U.S. Chamber’s “Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2015”

Here. Their winner is the monkey-selfie case, and it, like five of the others, has been covered here before: aunt sues nephew for careless hug, cop spills free coffee on lap and sues, thrown roll at Missouri restaurant, California woman allegedly used fake medical records and pictures “from the Internet” to bolster McDonald’s coffee-spill case, and Washington bank robber injured while fleeing scene.

The four others:

4. Pennsylvania Nursing Student Fails a Course Twice and Sues the School for Not Helping With Anxiety
5. Two New York Women File $40 Million Lawsuit Over ‘Like, Five or Six Scratches’ They Received From a Gas Explosion Blocks Away
6. Colorado Inmate is Suing the NFL for $88 Billion Over the 2015 Cowboys’ Playoff Loss
7. Florida Woman is Suing FedEx for Tripping Over a Package Left at Her Doorstep

Our coverage last year of their 2014 list is here.

7 Comments

  • It seems that the “aunt sues nephew ” case was forced by the insurance carrier. I believe the aunt’s infuriatingly petty testimony was her successful attempt to torpedo her case.

  • I’m not sure there was any infuriatingly petty testimony. Rather, there was infuriatingly petty reporting of what seemed to be typical testimony in a personal injury case as to how a particular injury affected the plaintiff’s daily life.

  • Most of these are standard negligence cases or frivolous and will have little generalized impact.

    The nursing student case is different. There has been a broadly successful movement to give increasing numbers of students extra time on tests, nominally due “disability”. This movement, which started I think in the high schools, has seeped into colleges and, as in this case, professional schools. And professional schools of all type now routinely make admission and grade decisions based on the results of tests in which some students have much more time.

    One effect of this movement (apart from certifying unqualified students) is that there is no longer an objective way for a student to prove mastery of the material or even intelligence. A 180 LSAT score might be due to the student being smart and quick-witted – but it also might be due to the student having twice as much time as other students; likewise with a top GPA from a top school.

    And that in turn is going to make it much tougher for students who are independent thinkers to get into top schools. A conservative student is already going to have difficulties with grades and recommendations from some of the politically oriented liberal faculty; now he can’t argue that he is actually bright. Cruz, for example, got into Harvard partly based on his 180 LSATs, and likely got into Princeton for similar reasons. In the modern regimen, a few SJW type professors who disliked his politics could have harmed his chances.

  • No matter how much time they give you, it doesn’t help if you don’t know the material.More time is just making it more likely you won’t go with your first instinct… Okay, on essay exams you have a point. 😀

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  • They give you enough time to complete the tests. In every Medical test that I have taken, they offer multiple choices. So, even if you have a hint of the answer, you’ll make the correct choice. You have to know the material.

  • […] dissects how the case of the aunt suing her nephew over a hug gone wrong (covered here, here, and here) played out in the press and public opinion. [Weekly […]