truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

After Norm and Darlene Scott's Montana farm burned in 1996, they collected $75,000 from Mountain West Farm Bureau insurance but weren't satisfied and demanded more, finally getting another $52,500 in 1999. However, they wanted still more money and sued the company, claiming it was dealing with them in bad faith. In November 2003, a jury in Helena not only rejected the claim for more money but found that it was the Scotts who had started the fire (a finding that probably never would have been made had the Scotts quietly accepted the first $127,500). (The statute of limitations prevents criminal charges against them, but the insurance company will sue to get its money back.)

Crybabies: Passenger Ivette Jones, who said she was traumatized in the October Staten Island ferry collision and couldn't sleep because she was so distraught, filed a $200 million lawsuit against New York City, $80 million more than claimed by a woman who lost both legs in the accident.

A scheduled guest on the Dr. Phil TV program filed a lawsuit in November, claiming it was the show's producers' fault that she had an anxiety attack in her quarters right before the show and tried to climb out a second-story window. She fell and shattered her leg so badly that it had to be amputated. And "Wheel of Fortune" contestant Will Wright, 38, filed a lawsuit in October against Pat Sajak for hurting Wright's back by jumping onto and bearhugging him to celebrate Wright's having just won $48,000 during a 2000 show.

Gary Moses and Rannon Fletcher, both 17-year-old inmates at the Iberia Parish (La.) jail, filed separate lawsuits in October against jail officials, for $1.5 million and $650,000, respectively, because they were allowed to buy cigarettes at the commissary even though they are underage.

Former Ball State University student Andrew Bourne, 23, and his parents filed a lawsuit in September against the school and the manufacturer of its aluminum football goal posts. Bourne suffered a broken leg and vertebrae when, during a raucous end-zone celebration after a 2001 victory over the University of Toledo, students pulled down the goal posts, hitting Bourne.

John Clayton III was awarded $1.5 million by a jury in Greensboro, N.C., in September based on injuries he suffered as a passenger in a car whose driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. The car Clayton was a passenger in was a police car; he was being brought to the station on an outstanding arrest warrant when the officer-driver hit the brakes. Clayton claimed the sudden stop caused him "back problems."