- Kevin Hansen filed a lawsuit in West Bend, Wis., in August, claiming that spotting a clump of hair in a steak he sliced into from a Texas Roadhouse restaurant caused "severe and permanent injuries," pain, suffering and "disability," requiring "extensive medical treatment." In fact, said his lawyer Ryan Hetzel to Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel, "It's bothered the heck out of him." The employee who prepared the steak was fired and later pleaded guilty to a felony, explaining that he was trying to retaliate because Hansen complained about a previous order.

- After failing the West Virginia Bar Exam for the second time (during which he was given an extra day to complete it), Shannon Kelly filed a lawsuit in July demanding even more concessions based on his unspecified cognitive disability. The second failure was also on a special version of the exam in large type, and Kelly had been permitted to work in a room by himself. He now believes he can earn his license if he is allowed four days instead of the normal two, to make up for (according to his lawyer) "severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming" (though it is not clear how many attorney jobs are available for someone with such a skills set).

It's about time

Italian and U.K. legal authorities have recently discarded rule interpretations based on embarrassingly anachronistic stereotypes of women. In July, Italy's Court of Cassation reversed a 1999 ruling creating a legal presumption that a woman wearing tight jeans could not be the victim of rape because such jeans would be impossible to remove without her assistance.

Coincidentally, at about the same time, the British government formally removed the special, ameliorating defense of "provocation" for husbands charged with murdering their wives, thus putting domestic homicide on the same footing as other homicides. (Some husbands had received lesser penalties by claiming that their wives' affairs had provoked them to murder.)

Much ado about nothing

About 10 years ago, reported LA Weekly in July, Southern California was awash with hysteria over household "toxic mold," in which lawyers convinced jurors that a wide range of illnesses was caused by fungi that previously had been minor irritants controlled by ordinary cleansers.

The Centers for Disease Control maintains there is no basis for such hysteria and that the only at-risk people are a tiny number vulnerable to specific fungi.

Among the mold alarmists then was announcer Ed McMahon, who famously received a multimillion-dollar settlement by claiming that mold killed his beloved dog. Recently, McMahon even more famously publicly lamented his potential bankruptcy, in large part because no one wanted to buy his house (although the reason now seems more the mortgage credit crisis than the home's alleged toxicity).

Creme de la weird

In July, Port St. Lucie, Fla., police stopped Timothy Placko in his car on a wooded road and discovered inside a blond wig, rope, binoculars, a small machete, knives, gloves, two bullet casings and a film canister that contained 18 human teeth. Also on the seat was a stack of women's sonograms that Placko said he had downloaded from the Internet. He originally told police that he had pulled off the road to call (improbably) a "girlfriend," but then admitted he was not calling anyone. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

Recurring themes

The Texas criminal justice system continues to astonish. In August, federal judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio ordered a final-hours' stay of execution for Jeffrey Wood based on serious concerns about his sanity, that the Texas state courts had somehow summarily dismissed. Judge Garcia said substantial evidence supported at least holding a hearing on the issue but that state law seemed to require the inmate to prove his insanity first in order to obtain a hearing on whether he is insane. That, said Garcia, is "an insane system."