Case: Sera Sera

Today's Globe includes an editorial called "I Came, I Saw, I Sued", which includes some interesting statements.

First, it brings up the apparently obvious truth that the US is the land of the frivolous lawsuit. Second, that Stella Awards honours such frivolous lawsuits. The awards are apparently named after Stella Liebeck, who sued McDonalds (I do wish people would bother to learn about that case). I suspect that the Stella Awards are about as meaningful (and truthful) as the Darwin Awards.

It then goes on to describe a totally frivolous lawsuit: a class action suit has been launched against Sony Pictures. Apparently, Sony made some commercials for movies such as Vertical Limit and The Hollow Man quoting a fictitious movie critic. And the facts of the case aren't disputed. Sony has acknowledge that one of its employees "embellished" the movie reviews by quoting "David Manning", a supposed film critic for The Ridgefield Press. Sony has fired the employee in question and apologised for its role in these misleading commercials.

What interests me is that the editorial apparently argues that it is frivolous to sue Sony for this deception. As if to say that it doesn't really matter that movie reviews were invented for the purposes of promoting a movie -- such a thing must not have had any effect on movie-goers.