7 of the strangest lawsuits making headlines
The following lawsuits exemplify the lighter, and sometimes bizarre, side of the legal world.
April 18, 2012 at 07:12 AM
5 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
Angry Analyst
We've all heard about the war on women, but is the Federal Bureau of Investigation waging a war on men? FBI analyst Jay Bauer is suing the bureau for gender discrimination, claiming that its fitness test is biased against men.
Bauer passed an initial fitness test when he first joined the FBI in 2009, but failed a second exam when he completed just 29 of the required 30 push-ups. Female trainees only have to do 14 push-ups—the equivalent of 27 to 29 for men, according to Bauer's suit. He also claims that a female trainee who failed the firearms portion of the test was allowed to retake it, while he was not given a second chance.
Sizeable Stock
In a case that the judge has dubbed “a new version of the Beverly Hillbillies,” the family members of a California man claim that an antique stock certificate entitles them to a $130-million share in the Coca-Cola Co.
Tony Marohn, now deceased, bought a Palmer Union Oil Co. stock certificate at a 2008 garage sale. The line assigning the certificate was blank, so Marohn signed his name, only to discover that Palmer's successor company was none other than the soft drink manufacturer. If the certificate is valid, the family would own 1.8 million shares of Coca-Cola stock, making it one of the largest non-institutional investors in the company.
In response, the beverage giant sued Marohn's relatives, seeking to prove that their claims are “meritless and unfair to the company's millions of legitimate shareholders.”
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Attorneys from A&O Shearman has stepped in as defense counsel for Toronto-Dominion Bank and other defendants in a pending securities class action. The suit, filed Dec. 11 in New York Southern District Court by Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, accuses the defendants of concealing the bank's 'pervasive' deficiencies in regards to its compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and the quality of its anti-money laundering controls. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, is 1:24-cv-09445, Gonzalez v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank et al.
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Wilfred P. Coronato and Daniel M. Schwartz of McCarter & English have stepped in as defense counsel to Electrolux Home Products Inc. in a pending product liability lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 26 in New York Eastern District Court by Poulos Lopiccolo PC and Nagel Rice LLP on behalf of David Stern, alleges that the defendant's refrigerators’ drawers and shelving repeatedly break and fall apart within months after purchase. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack, is 2:24-cv-08204, Stern v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.
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