I always thought being a lawyer wouldn’t be so bad. Arguing with people was something I did very well, and to have the option to argue my way into a large chunk of change? That sounds glorious! However, these 23 lawyers show you that you just can’t argue with stupid. Reading these, I think I made the right decision for my life…

1. But they gave is to me

My father is a patent attorney, he told me about a guy who wanted to patent the iPhone 3.
His excuse was 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.

2. Gonna get Stu…

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.

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.

3. Come ON people

I’m a prosecutor, so I don’t get hired to represent anyone but I do have discretion over how the prosecution progresses.
I had a case a few months ago where a man was charged with 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 withdrew the charges and wished him well. I have no idea how it progressed that far.

4. smh

​Woman wanted me to sue McDonalds because their employees beat up her son.
He was trying to rob the place.

5. Self-Incriminating

When I was in law school I did the criminal defence 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. Guess what he wore to the trial? A YELLOW FUBU SHIRT. I asked the prosecutor to re-offer 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.

6. Done messed up

Friend told me about a case where a guy was up on car theft charges, (5 years max) but he was very likely to get a suspended sentence/probation as it was a first ever offence.

The guy thought it would be a good idea to go and intimidate the witness into not testifying.

The 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 he was getting a suspended sentence or probation on that one.

7. Mystery solved

I did insurance defence 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.

8. Off Kilter

Guy came in angry about a company that built 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.

None of the above.

Turns out it was not perfectly square with the road in front of it. It was off by about a foot. You could not tell by the naked 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.

9. ​Ha!

A lady in prison in my state tried to sue the state Department of Corrections for “holding her against her will.”
Her lawyer wouldn’t touch it.

10. LOL

​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. 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. 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. Guy was very unhappy… he spent like $5000 USD on bureaucracy and airplane fares to get $60 USD.

11. ​That voodoo you do

A lady once called asking us to sue her neighbors.
They were using voodoo on her. Fortunately, she had psychic powers and thus knew what they were doing. I respectfully declined.

12. ​wut

Client wanted to sue because there were no strawberries in her fruit salad which she bought from a supermarket.
Thankfully a secretary was able to screen the call. She asked if the package said it had strawberries, and the response was, “No, but I thought it would have.”

I don’t know how these people manage to make it through life.

13. Crooked Dick

I had a guy that wanted to bring a class action against the company that made his underwear, he was convinced his underwear was the reason he had a crooked penis.
He assured us that as soon as the jury saw his dick, they’d side with him.

No, we didn’t take it.

14. Damn cat

I took a call from a potential client that had fallen down the stairs in her own home.
She had tripped over her own cat. She told me that she wanted to sue her local authority as her home was owned by the council and she was not allowed to keep pets as part of her lease. She claimed that when the house was inspected she was not told to get rid of the cat. It was therefore the council’s fault that she fell down the stairs.

We didn’t take the case on.

15. DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB

​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 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. She has already tried to get a restraining order against him that was dismissed.

16. Yoruba

​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, I can’t speak any Yoruba. As in, not one word. 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 not from a West African background.

I try to explain this to the guy who becomes very agitated and insists that he 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 Yoruba) is everything I need to know about his case.

Basically, I tell him to leave 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.

17. Seems legit to me

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 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.

18. Slow, just slow

​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 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 died. 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.

19. ​But I only got oooooonnnneeee

Man wanted me to sue a tour group he signed up with because some people got two peanut butter sandwiches but he got only one.
This was a grown up man who held a real job and functioned in society.

20. Yeehaw!

My dad is a public defender and he had to defend this guy that stole a cop car from the jail parking lot.
Of course a police chase ensued and it went into the nearby highway (I-5 for those who know it). When he was finally pulled over about 5 minutes and 7 miles later, the guy got out of the car completely naked except for a pair of leather cowboy boots.

21. ​​Just pay his benefits…

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 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.

22. Not service animals

I’m a lawyer, but this happened to a friend of mine. He got engaged, and apparently this pissed 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.

23. COME ON

Guy was arrested for marijuana possession.
Arresting officer never actually opened the tin foil bundle involved and check that it was, in fact, not a burrito.

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