Tony Deyal column...A courting we will go

Tony Deyal column…A courting we will go

Aug 18, 2008 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

“A Boy Named Sue” was a hit song by Johnny Cash. These days, boys and girls, regardless of names and nationality, sue for cash. Some of these lawsuits are as ridiculous as naming a kid in the Old Wild West “Sue”.

For example, a Chinese artist named Zhao Bandi, who is well known for his use of panda images in his work and carries a stuffed panda wherever he goes, found the film “Kung Fu Panda” insulting to China’s national icon, the panda bear. The “Independent” newspaper quoted Zhao as saying, “Designing the panda with green eyes is a conspiracy. A panda with green eyes has the feeling of evil.”

Zhao is also very upset that the father of Po the Panda is a duck. He is worried that, in a few years’ time, some Chinese people will think their ancestor is Donald Duck instead of one of the Peking ducks. Zhao is now suing Dreamworks, Stephen Spielberg’s company, but not for cash. He wants Dreamworks to apologise and make their records available so that the panda conspiracy could be unveiled.

Dreamworks is not the kind of company that will panda to Zhao. Maybe, instead of “Kung Fu Panda,” he should have avoided the kungfusion by watching “Get Smart” or use a suedonym.

In New York, Stephen Chang, a married securities trader, filed a lawsuit claiming he was injured when a stripper giving him a lap dance swivelled and smacked him in the face with the heel of her shoe. Chang is suing the club, claiming that he sustained serious injuries.

Following Chang’s mishap, Britain’s “Mirror” newspaper highlighted what it thought were the world’s ten most ridiculous lawsuits. Coming in at number one was the lawsuit brought by the parents of 27-year-old Daniel Dukes who was found naked and dead on the back of a killer whale at Sea World Orlando.

They sued the Florida marine park for several million dollars on the basis that the dangerous orca was portrayed as a huggable stuffed toy. In second place was the man who changed his name to ‘Jack Ass’ in 1997 and sued Viacom, the owners of MTV, for $10 million, saying the hit show “Jackass,” which first screened in 2000, had stolen his name.

Fortunately, he did not hear the calypso about Farmer Brown’s Jackass, otherwise he would have sued Lord Funny instead of getting a kick out of the song.

Third on the list was the lawsuit by Anna Ayala, who claimed that she found a finger in the chili sauce she bought at Wendy’s Hamburger restaurant in San Jose, California. Although she knew the way to San Jose, she did not know that Wendy’s would not accept that it was a trick played on them by the fickle finger of fate and investigated Anna’s claim. They found out that Anna had placed the severed digit in the soup herself. Now Anna’s in the soup doing nine years.

Among the other lawsuits was one by a Californian surfer who sued a rival for “taking his wave.” According to the Mirror, “The case was dismissed because they were unable to put a price on ‘pain and suffering’ endured by watching someone ride the wave that was ‘intended for you’.”

Next is the case of Linda Hunt, a 52-year-old woman who got drunk at an office party and crashed her car during a snowstorm. She won US$300,000 from the court when she sued her employer for allowing her to drive, even though the firm offered to pay for a taxi to take her home or to a hotel room if she gave up her car keys.

In another case, wanting to be like Mike was all right, but looking like him was pure pain for Allen Heckard, who sued basketball legend Michael Jordan and Nike founder Phil Knight for $832 million. Heckard said he had suffered “defamation, permanent injury, and emotional pain and suffering” because people often mistook him for the basketball star.

In another ridiculous lawsuit, Richard Overton, a self-confessed beer lover, sued Anheuser-Busch, the Bud people, for false advertising and failure to deliver on their promises. Overton said that regardless of how much Bud Light he drank, the scenes in the commercial of women with tiny bikinis frolicking on beaches never materialized. This caused him emotional distress.

Shocking, even though the trial court threw out the case, Overton won in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Then there was the one where an audience member sued NBC’s Tonight Show for $22,000 after being hit in the eye by a free T-shirt fired into the audience with an airgun by one of the comedians. The Mirror also reported, “A Canadian tourist sued Starbucks, claiming a faulty toilet seat in one of the chain’s New York coffee shops crushed his penis.”

The man wanted $1 million for “dire and permanent” injuries to his member, while his wife sued for $500,000 in damages for the “deprivation of husbandly services”. The one that is the boldest, or most bowl-faced, is the fan who went to a concert and sued for $5.4million for being subjected to the sight of a number of women using a urinal in the men’s toilets.

The man said he was “extremely upset” as his rights to privacy were violated by women using the men’s toilets.

However, I have one that tops them all. If you think the “Jack Ass” case was bad enough, try this. I tell you as I heard it. A man who was terminated by a company signed an agreement not to sue the company and received in lieu an “ex gratia” payment. The dictionary defines the Latin term as “free of encumbrances,” so he argued in court that, since the money was free of encumbrances, the agreement he signed did not matter.

He lost the case and had to pay costs.
*Tony Deyal was last seen asking “Why did Willie Nelson sue the truck driver?” He was hit by a truck while playing “On the Road Again.”