An Inclusive Litany

10/3/94

Men who were carrying refrigerators on their backs during "refrigerator races" sued the manufacturer because the appliances carried insufficient warnings of possible injury from such activity.

A New York man who deliberately leapt in front of a moving subway train was awarded $650,000 because the train had failed to stop in time to avoid mangling him.

The San Francisco Giants were sued for giving away Father's Day gifts to men only.

Two Marines alleged discrimination because the Marine Corps had discharged them for "being chronically overweight."

The Salvation Army has been sued on the grounds that it violated an employee's right to freedom of religion after it dismissed a woman for using agency equipment to copy materials describing Satanic rituals.

A psychic won $986,000 in a suit against her doctor, claiming that undergoing a CAT scan procedure had led to the suppression of her psychic powers, and thus her ability to make a living.

A left-handed postal clerk accused the Postal Service of discriminatory bias in setting up filing cases "for the convenience of right-handed clerks."

A psychology professor complained that she had been the victim of sexual harassment by the presence of mistletoe at a Christmas party. Presumably, the mistletoe constitutes an implied threat of being kissed.

A Michigan man was awarded worker's compensation benefits because he had become an alcoholic while working for the Stroh's Brewery Company. Stroh's did not, of course, require the man to drink, but he nonetheless charged that his drinking problem was aggravated by the job-site availability of free beer, a benefit that had been demanded and won by his union.

In Florida, a man filed a lawsuit as a result of a haircut that he claimed was so bad that it induced a panic-anxiety attack and interfered with his "right to enjoy life."