The Great Squirrel Uprising and Other Things People Have Gone to Court Over

Let's talk about the things people have decided were worth hiring a lawyer for, because the legal system contains multitudes, and most of them are absolutely bewildering.

Start with the case of the squirrel and the woman from New Jersey who waged an actual legal war against a tree-dwelling rodent that kept raiding her bird feeder. Not against the squirrel's owner. Against the squirrel itself. Over several years and multiple court appearances, she pursued charges of "trespassing" and "theft of birdseed," arguments that a judge eventually—and I cannot stress this enough—had to formally reject in writing. The squirrel was never served. The squirrel did not retain counsel. The squirrel simply continued being a squirrel.

Then there's the gentleman who decided to sue his own dog for negligence after the dog knocked him over and he broke his hip. The suit went to court. An actual judge had to rule on whether a dog could be held liable for its own behavior. The dog, wisely, did not show up. The case was dismissed. The dog presumably napped through the entire ordeal.

But here's where it gets administratively fascinating: there's a subsection of American law dedicated to "frivolous litigation." Judges can fine you for wasting their time. One man who tried to sue his lawyer for $67 million—because his lawyer wore an orange shirt on a particular Tuesday—was ordered to pay the state $5,000 for the inconvenience. The judge's written opinion used words like "delusional" and "remarkable." It was basically a formal roast.

The truly committed ones don't even bother with the courts. They just sue in the court of public opinion, which is how we ended up with historical records of people being genuinely furious about potatoes. Literally potatoes. One feudal dispute in medieval times escalated because someone's potato harvest was bad and they blamed a neighbor's cat for "cursing" their field. This went on for actual years. There are documents.

What fascinates me about all this is that these aren't metaphorical disputes. These are real people, with real money, hiring actual lawyers, to make arguments that no sane person would advance. And the system accommodates them. It humors them for a while. Then a judge has to write a formal order explaining why, no, you cannot sue a squirrel for larceny.

The legal system is a democratically available absurdity machine, and someone is always ready to feed it quarters.

THIS WEEK IN WEIRD HISTORY: In 1927, a Virginia courtroom held an actual trial to determine whether a dog should be executed for biting someone—the dog had a lawyer, the verdict was guilty, and the dog was sentenced to death by electrocution before finally being pardoned on appeal.