Bizarre legal disputes

It's sometimes quite adventurous what keeps the courts in this country busy. Here are three judgments that are as curious as they are amusing:

Say it indirectly

Neighbor A places a garden gnome with its middle finger raised obscenely on the property line with neighbor B. When B threatens to sue, A bandages the gnome and decorates it with a flower. B sues anyway.

The ruling: "Any potentially offensive effect emanating from a garden gnome is eliminated by bandaging the middle finger and adorning it with a flower. This renders the gesture disrespectful. Mere knowledge of the gesture with the raised middle finger beneath the bandage is insufficient to establish that it is offensive."

Lucky break – and keep it!

A tenant keeps a piglet named "Ferdinand" in his apartment. The landlord, who refuses to extend his permission for pets to include pigs, issues a notice of termination: the piggish aroma is a nuisance to the other residents, he states as justification.

The verdict: "With only sporadic pig odors when the apartment door is open, only occasional perception of the stench is possible. Therefore, there is no sustained nuisance."

Beating for uninhibited family friend

A shift worker catches his wife in bed with a male lover. He promptly beats up the lover, who then files a criminal complaint for assault.

The verdict: The criminal proceedings were discontinued due to minor culpability. "The male friend bore a significantly greater share of the blame," the regional court found. It was considered "particularly brazen and shameless" that the adultery was committed in the couple's bed, taking advantage of the husband's shift work.