $100,000 of potential income as a result of early retirement.
iStockphotos
Some New York City parents are suing the Bronx Zoo and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York for undisclosed damages after their son swallowed a souvenir penny when visiting the zoo’s Dinosaur Safari exhibit last year. The ordeal cost the family more than $50,000 in medical bills, according to their lawyer.
Flickr/Shinya Suzuki
A New Jersey man is suing his son’s high school for $40 million because the boy was kicked off the school’s track team after missing too many practice sessions with no valid excuse. The father claimed that his son was bullied by the school and its track coaches and wasn’t allowed to show his talent during his freshman year.
MICHAEL BRYANT/Philly.com
A Colorado man who was saved during historic flooding last fall has filed a notice of intent to sue his rescuers and other authorities. He alleged that he was trapped in his upside down car for hours, yelling to seek help, but that officials ignored his cry for assistance for two hours. The man said he’s suffered $500,000 in damages.
CBS
An inmate on Rikers Island in New York, who was locked up for firing at two cops, is suing the city claiming he fell in a jailhouse shower because the floor was too wet as water accumulated on the floor due to a clogged drain. He blamed the city for not putting down warning mats, skid-resistant materials, signs or cones to alert inmates of the dangerous conditions.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
An attorney filed a claim against Portsmouth, ME, earlier this month asking for more than $73,000 for a client who suffered a dog attack in June 2011. He’s basing his claim on an old state statute that has since been repealed. He alleged that a dog owned by a city woman came on his client’s property and attacked his client’s dog as well as his client. Although there were no injuries, the client had to go through a series of shots as the dog wasn’t vaccinated.
Two teenagers sued publicly-funded Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Corp. after trespassing onto railroad property, climbing atop a rail car and being burned by a 12,500-volt electrical wire in Pennsylvania in August 2002. They claimed that the companies should have placed warning signs altering people of the dangerous wires. Four years later, they were awarded $24.2 million.
REUTERS/Mike Blake