America has often been described as a litigious country and there’s no shortage of examples of lawsuits we perceive as frivolous or silly. The thing nearly all lawsuits have in common, whether they have merit or not, is that there is a plaintiff and a defendant and they are two separate entities. That said, every so often it turns out that lawsuits get filed in which the plaintiff and the defendant are the same person.
10. John Fogerty Was Sued for Plagiarizing Himself
John Fogerty is the legendary lead singer and songwriter of the band Credence Clearwater Revival. They had hits with songs like “Fortunate Son” and “Bad Moon Rising.” You’d be hard pressed to find many movies that are set in the ’60s and ’70s that don’t include CCR somewhere on the soundtrack.
When Fogerty was working on his own solo album in the 1980s, he released a song called “The Old Man Down the Road.” It’s a solid song and it has that signature Fogerty sound to it. In fact, it had so much of Fogerty’s signature sound that he was sued by the record label that still owned the rights to his previous work with his band CCR. The basis of their lawsuit was that Fogerty’s new song sounded too much like “Run Through the Jungle” which was, of course, a song that Fogerty also wrote and sang. So essentially they were suing John Fogerty on behalf of John Fogerty for ripping off John Fogerty.
In 1988 a jury decided that no, Fogerty had not ripped himself off by writing a song that sounded like one he’d already written. By that time Fogerty said he’d spent $400,000 more in legal fees than he’d even earned from the song itself. Luckily, several years later, he won a lawsuit against his old label to reimburse his legal fees.
9. A Man Sued Himself For His Own Estate
In 1985, Oreste Lodi took himself to court. Or he tried to, at least. He was suing on the grounds that he was the beneficiary of a charitable trust. Plaintiff Lodi wanted control from defendant Lodi. It was speculated this was some sort of tax scam he was trying to pull off, as confusing as it sounds. The problem was that, after Lodi served himself with papers, he refused to respond. That meant he was almost awarded a judgment against himself, but instead his case was dismissed. This, in turn, prompted him to appeal that decision.
The appeal didn’t get very far as the court reasoned and there could be no winner in the case or loser, since the same person would be both. The only benefit Lodi saw was that the court didn’t force him to pay court costs for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
8. Robert Block Sued Himself for $5 Million Violating His Own Rights
Every so often you hear a story about an inmate who learns law while behind bars in an effort to help themselves use the system to get out of prison again. Maybe it’s towards revisiting their own case or finding some precedent to help lower their sentence. Whatever the case, it involves a lot of time and effort. Robert Block didn’t exactly follow that path for his own legal dealings.
Brock was incarcerated at Indian Creek Correctional Center serving 23 years when he filed a $5 million lawsuit against himself. His reasoning was that, before incarceration, he had gotten drunk and violated his own civil rights. In his drunken state, he committed a crime and that got him sent to prison. For this violation of his rights, he decided he owed himself $5 million. But, because he was incarcerated, he would need the state to pony up the cash since he was unable to work and make it on his own.
His plan was for $3 million to go to his wife and kids for their pain and suffering, and then the other $2 million would be to support him for his 23 years in prison. And he was even willing to pay it back after he got out if the court ordered him to. Sadly, the court deemed the whole thing frivolous and dismissed it.
7. Barbara Bagley Sued Herself for Wrongful Death
In 2011, Barbara Bagley was driving in Utah with her husband Bradley when she lost control of the vehicle. No other car was involved and details are sketchy, but the car ended up rolling and resulted in the death of Bagley’s husband. Afterward, Bagley filed a lawsuit against herself for negligence in causing the death.
So how does this work? Bagley filed the lawsuit as the representative of her husband’s estate. She was seeking damages to cover funeral expenses, loss of future financial support, the pain her husband would have suffered and her own pain for losing him. Estate rep Bagley filed the suit against the Bagley that was a stand-in for her insurance company. So, in so many words, she was suing her own insurance company, claiming the accident was her fault, so she, by way of her insurance, should pay. Her insurance company had obviously not had any interest in paying specifically because the accident was her fault.
Initially, the case was dismissed, but then Bagley appealed the decision. The appeals court actually overturned the first judge’s decision, claiming that there was nothing in Utah law that precluded her from suing herself.
It’s unclear how much money, if any, she actually won as a result of the lawsuit. But lawyers pointed out that, by law, creditors got first dibs so the lawyers themselves as well as the hospital that treated her husband and anyone else in the mix would have been paid from the estate first before Bagley was.
6. Herbert Barber Sued Himself for Services He Provided to the Town
Suing one’s self is by no means a fixture of the modern world. You can go all the way back to 1911 and find the case of Herbert Barber suing Herbert Barber. Barber worked as a tax collector in a town called Warwick. The town failed to pay him for his services and so he filed a lawsuit to get $8,250.44 in compensation. One of the defendants was the town treasurer, whose responsibility it was to ensure he was paid. The town treasurer was Herbert Barber.
Surprisingly enough, Barber did not win, and the case was dismissed.
5. Teun van de Keuken Sued Himself to Raise Awareness of Slavery in the Chocolate Industry
If you’ve ever seen Free Trade chocolate for sale, you know that there’s a dark side to the chocolate industry built on the back of child slave labor. In fact, most of the chocolate you eat was probably produced using child slave labor. Journalist Teun van de Keuken learned about this in the early 2000s when he was investigating labor practices in West Africa. He was so moved by what he’d learned and eager to spread the word, he came up with a novel way to bring light to the issue.
He ate chocolate and then turned himself into authorities, saying that he had benefited from child slavery. The courts were not impressed and refused to prosecute, so he hired a lawyer and sued himself. At the same time he started Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate company to sell free trade chocolate and the company is still going strong to this day, even if the courts refused to prosecute him.
4. A Spanish Artist Sued Himself For the Right to Install Scaffolding
Santiago Cirugeda is a man whose work straddles the line between art, performance, and architecture, a space not occupied by many. He began doing street architecture projects in the 1990s, including things like renting dumpsters and then using them as platforms on which to build playgrounds when the city refused to issue permits for building things like swing sets but would readily give out dumpster permits.
Later, he came up with a novel idea for expanding the room in a house by adding onto it in a similar fashion. In a project he called Scaffolding, he vandalized a house with graffiti. He then sued himself for the ability to install scaffolding on the same building, ostensibly to aid in the removal of that graffiti. The scaffolding was attached to the building and used as an extra room for several months in which people were able to live.
3. One Donald Trump Company Sued Another
Donald Trump is no stranger to lawsuits, and he got so involved in one that he ended up suing himself, sort of. Some years ago, Trump Mortgages LLC took up residence in 40 Wall Street, a Trump building. Two separate entities, both under the Trump banner. If you recall anything about Trump Mortgages, it may be that it didn’t last long.
Within a year, Trump Mortgages was no longer paying rent. So 40 Wall Street LLC had to sue Trump Mortgages LLC for non-payment. The mortgage company didn’t even reply to the lawsuit, so a judge ordered them evicted from the building.
2. Lothar Malskat Sued Himself for Being an Art Forger
Lothar Malskat had a lot going for him. He had survived the Second World War, he had a pretty incredible name, and he was an accomplished artist. The problem with that third part is that no one really knew it. Malskat was working as an assistant to art restorer Dietrich Fey and they were hired by the church to restore some Gothic frescoes that had been revealed during a bombing raid.
It took three years of work, but the restored frescoes became a point of German national pride. They even found their way onto two million postage stamps. Fey was lauded as a hero and a genius for his work. And that’s why Malskat sued himself.
Fey was getting all the money and the glory for the frescoes and numerous other works. But they were all frauds. Malskat was an art forger and Fey was taking the credit for his work. The problem was that no one believed him when he outed himself and his boss. His only choice was to sue himself so he could prove, in court, that he was actually an artistic genius capable of knocking off masterpieces.
He pointed out inconsistencies in the so-called restorations. He had hidden the face of a famous actress in one. Some of the other figures were guys who had been working nearby. There were even turkeys in one which hadn’t existed in Germany at the time the paintings were supposed to have been done.
Malskat got prison time for his effort. His frescoes were destroyed and, despite his skill, he never achieved any fame later in life. But he did take everyone down with him, so that was something.
1. Peter Maxwell Sued Himself for Workplace Injuries
Here’s a familiar story. A worker gets injured on the job and sues the company for compensation. They win and the company writes off the settlement, end of story. So what happens when a self-employed person tries the same thing? If you’re Peter Maxwell, you pull off one of the most brash yet remarkable lawsuits in history.
Maxwell owned a manufacturing company in Chino, California. He worked at the company on the floor making foam carpet and one day his sweater got stuck in a mixing machine. He was severely injured and so he hired a lawyer to help him sue his boss; himself. He hired another lawyer to handle the suit on behalf of the company. You’ll be surprised to hear they agreed to settle the matter for $122,500.
The company wrote off the settlement as a business expense, but the IRS was not amused. They sent a bill to Maxwell twice, one as employee and one as employer, to refund the amount. Maxwell returned to a court and won when a judge decided he was entitled to the settlement and also entitled to write off the expense.