Tax and Legal News - March 2025

Actionable? Of course!

For this March editorial, I did not choose to comment on new Czech or European legislation. Rather, I was keen to look at a topic I have been thinking about for some time. I have always enjoyed reading about bizarre lawsuits, i.e. court cases where sometimes even the lawyers themselves are amazed that such a life story can be made the subject of a lawsuit where the plaintiff often succeeds.

The fact that I would somehow be affected by the legal profession may have first occurred to me around 1994 or 1995, when I first saw the great movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. Although the film’s strong story is depicted in many great scenes (especially in the courtroom), what I remember most from is the opening scene in which Denzel Washington is introduced as a great attorney. He discusses his case with a potential client: "So, the whole street is clear except for one small, undeveloped part, this huge hole that is clearly marked and demarcated. And you decide that you have to cross the street at that spot, no other spot. You fall into that hole and now you want to sue the city for negligence, right?" The client responds: "Yes, can we sue them?" The lawyer smiles and says "Yes, of course we can sue them." You may be thinking this is absurd, and only happened to suit the script. But let's take a look at a couple of cases that were actually tried in a courtroom. 

Perhaps the most famous case of this kind is the lawsuit brought by a careless McDonald's customer. After the quote from the American film, it will come as no surprise that we are once again looking at the USA. In 1992, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck decided to stop at a McDonald's drive-through to buy a coffee. But when she tried to take the lid off the cup to sweeten her drink, she spilled the hot coffee into her lap. The result? Burns to her thighs and groin that required eight days in the hospital and two years of treatment. Liebeck decided to sue McDonald's because she claimed the coffee was too hot to sell to people. And the result of the lawsuit? The persistent customer ultimately settled for nearly 115 million crowns at today's exchange rate.

This case has become a symbol of the absurdity of some lawsuits and has sparked a debate about corporate liability and product safety. Many have wondered how it is possible for someone to sue for burns caused by their own clumsiness. Probably since then (if not before), US companies in particular have added often absurd warnings to their consumer instructions. A well-known legend is the warning by the manufacturer of a microwave oven that it should not be used to dry wet cats, though as far as I know, this is fiction and no such dispute has been brought to court in the US.

Another example that illustrates how a joke can sometimes have severe consequences is the case of Cathy McGowan in 1999. This American woman decided to call in to a Radio Buxton competition where the prize was a Renault Clio. When Cathy answered correctly, she was excited to drive away in her new car. But... the contest was a joke and the station staff only gave her a small model car. Plus, they reportedly commented that she must be stupid if she thought she was getting a real vehicle. Cathy refused to accept this treatment and took the case to court, which agreed that size really does matter. The station had to pay the woman almost a million crowns – and went bankrupt.

These were historical, well-known cases, so let's see if the issue of bizarre lawsuits has moved on since the 1990s. In 2017, a man asked a woman out on a date to the movies to see Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2. Unfortunately, the woman was apparently more preoccupied with her phone than the film, which offended the man so much that he filed a lawsuit against her. He claimed the woman had broken the rules of movie-going and disrupted his cinematic experience. Eventually, the woman agreed to pay him 17 dollars per ticket, and the man dropped the suit.

When it comes to advertising, who doesn't know the famous corporate slogan "Redbull gives you wings"? In 2016, however, a group of customers decided to take it literally and filed a class action suit against the company for false advertising. They said that after drinking Redbull, they definitely didn't feel like superheroes who could fly. Redbull eventually agreed to an out-of-court settlement, paying out 640,000 dollars.

To take our story beyond the US, we'll use a story from China in 2012, when a man named Jian Feng sued his wife for giving birth to an "incredibly ugly" baby. After a DNA test, it turned out that he was indeed the father, and his wife admitted that she had undergone a number of plastic surgeries. Feng then sued her for misleading him by not disclosing her actual face. His wife had to pay him more than 120,000 dollars.

Marital relationships are, by the way, a fertile area for bizarre lawsuits. A cheated wife, for example, decided to sue her unfaithful husband for €19,621.67 in psychological damages. Her reasoning? The insomnia, headaches and depression that infidelity caused her. However, the court ruled that while marriage is about fidelity, the mental health of the other spouse is not within the court's competence. On the other hand, compensation for property damage is undoubtedly within the court's power, as recently confirmed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which ruled that an engagement ring must be returned to the giver if the wedding does not take place. So, if you, dear readers, are planning an engagement, be sure to be clear about what happens to the ring if things don't go according to plan. Whether you decide to say "yes" or "no," at least you'll avoid a lawsuit, which in this particular case was for 70,000 dollars.

I will be glad if I have managed to entertain you with this excursion into the world of bizarre litigation and take your mind off your everyday worries for a while. And though it is already March, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a lawsuit-free 2025.