Recently, we here at Abnormal Use lamented the tales of those who elect to air their defective food product grievances over 911 calls rather than more traditional methods. As much as we may detest the use of 911 in non-emergency, defective food situations, such things are  preferable to a recent incident at a South Carolina Burger King. According to a report from the Post and Courier, a Burger King customer threatened to shoot employees over a stale cinnamon roll. Guns and breakfast food. You can only imagine our disbelief upon hearing that this incident occurred in our home state. If your were thinking that there must be more to this story, you would be mistaken. Apparently, the woman complained that her BK-made cinnamon roll was served at less than its optimal freshness, only to be told that the roll was the only one left. She then left the store, only to return later with her hand stuffed in her purse, threatening to “shoot everyone.” Employees called 911 (appropriately), and she fled the scene.

Like this woman, we, too, are fans of cinnamon rolls. There is no better way to start your day than with cinnamon and cream cheese frosting. We understand the woman’s frustration upon discovering stale dough has ruined her breakfast. Violence, however, is not the answer. Apparently, this woman has never seen Falling Down, as this approach didn’t work out so well for Michael Douglas.

If you receive food that is not served to your exact specifications, complain if you must. Just leave guns – and 911 – out of it.

A Manhattan man, Anton Prisima, has reportedly filed suit against New York City, Hoboken University, LaGuardia Airport, the MTA, and “thousands more people,” including “Latina Dog Owner” and “Kmart Store 7749.”  Apparently, the nature of the lawsuit is just the standard dog bite/coffee overcharge case, or as categorized by Justia, “other civil rights.”  Mr. Prisima seeks $2,000 decillion in monetary damages.

Mr. Purisima “claims that his middle finger was bitten off by a ‘rabies-infected’ dog on a city bus, then a ‘Chinese couple’ took photos of him as he was being treated.”  Separate and apart from those allegations, Mr. Prisima has joined several defendants in the suit based on the fact that “he’s routinely overcharged for coffee at LaGuardia Airport.”  We assume that this is a permissive joinder situation.  If not, Mr. Purisima may have a Palsgraf issue.  In any event, as a result of these wrongs,  Mr. Purisima seeks the modest amount of money mentioned above, in additional to “additional damages that ‘cannot be repaired by money” and are ‘therefore priceless.'”

Good thing Mr. Purisima cast a wide net to bring in as many deep pockets as possible, considering the fact that it is not possible to raise the amount of money he seeks even if the defendants are somehow able to sell the Earth and everything on it for scrap.

(Hat tip: Lowering the Bar).

Above, you’ll find the cover of The ‘Nam #77, a 1993 issue from the comic book series dedicated to telling the stories of the Vietnam War and published by Marvel in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. We here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. hope you, our dear readers, had a safe and fine Memorial Day weekend. As we do each year, today, we pause to reflect upon all of the sacrifices made by American servicemen and women and all they have done for the country, both in present times and years past. We encourage everyone to visit the Twitter feed of television journalist Jake Tapper, who is tweeting photographs and biographical information of fallen soldiers.

Note: Three years ago, on Memorial Day 2011, we posted the cover of the first issue of The ‘Nam, which you can see here.

We’ll resume with regular posting tomorrow.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Mr. District Attorney #64, published many, many years ago, and to be honest we can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Surely, whatever is happening, the title character has lost his prosecutorial immunity, right?

Okay, so this Swedish warning label for matches is pretty, uh, specific.

Perhaps we could purchase this piece of real estate that is now for sale and use it for our unofficial Abnormal Use headquarters? Any thoughts, dear readers?

Our editor, Jim Dedman, got a fine shout-out in a Steinbeckian post over at the Drug and Device Law blog. The post in question, “Travels with Bexis,” can be found here.

Tara E. Nauful and Dawn M. Hardesty offer this article entitled Dischargeability of Student Loan Debt in Bankruptcy. Wouldn’t that be nice?

You really should pause and read this opinion in Morland-Jones v. Taerk from a Canadian court. The judge apparently had little patient for the affluent litigants and their dispute as neighbors. Here’s an excerpt: “There is no claim for pooping and scooping into the neighbour’s garbage can, and there is no claim for letting Rover water the neighbour’s hedge. Likewise, there is no claim for looking at the neighbour’s pretty house, parking a car legally but with malintent, engaging in faux photography on a public street, raising objections at a municipal hearing, walking on the sidewalk with dictaphone in hand, or just plain thinking badly of a person who lives nearby. There is no serious issue to be tried in this action.” Of course, Kevin Underhill of the always funny Lowering The Bar humor blog on the case, so you must read his commentary here, as well.

Everyone, please have a safe holiday weekend!

Let us begin by saying the facts of this Mississippi “wild alligator nuisance case” (as described by the Mississippi Supreme Court) are truly terrifying and are basically a reptilian nightmare. Tom and Consandra Christmas purchased a tract of land adjoining a waste disposal site owned by Exxon.  They later discovered that Exxon’s property contained EIGHTY-FOUR ALLIGATORS.  As it turns out, the Mississippi agency responsible for regulating wild alligators investigated the infestation and concluded that this was “a high density of alligators to exist in the wild.”  We here at Abnormal Use thankfully do not have a tremendous amount of experience with alligators, but it appears that the agency’s observation was astute.

Allegedly, some of these alligators were spilling over onto the land owned by the Christmases, so the Christmases filed suit against Exxon, seeking monetary damages for the nuisance created by the alligators.  The trial court granted summary judgment based on the statute of limitations and the prior trespass doctrine, but the Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.  The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and affirmed the trial court, but on different grounds.

The Mississippi Supreme Court found that Exxon was entitled to summary judgment “because it cannot be held liable for the presence of wild alligators on its property.”  In so holding, the Mississippi Supreme Court found that there was no evidence that Exxon was responsible for bringing the gators to the property or that Exxon had taken control of the gators.  In fact, Exxon could not legally do anything to the gators without the permission of the Mississippi agency responsible for regulating alligators.

Was this the correct result?  We at Abnormal Use decline the opportunity to weigh in on the holding, but one thing is for sure – we would probably find somewhere to live besides property adjacent to an alligator infested waste disposal site.  That, or we would erect an elaborate electrified fence system to keep those prehistoric, toothy creatures on Exxon’s property.

(Hat Tip: Law360).

Back in April of 2012, we blogged about the class action lawsuit filed against Vibram over its product FiveFingers, the minimalist running slippers.  In our initial blog post, we (read: a fellow contributor who admitted to owning two separate pairs of barefoot running shoes) were skeptical over the evidence proffered by Plaintiff in this case.  However, a 2013 study found an increased in bone marrow edema, the precursor to a stress fracture, in at least one bone after 10 weeks of running in the Vibram foot-gloves.

After two years, the suit has come to resolution. Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  Vibram has agreed to pay $3.75 million in refunds to anyone who has purchased the shoes since March 21, 2009.  Vibram is required to take out ads on social media sites notifying potential claimants of the settlement and also establish www.fivefingerssettlement.com. The remaining proceeds not doled out to claimants will be donated to the America Heart Association.

Late last year, Fast and the Furious star Paul Walker passed away when the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT in which he was a passenger left a roadway and crashed into a light pole and three trees. Using surveillance footage and the car’s computers, Los Angeles County investigators determined that the vehicle was traveling 80 to 93 mph – up to twice the posted speed limit – when it crashed and burst into flames. The investigators found no evidence of mechanical failure; however, they believe 9-year old tires may have contributed to the crash. Kristine Rodas, widow of the car’s driver, Roger Rodas, has a different theory. Rodas has filed suit against Porsche, alleging that the car crashed and caught fire as a result of a failure in its suspension system and a lack of proper safety features. The suit claims that the vehicle was only traveling 55 mph, but Porsche “designed and manufactured the Carrera GT defectively, causing it to fail to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner.” In addition, Rodas claims that the Porsche lacked a properly functioning crash cage and a proper racing fuel cell.

While it is too early to determine whether it is Rodas or the L.A. County investigators who are correct, several aspects of this case are intriguing. First, Roger Rodas was an experienced race car driver. On the one hand, his experience could be a sign that the vehicle would not have crashed but for some defective condition. On the other, it could also explain why he felt he could drive the vehicle in a manner far too aggressively for normal road conditions. Second, the suit alleges that the vehicle was originally designed to be a Le Mans race car before being turned into an ultra-high performance super-sports car. We have to wonder whether these were post-manufacture modifications which could effect this product liability suit. Interestingly, this suit focuses on alleged deficiencies with parts fit for a race car, rather than recreational vehicle. Had this accident happened during Le Mans, then maybe we could more easily understand the alleged problems with the racing fuel cell or crash cage. We question whether those parts would have come into play if the vehicle had been traveling the posted speed limit.

We here at Abnormal Use, like many others, consider the Fast and the Furious franchise one of our guilty pleasures. As such, the news of Walker’s death was particularly troubling. This is a lawsuit we to which will be paying close attention.

Spoiler alert! For “Game of Thrones” fans, it was an interesting twist when Tyrion Lannister recently balked at a plea deal and demanded trial by combat in the criminal proceeding to determine whether he killed King Joffrey. This got us thinking: what exactly is trial by combat?  We here at Abnormal Use have become fascinated with the concept, and our editor couldn’t stop tweeting about it last week (as is evidenced by his tweets here, here, here, and here).

Well, after some research, we learn that it’s “a concept attributed to the Normans in the Middle Ages wherein disputants would square off and battle it out. The one left standing would be declared the victor.”  Obiter Dicta, 89 ABA J. 12 (March 2003). Trial by combat “essentially resolves all legal disputes by pitting the parties against one another in a no-holds-barred fight to the death. At the conclusion of the proceedings, the person who is not dead is deemed the prevailing party.”  Apparently, our modern civil trials evolved from trial-by-combat.  See Capers G. Barr III, Prepare for the Peacemakers, 7 S.C. Law. 21, 22 (JULY/AUGUST 1995) (“Buried in the recesses of the trial lawyer’s psyche is an awareness that modern trials evolved from a more primitive form of dispute resolution—trial by combat.”); Parham v. State, 250 So. 2d 613, 614 (Ala. Crim. App. 1971)(“A trial is an adversary affair drawing much of its etiquette from medieval trials by combat”). How about that?

You know, we just realized that we rarely, if ever, talk about the Fantastic Four on Friday Links. Let’s remedy that today. Above, you’ll find the cover of “The Trial of Galactus,” a collection of Fantastic Four comics involving, well, the trial of Galactus, the cosmic being who literally devours worlds. We suspect that was a doozy of a case (although we wonder what court might have jurisdiction to try Galactus). Here’s what Comicvine has to say about that story:

This is a trade paperback book that collects the stories of Galactus within the pages of the Fantastic Four from issues #242-#262. It features the story of the trial of Reed Richards among the sentient races of the known universe. Reed Richards is on trial for “saving” Galactus. By saving him, many worlds and the trillions upon trillions of life they supported were devoured.

In the course of the trial individuals come forth to testify their stories which reveal the birth and life and purpose of Galactus in the universe…

We’ll have to track that one down, we suppose, if only to learn about the “purpose” of Galactus (although it doesn’t sound like Galactus himself was the defendant). Oh, and see this March 2010 post of ours for our last big mention of the Fantastic Four.

So, you dig F. Scott Fitzgerald? Well, then, you need to do two things. First, check out this list of 22 books he recommend in a list from 1936. Then, go revisit our May 2013 list of Seven Court Opinions That Cite The Great Gatsby. That should take care of your Friday morning for you. Oh, and apologies for sounding like Buzzfeed for a moment or two there. We’ll do better in the future. We promise.

“Even I’m bored with the subject, and this type of case fits in my wheelhouse, and is especially important to anyone that tries cases in front of juries,” writes Eric Turkewitz of the New York Personal Injury Law Blog of the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee case. As you probably know, we here at Abnormal Use talk about that case a good bit. To read his full post on that subject, please see here.

Okay, so wreck cases are about to get more interesting. From Popular Science: “Volvo Puts Autonomous Cars In The Hands Of Consumers.” From Discover Magazine: “The Flying Car That Could Expedite Your Morning Commute.” From Mashable: “See How Google’s Self-Driving Car Navigates City Streets.” We’re really going to need to alter our discovery strategies for driverless and/or flying cars.

Asks @GideonsTrumpet: “At what point in your life do you have to be to sue Subway over the fact that their foot-long sandwiches are actually only 11 inches long?” A good question, that.

Product liability suits involving food products are not uncommon. In fact, one of the most famous product cases of all time, Stella Liebeck v. McDonald’s, involves a familiar beverage. (Don’t worry, dear readers, this is not another post about the Liebeck case.). While we here at Abnormal Use may not always agree with the outcome, we at least respect a plaintiff’s right to litigate legitimate matters in court. On the other hand, we have  little use for claimants who choose other means to air their grievances. Case in point: North Carolina woman Bevalante Hall recently used 911 to complain about her Subway order. According to a report from the Gaston Gazette, Hall called 911 after a Subway employee allegedly made her flatbread pizza with marinara rather than pizza sauce. In the 911 call, Hall stated that she wanted to make a report so she could call investigators with a local television news station. Hall didn’t get quite what she requested. As a result of the call, Hall was jailed for three minutes before being released on a $2,000 bond.

Had Hall taken to the court system, her claim undoubtedly would have been criticized (rightly) as frivolous. A marinara-sauced pizza is not exactly a defective product. After all, Subway clearly advertises its “flatizzas” as being made with marinara sauce. If suit had been filed, however, our focus would have at least been on the merits of the claim (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, Hall’s claim appears to be more about garnering publicity than resolving a grievance. Leave it to us to oblige.