By C1 Staff
Inmates suing corrections officers and departments aren’t unheard of, but all too often they abuse the privilege. Here’s a collection of the top 7 stupidest inmate lawsuits; let us know if you’ve heard of worse.
7. Inmates in Florida balked against a new rule that only allowed postcard mail. This new rule would have allowed officers to spend more time monitoring inmates, instead of focusing on opening envelopes and searching for contraband. The mail restriction was eventually lifted, and officers found themselves once more flooded with paperwork.
6. Complaining evidentially will get you anywhere -- one inmate complained enough about a footlocker that was allegedly damaged during a cell search that his lawsuit for reparations was eventually reinstated by a local judge. The amount he requested? $71.47, not even enough to cover the $75 suit-filing fee.
5. While being processed through a CCA jail, this Wash. inmate claimed that a corrections officer said she was moving too slow in removing her fake eyelashes and braids. As a result, she claimed, the officer pepper-sprayed her! The inmate is allegedly suing the DOC for $3 million, citing pain and suffering for the event, if it ever happened.
4. Religion is a hot-button issue, and no less so in prison. An American convicted of fighting with the Taliban sued for the right to pray daily in a group with other Muslim inmates in his high-security prison in Indiana. By all means, let’s make the officer’s jobs more difficult.
3. The CCA found itself in hot water again when a former inmate filed a suit alleging that the temperature of a shower burned his genitals. How much does his burn cost? Only a cool million dollars. Time to turn the hot water off?
2. You would think inmates would be happy to get food at all, but one took up a beef with the soy-laden products he and the other prisoners were being allegedly force fed. He claimed that the food caused painful gastrointestinal cramping, which threatened his health. Courts had previously concluded in other cases that prison food need not be “tasty or aesthetically pleasing”, but merely “adequate to maintain health.”
1. And possibly the most creative lawsuit of all time, an inmate in Colo. sued Taco Bell for allegedly stealing his idea for a Doritos taco. He claims that the company either got a look at or stole a notarized document he sent to his attorney in 2006 that included nine product ideas, one of which was the now famous crunchy taco. Paranoid much?