Tag: stupid lawsuits

Secretarial Fail

This may be too complex for Fail Blog to sum up – but it’s a pretty funny story.

A secretary working for Pepsi inadvertently almost cost them $1.6 Billion (depending on the outcome of an appeal). She received a legal notice from two guys who are suing Pepsi for stealing their idea to sell bottled water in 1981. It all seems a bit Alex Lloyd and the serviette to me… but at this stage they’re in the box seat.

This secretary was so busy that she forgot to give it to them. And they didn’t show up to the hearing. So the guys were awarded a default judgment.

It pays to check your mail properly.

November 1, 2009

Crunch decision

There are dumb lawsuits and then there’s this law suit…

On May 21, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed a complaint filed by a woman who said she had purchased “Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries” because she believed “crunchberries” were real fruit. The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said “berries” were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit. “

It would seem there’s a legal precedent with a case involving “Froot Loops”…

The judge put the plaintiff in her place:

This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a “crunchberry.” Furthermore, the “Crunchberries” depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains “sweetened corn & oat cereal” and that the cereal is “enlarged to show texture.”

June 5, 2009