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Sometimes raising the bar requires a look in the mirror. Here is what I see today on this April Fools' Day, a sampling of some bizarre legal machinations. See if you can tell which ones really happened.

1.A minister and his wife once sued a guide dog school for money damages after a blind man, learning to use a seeing-eye dog, stepped on the woman's toe at a shopping mall. The plaintiff made no effort to get out of the way, witnesses said.

2.A woman sued her hair stylist after a visit to a salon. The results caused depression and forced her to become a recluse, the customer claimed, alleging emotional distress, counseling expenses, and lost income. The jury swooned and awarded her damages.

3.Another woman sued a TV station. Her complaint: the weather person had predicted a sunny day and it rained. The plaintiff dressed inappropriately and caught the flu.

4.A California adolescent grew up believing in Santa Claus. When he discovered Claus was an elaborate hoax, he sued his parents for causing emotional distress.

5.This one isn't a lawsuit, but it's a good trick. To draw attention to the fact that his fellow lawmakers weren't reading the bills they voted on, a legislator recently introduced a bill to honor a noted criminal. The name was recognizable to anyone who took the time to read the bill. No one did, though, and the bill passed.

6.An unhappy McDonald's customer sued the fast-food franchise for $1 billion after being denied extra sauce for his Chicken McNuggets.

7.Recently, a Florida woman sued a county government, claiming damages for broken bones caused by a charging goose. She and her boy were feeding ducks in a pond when the bird attacked and somehow injured them both. The goose was not employed by the county.

8.A robber sued the bank he robbed because the money he stole contained a security pack that emitted gas and red dye. The emission caused the robber to undergo hospital treatment.

9.A man filed suit against a beer company recently for false advertising. Despite ads suggesting otherwise, drinking the beer failed to bring the gullible plaintiff success with women.

10. Finally, in the self-flagellation category we have the inmate who sued himself, claiming he'd violated his own civil rights by getting arrested. He asked the state to pay him $5 million.

Answers

1.True. According to the Associated Press (Aug. 8, 1995), Carolyn J. Christian and her husband, the Rev. William E. Christian, filed suit against Southeastern Guide Dogs in May 1994 in Manatee Circuit Court in Bradenton, Fla. Their lawyer, Eddie Mulock, said they had a legitimate claim, and the lawsuit focused on the alleged negligence of the guide-dog supervisor. However, they dismissed the suit with prejudice in August 1995 - and Mulock's firm even donated $1,000 to the school.

2.True. A jury in St. Louis found the stylist at the Elizabeth Arden Salon negligent and awarded $6,000 to Geremie Hoff, 56, who took early retirement after a curl-relaxing treatment left her with bald spots and brittle hair. (Associated Press, April 10, 2003).

3.Also true, according to the Maariv daily newspaper in Tel Aviv, Israel. The unnamed plaintiff sued in small claims court in Haifa, seeking $1,000 and an apology, after missing four days' work and buying about $40 worth of medicine (Via AP, Mar. 17, 1996).

4.Did you guess the made-up anecdote? That would be the disillusioned Santa Claus believer.

5.True; the Texas legislature honored Albert Salvo, better known as the Boston Strangler, according to the myth-busting Snopes.com Web site.

6.True. Keenan Kester Cofield, who has filed dozens of suits dismissed as frivolous in Alabama and Tennessee, also spent five years in prison for fraud after suing the Chatanooga Times for running his obituary - which he had placed in the paper. He later moved to Maryland, where, in 1997, he and his wife filed a $1 billion racial discrimination suit against McDonald's Corp. after they were refused extra sauce for their McNuggets. The case was dismissed in March 1998, with the court (Judge Cypert O. Whitfill of Harford County, sitting in Baltimore County), instructing the clerk not to accept any more filings from Cofield unless they were first screened by a judge. (The (Baltimore Sun, Mar. 10, 1998).

7.True; Darlene Griffin claimed that the goose had a history of being territorial and that Palm Beach County should have removed it from Okeeheelee Park long before the incident occurred. (Palm Beach Post, Jan. 24, 2003).

8.See Candelario v. City of Oakland, No. 628960-3 Cal. App. Dept. Super. Ct. 1987.

9.So writes Deborah Ng, on dream-team member Robert Shapiro's LegalZoom.com Web site. Richard Harris sued Anheuser-Busch for $10,000 for false advertising in 1991. The case was thrown out of court.

10.True. Robert Lee Brock, serving 23 years at the Indian Creek Correctional Center in Chesapeake for breaking and entering and grand larceny, filed suit in federal court in Norfolk, Va., in 1995. (Virginia Pilot, April 8, 1995).

Hard to believe? Of course not. Frivolous and baffling lawsuits aren't the norm, but they happen. Happy April Fools' Day!

(Next week, this column will pick up where it left off in March, with the second part of a discussion on electronic discovery.)

Trial lawyer and author Paul Mark Sandler is a partner with Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler in Baltimore. His column appears each Friday in The Daily Record.