truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Brenda and Ronald Sager of Mt. Pleasant Township, Pa., filed a lawsuit against Wal- Mart in January for their pain and suffering after a plastic grocery bag broke open and its contents fell on their toes. The Sagers said the allegedly overstuffed bag contained a 32-oz. jar of Miracle Whip, a 46-oz. bottle of ketchup, three 15-oz. cans of fruit, an 18-oz. bottle of ranch dressing, and a 12-oz. jar of mustard.

In December, payoff checks started arriving from Citibank's class-action lawsuit settlement that required it to refund overcharges for credit-card fees, but since the $18 million payout had to be split among 20 million customers and former customers, the checks were for as little as 4 cents, while the lawyers who brought the lawsuit shared $7.2 million. A major Citibank "abuse" corrected by the lawsuit: It was charging interest from 10 a.m. on the payment-due date but agreed to start charging it only as of 1 p.m.

Charles R. Grady sued Frito-Lay in 1993 after he suffered an esophageal tear and bleeding while swallowing a Doritos chip. Grady has been trying for several years to be permitted to introduce as evidence a study by a retired University of Pittsburgh chemical engineering professor who measured the downward force and quantity of saliva necessary to chew and swallow a Dorito and found them dangerously hard and sharp. In December 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sided with Frito-Lay, saying the professor's testing was not "generally accepted" science and therefore was not admissible.

Not My Fault: Chef Michael McCarthy, 21, with about a year's experience in the kitchen of the Dalmunzie Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland, filed a lawsuit for the equivalent of US$42,000 against the hotel in January because he had badly cut his finger while slicing open an avocado. He said no one had taught him that unripened avocados were harder to cut than ripened ones.

British postal worker Alan Pugh filed a lawsuit in Birmingham County Court (England) in December against a Wolverhampton University religious studies teacher who he said had put too much outgoing mail in a letter box, causing Pugh to injure himself trying to haul it away. The lecturer had mailed 270 oversized envelopes, totaling around 50 lbs.

Least Competent Humans: Bromley Preston, 44, filed a claim late last year after he split his head open on the water slide at The Lakes Resort at Berry Springs, in Australia, even though he admits he tried to go down the 100-foot-high slide on all fours instead of on his back, feet first.