'He believed... he owned the volcano': 25+ Lawyers who took on very silly legal cases

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 1, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

Being a lawyer is a tough job, and they have to be picky about what cases they take on. Many law firms already have specialties, which helps narrow down the types of cases they accept (like those who specialize in car crashes or family law). But still, there are tons of clients who come in every day to these law firms requesting help for the most frivolous cases imaginable. 

In any case, the lawyer will talk to the potential client and ask them to provide evidence. Credit where it's due, these lawyers are patient people. More than 12,000 people responded to u/boopbaboop's query: "Lawyers of Reddit, what's the stupidest case you've been asked to take on (and did you)?" One of these respondents was a lawyer who was asked to hear about a guy's car accident, which he agreed to. But this dude explained that he had to tell the lawyer his tale via a poem… in a language the lawyer didn't speak at all. The lawyer tried to tell the client this, but the client didn't seem to care. Instead, the lawyer wound up listening to a 20-minute long poem, which they understood not a single word of, before kicking the client out. See? Very patient! 

Next up, this movie theater worker witnessed someone trying to get a free soda, but the customer's methods are just so gross.

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  • 01
    'I had a guy accused of shoplifting a yellow FUBU shirt. Guess what he wore to the trial? A yellow FUBU shirt.'
    via Divazus Fabric Store on Unsplash
  • 02
    Lawyers of Reddit, what's the stupidest case you've been asked to take on (and did you)?
    via u/boopbaboop
  • 03
    [deleted] My father is a patent attorney, and when I was around 14 he told me about a guy who wanted to patent the IPhone 3 because "aliens" had given him the design for it. My father told him that if the aliens originally designed then they were the ones that had to patent it, not him.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 04
    Cal... I'm a prosecutor, so I don't get hired to represent anyone (I work for the government) but I do have discretion over how the prosecution progresses (i.e. deciding to proceed, deciding what to offer in the event of a plea bargain, deciding to withdraw the charges, etc.) I had a case a few months ago where a man was charged with
    via u/CalgaryAlly
  • 05
    shoplifting. Turned out he was 70 years old, had absolutely no criminal record, and had shoplifted a SANDWICH which he ate politely in the store. He honestly thought he had paid for it. I was so angry that he was ever charged in the first place. When I saw him in court, he was absolutely terrified. I
    via u/CalgaryAlly
  • 06
    withdrew the charges and wished him well. I have no idea how it progressed that far.
    via u/CalgaryAlly
  • 07
    _TheConsumer_ I had a client come in saying that he "needed to sue Stu for robbing all his checks." When I asked him if Stu had a last name, he said no. When I asked him if he knew any Stu, he said no. When I asked him what proof he had that Stu was robbing him, he showed me all of his pay stubs.
    via u/_TheConsumer_
  • 08
    There were clear, monthly deductions by "SCU". As soon as I saw it, I knew. I asked "Do you have children?" He said yes. I then told him "Your Stu is the SCU - the Support Collection Unit. They take money out of your check to pay for your child." He left the office insisting that we needed to find Stu.
    via u/_TheConsumer_
  • 09
    gurlpandagurl I did insurance defense for a long time, including insurance fraud investigations for insurance. companies. You wouldn't believe how many people take a video inventory of their house only to have it "mysteriously" burn down the next day. You really can't fix stupid.
    via u/gurlpandagurl
  • 10
    [deleted] When I was in law school | did the criminal defense clinic where we "help" a public defender. I say help because they just give you small cases to do by yourself. I had a guy accused of shoplifting a yellow FUBU shirt.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    Guess what he wore to the trial? A GD yellow FUBU shirt. I asked the prosecutor to reoffer the plea deal, she did, and I convinced the guy to take community service and probation (if I remember correctly). Our public defender system is tragically overworked and underfunded.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    OrSpeeder I had a teacher that worked for a major video game publisher (one of the top10 ones) He told me that when people tried to sue them for small amounts due to some game being bad, they would just pay whatever the person wanted, it was cheaper than dealing with the country terrible justice system.
    via u/OrSpeeder
  • 13
    Except one day a guy sued them because a game was bad, he was a law student, self representing, and tried to throw the book at the company. They decided to make a exception for this guy, they instead 'threw the book back' at him, the lawsuit kept escalating until both sides wasted lots of time and money...
    via u/OrSpeeder
  • 14
    Then as final stroke, they offered to settle in front of a judge. There in front of the judge... they put the price of the game on the table in cash, and told the guy to just take it and stop bothering them. The judge thought it was very fair, and told the guy that if he refused that settlement he would be fined.
    via u/OrSpeeder
  • 15
    Guy was very unhappy... he expent like 5000 USD in bureaucracy and airplane fares to get 60 USD.
    via u/OrSpeeder
  • 16
    stueh Guy I know worked for the DPP and told me about a case where a guy was up on car theft charges, which is like 5 years max bit he was very likely to get a suspended sentence/probation as it was a first ever offense. The dumba though, thought it would be a good idea to go and intimidate the witness into not testifying. The
    via u/stueh
  • 17
    witness called the cops and had CCTV footage of this, so he copped an extra charge with a 20 year max and there was no way in was getting a suspended sentence or probation on that one. he
    via u/stueh
  • 18
    sp... I'm a lawyer, but this happened to a friend of mine. He got engaged, and apparently this I off his ex-gf. The ex-gf sued him. for custody of their two cats AND $500,000 for something like the lost value of the cats because she claimed they were service animals. Hint: they were not at all service animals.
    via u/spanonaddy
  • 19
    Edit: Wow this got a lot of attention. So, to add to the story, one of the reasons my friend broke up with the ex- gf was because she had problems caring for the cats, ignoring them, forgetting to feed them while my friend was away, etc. So her coming back for the cats was clearly ALL about the fact that my friend was suddenly engaged to someone else. When they
    via u/spanonaddy
  • 20
    went to court, the judge immediately threw out the $500,000 demand because it was ridiculous. Unfortunately, they were awarded "joint custody" of the cats, which was this woman's way of staying in my friend's life, so he decided it was better if he just gave her the cats so he could be free of her.
    via u/spanonaddy
  • 21
    sk... I worked as a receptionist at a small personal injury firm and was the first line of defense against the more outlandish cases. One of the most ridiculous calls I took involved a woman wanting to sue her cat's veterinarian for malpractice because her cat scratched her, which in turn supposedly caused her liver to fail and a slew of other health problems to arise.
    via u/skye9
  • 22
    She believed the vet was at fault because she was convinced the cat was carrying some obscure disease and the vet had failed to catch it. It was my second day on the job, so I put her through to an attorney, not yet knowing. what else to do with such a ridiculous situation. She got a firm "sorry, can't help ya" from our office, in part because we did not do
    via u/skye9
  • 23
    malpractice, veterinary or otherwise, but also because she sounded like a one-way ticket to Crazy Town. Edit: As some have pointed out, the woman may have actually had Cat Scratch Fever, which could in theory lead to a legitimate claim. However, when she called, she presented it as "I got sick, and then someone told me it was from my cat. My vet never told me my cat
    via u/skye9
  • 24
    was sick! Can I sue him for malpractice?," and apparently vets do not regularly test for Cat Scratch Fever unless you bring your cat in for certain symptoms. This was clearly an "I see a chance for a cash payout!" situation, and we would get calls like that alllllll the time with both bizarre and banal stories behind them. Either way, she would have needed
    via u/skye9
  • 25
    someone more specialized than the firm I worked for, which primarily handled car accidents and zero cats.
    via u/skye9
  • 26
    lawyerlady A guy found a rock in the middle of Melbourne CBD that he believed came from an underground volcano therefore he discovered the volcano and he owned the volcano and that the Melbourne city council and
    via u/lawyerlady
  • 27
    indeed the Victorian government should pay him rent to live on top of his underground volcano. No no I did not take on the case
    via u/lawyerlady
  • 28
    [deleted] My mother said that at a law firm she used to work at many years ago they had received a call from a gentleman that wanted to file a lawsuit against Walt Disney. When asked why he was filing suit he claimed that the Disney characters.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 29
    were coming out of the TV and stealing food from his refrigerator. They told him they'd take the case for an advance fee of $100K and never heard back from him.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 30
    kri... One prospective client wanted me to sue Burger King for no longer serving pancakes. EDIT: thank you for all your concern and tips. This was about 18 years ago, so I hope my client found a lawyer and you are all the beneficiaries of his foresight and proper sense of outrage.
    via u/kritycat
  • 31
    KayaXiali My dad is an in house lawyer for a major American insurance company. He once spent an entire year trying to help deny insurance benefits for a painter who had stepped off his ladder onto a cat, fallen down the stairs and become paralyzed. The insurance company was arguing that a cat was a commonly expected
    via u/KayaXiali
  • 32
    occupational hazard for a painter and that he was negligent in not checking for cats before stepping down. A whole year of his life. Over whether a cat is a known occupational hazard of house painting.
    via u/KayaXiali
  • 33
    [deleted] Lawyer for 12 years. Client was charged with "stealing a mobile toilet". After we won he told me he still owns it. The the thing in his backyard because he was lazy as (his office was nearby). has Forced him to deliver it back at night...jesus...still offended that he lied to me me the whole time.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 34
    latam9891 When I was a summer associate, I worked on a case where a lady was suing her apartment complex because she walked out of her unit, slipped on duck ', and injured herself. We repped the apt complex. The associate I was working for told me to slip as many bird-based puns into the motions/pleadings as possible. I happily obliged.
    via u/latam9891
  • 35
    KenPopehat When I was a federal prosecutor, an NCIS agent wanted me to prosecute federally someone living near the base for flying the U.S. flag the wrong way. I didn't. He was miffed.
    via u/KenPopehat
  • 36
    Th... I run a consumer advocacy firm. I had a client come in and tell me that he bought a product, and the company refused to honor the warranty after the product broke. I asked for details, and he just started screaming in my face asking. if I was going to take his money or not. I decided then that I wasn't taking him on as a client, but I wanted to
    via u/ThunderNumber2
  • 37
    know what was going on. I convinced him to tell me what happened. Turns out he bought a computer back in the 1990s. It had just recently d d. But not because it was old and just stopped working. It was slow, so he picked it up, and threw it out a two story window. And then he wanted to sue the manufacturer for breaking warranty.
    via u/ThunderNumber2
  • 38
    ca... Not really stupid but unbelievable. My friend at work, his girlfriend filed for divorce a few weeks ago. That's right. They aren't married and common law doesn't apply in WA state. They lived together for 5 years. She has a job. She isn't on the mortgage. And she left him a few months ago. There are no kids
    via u/captainkrunch71
  • 39
    involved. They were never engaged. In the "divorce" she wants him to leave his house and she wants to move back in. She wants him to pay her 2800 a month for some reason. I referred him to my divorce attorney and now that attorney is probably going to represent him. The
    via u/captainkrunch71
  • 40
    chick is nuts. She has already tried to get a restraining order against him that was dismissed.
    via u/captainkrunch71
  • 41
    Co... I dealt with a guy once who wanted me to take on his road traffic accident PI claim. He had written a poem, in Yoruba, about the accident. He refused to tell me anything about his case until he's read the whole thing, in Yoruba. Among other problems, | can't speak any Yoruba. As in, not one word.
    via u/CountZapolai
  • 42
    As in, that day was the first time I had ever heard of the Yoruba language. I'm not even from a part of the world where I might readily be mistaken for someone who speaks Yoruba. It's a West African language, and I am really, really obviously not from a West African background. I try to explain this to the guy who becomes very agitated and insists that he
    via u/CountZapolai
  • 43
    must read out his poem in Yoruba. I give up and tell him to get on with it so we can talk about his claim. He does. It takes him nearly 20 minutes to finish. Anyway, after he's done, he finishes and sits back with a big smile and says that he's certain I'll take his case on now. I begin to ask him some questions about his case, but he refuses to answer. He says that this poem (in
    via u/CountZapolai
  • 44
    Yoruba) is everything I need. to know about his case. Basically, I tell him to off and stop wasting my time. He does, but not before standing around outside my office for an hour or so, reading out his poem, to no-one in particular, over and over again. In Yoruba.
    via u/CountZapolai
  • 45
    Oa... Not a lawyer, but lawyer friend and neighbor told me yesterday of a guy who's client is being sued (trying to turn this into a class action suit to boot) over chicken wings. The claim is that the 10 wings in his order actually constitute only 5 wings because there's two edible parts to a
    via u/Oafus
  • 46
    chicken wing. In chicken anatomy class this would be true. In restaurant chicken wing business not so.
    via u/Oafus
  • 47
    [deleted] Guy came in and had a company build a shed on some land. On the phone, he told me it was built incorrectly. He insisted on meeting. When he got to my office, I asked him what was wrong with the building. Was it structurally deficient? Dangerous? Etc.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 48
    None of the above. Turns out it was not perfectly square with the road in front of it. It was off by a foot. You could not tell by the n ked eye, but he would always know and it bugged him. I told him that without any real damages, he had no case. He stormed out angrily.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 49
    ve... I defended a guy who was charged (with theft) for stealing some crowbars. The crowbars were found in the back of his pickup truck. At the trial, the "victim" (of the "theft") and two of his buddies came in and testified that the crowbars (which had been taken into evidence and properly labeled for the trial)
    via u/vespolina12
  • 50
    definitely belonged to the victim, and the buddies remembered seeing the victim use them. Then my client and his brother and his girlfriend testified that the crowbars were definitely my client's, they had all been using them together earlier in the day. That was pretty much it.
    via u/vespolina12
  • 51
    The jury found my client not guilty, and one juror later wrote a letter to the judge saying that she was a high school civics teacher, and she believed jury duty was very important, and that the trial was the stupidest waste of time she had ever endured.
    via u/vespolina12
  • 52
    HoyaSaxons Not a lawyer yet, but I've worked on some crazy cases as a law clerk. One client made an offer to sell commodities at a particular price. Out client sent the contract to them for signature at which time if they accepted then out client would sign. The client waited three months, and then the price of that
    via u/HoyaSaxons
  • 53
    commodity skyrocketed. Our client sent an e-mail rescinding the original offer and letting the other party know that the price of the commodity rose. The other party immediately signed the contract, and sent it back to our client BY
    via u/HoyaSaxons
  • 54
    REPLYING TO THE EMAIL RESCINDING THE OFFER! and then tried to say that there was an enforceable contract. um. no.
    via u/HoyaSaxons
  • 55
    Famous OhioApple... My client choked on a screw in his tuna sandwich. He sued Luna Tuna. He rejected their ten million dollar settlement in favor of going to trial. Which seemed smart, until his best friend had a meltdown on the stand & confessed to dropping the screw in the tuna.
    via u/FamousOhioAppleHorn
  • 56
    myogawa I heard a caller on a call-in lawyer radio show ask if he could sue a retail store that had a big sign "open 24 hours" because he tried to go in at 3 am on a Sunday morning and the doors were locked. Apparently they did close from midnight to 7 am on Sundays, according to a tiny "hours of service" sign near the door.
    via u/myogawa
  • 57
    The host pretty much told him that there are hundreds of people with legitimate claims waiting for their day in court and that no one would take his stupid case and add to the congestion.
    via u/myogawa
  • 58
    [deleted] Damnit I'm late so this will get buried. One of the few stories I can tell was the time where this young Airman came in with a sob story about how he wanted to sue his ex fiancé and get his ring back. Military law doesn't really deal with civil suits so we referred him to a civilian attorney. However, during
    via u/[deleted]
  • 59
    the course of our talking to him it comes out the girl has already left, because she was 18 and her dad was the one star on the base who just changed station the previous summer. Apparently, Airman had cheated on the Generals daughter and she broke off the engagement and kept the five thousand dollar ring.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 60
    We explained that while technically, yes, some states can totally view this gift as a "promise" of some sort (I'm not the most up to speed on this law, and this was a while ago) his likelihood of successfully suing a generals daughter while he was stationed in Japan was pretty low.
    via u/[deleted]

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