News of the Weird

Who's fault is it when a man crashes into a table, tearing several ligaments and suffering a severed tendon while attempting in vain to improve his base-stealing technique in his den? Apparently, it's Mickey Mantle Sports Productions, according to the victim's lawsuit. "Litigious Society" catalogs the petty and darkly humorous lawsuits filed by victims of painful, self-inflicted foolery. In a world where a man can sue Starbucks for "goading" him into stealing money from the tip jar by placing it in plain sight, you'll wonder how absurd the process of law has truly become.

You've probably never heard of the man who stole his neighbor's window curtains only to hang them on his own windows, perfectly visible from the house he burgled. Maybe you never read about the woman who robbed a BP gas station by threatening to infect the clerk with her destructive bacteria. These are the stories amassed in News of the Weird's "Least Competent Criminals." And while the woman who robbed the gas station got away because of perhaps the world's least competent clerk, not all the criminals were lucky enough to succeed––just ask the man who dragged a stolen half-ton safe with his car through Bridgetown, Connecticut, attempting to crack it open.