Sports Special Edition: Athletes and strange lawsuits
Suing people is an autonomy given by the law in many countries to the common man, so that they are not deprived from their rights. But over the years lawsuits have gotten slightly out of hand with people suing everybody and anything that they can in order
to get some money out of it. The world of sports is not immune from these kinds of things because a lot of crazy lawsuits have been witnessed in numerous sports around the world. Sports stars seem to be more prone to getting attacked in frivolous lawsuits
because of the fact that they usually have a lot of money in their bank accounts, and ordinary people want a slice of the pie without actually working for it. This trend is increasing day by day as crazy lawsuits are filed in sports because people will want
to try and get money for doing nothing.
Filing lawsuits is nothing new; the practice has been going on for years and is a part of law in many countries. What is new is the fact that people have started filing lawsuits for the most trivial and frivolous things imaginable. It looks as if people
target the rich in society or big corporations that have a lot of money, which they think is to spare and they try to extract some of it for themselves. The ability to sue someone or something was in place for genuine cases to protect people who were actually
harmed or wronged in some way. When victims started receiving huge settlement amounts, others thought that they should get in on the act too. One of the biggest groups that gets targeted in frivolous lawsuits is sports stars. Examples abound of the sheer number
of crazy cases that are brought against some athletes in order to get some money from them.
Some of the funniest and strangest lawsuits are witnessed when one dives into the world of sports. The most recent one comes from basketball, where very recently a man claimed that Shaquille O’Neal had hacked into his computer and placed images of child
pornography on it to defame him. This is strange because Shaq is an internationally renowned basketball player, and someone who does not look like he has the time to hack into a computer and the other person is a convicted criminal with many cases and charges
against him. Another lawsuit took place in 1993 when Bryan Fortay sued the University of Miami because he was not named on the starting line. The American footballer was upset that he was placed on the bench after he was promised a starting position. Moving
to baseball, a case in 2002 was filed when a family of a man sued the Los Angeles Dodgers for false imprisonment and battery. The man in question got into an argument with an usher and assaulted him. The man sued the baseball team for battery when he assaulted
one of their employees. The funniest case of them all took place in 2006 when Allen Heckard sued Michael Jordan and Nike owner Phil Knight for $832 million. His insane claim was that he looked like Michael Jordan, and because of it he was constantly being
compared to the sports star, and it was causing him mental anguish. He was suing Phil Knight for his part in making Jordan so recognisable and famous. While he is at it, Heckard should sue god as well for making him look like Michael Jordan, and his parents
too for the genes they gave him that caused him to have the face he does.
Frivolous lawsuits are harmful not only for those getting sued for a nonsensical reason but every crazy case costs the taxpayer extra money because even if it a case is thrown out of court, a judge has to be appointed and a court is called to session just
to hear the matter. It is a drain on public resources just to hear the case and dismiss it. The other problem is that it causes the person being sued mental anguish to constantly hear that someone is trying to extract money from them. Sports stars have to
distance themselves from these matters and put them out of their minds because it might affect their performance on the field. Hopefully, there might be an end to the insignificant lawsuits but the way things are going it does not seem anywhere soon.
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