Rarely does a week go by that we do not report on a lawsuit.
People sue for all kinds of reasons. People sue other people, some
sue organizations or the government. Organizations sue other
organizations.
Rarely does a week go by that we do not report on a lawsuit. People sue for all kinds of reasons. People sue other people, some sue organizations or the government. Organizations sue other organizations.
Judging a lawsuit to be newsworthy is usually an easy matter. The amount of money in the suit is often large and noteworthy in itself. The subject matter of the suit is often enough to catch our attention.
And still other lawsuits possess a special quality that make us pay attention. Such was the case when the San Benito Stage Company decided to sue the Rainbow Children’s Theater for naming its children’s summer camp “Kids Rock,” which it deemed entirely too similar to its camp entitled “Kids Rule.” This is according to court documents, not our documents.
The Stage Company says the name is “confusingly similar.” Other similarities, in marketing and organization, have “caused parents and children to enroll in the wrong camp.” The Stage Company attorney said the suit was a last resort after the Rainbow folks failed to respond to informal name change requests.
There probably is precedence regarding one children’s theater suing another. Nevertheless, we believe this suit contains a special quality that places it alongside some of our other favorite lawsuits. Such as the following:
n Poor coaching begets lawsuit. In this one, a youth baseball coach in Ohio was sued after his team went 0-15. The father of a catcher sued the coach for $2,000 because, he said, the coach’s incompetence cost the team a trip to a tournament.
“I didn’t understand it,” said the coach. “I wanted to be a coach just to help the kids.”
n Gambler sues casino for allowing him to lose a million dollars while gambling drunk. A California man said he was so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing and the casino should have stopped him.
n Angry tennis fans sue Penthouse magazine for $8.99. Two fans of Russian star Anna Kournikova said that Penthouse advertised photos of the tennis players without, um, her racket, skirt, or shoes, and then didn’t deliver. So they sued for the cost of the magazine. We don’t know what the filing fee was on this one, but we’re thinking it was more than $8.99.
These are just three of our favorite lawsuits. We would like to thank the operators of the Web site, ‘Stupidlawsuits.’ We Googled ‘Frivolous Lawsuits,’ and got the Web site, and a long list of others. We would like to the thank the local theater groups for making us think of looking up some fun lawsuits.
We would like to thank the Stage Company attorney for explaining everything in a way we can all understand.
“We’re just trying to encourage them to find a different name,” he said. “It’s like spelling ‘Starbucks’ with two r’s.”
“Kids Rule” and “Kids Rock.” Like Starbucks with an extra ‘r.’ Sure, OK.
We hope this matter is resolved to everyone, including the taxpayers’, satisfaction. Maybe this town is just too small for two summer kids’ theater camps.
