the $40 billion T‐shirt

I bought a T‐shirt listing names of over 4,000 soldiers who died in Operation Iraqi Liberation, over the words BUSH LIED in front and THEY DIED in back, made and sold by CarryaBigSticker, a small Internet T‐shirt shop by Dan Frazier of Flagstaff, Arizona.

In order to ban these shirts, a couple states have passed unconstitutional laws prohibiting use of soldiers’ names for profit without prior consent of those soldiers’ families. Makes censorship sound almost high‐minded, doesn’t it?

Last month, Robin and Michael Read, angry parents of deceased Sgt. Brandon Read, sued Frazier for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Reporters asked Frazier about their frivolous lawsuit, and Frazier said he was not worried. So, they filed an amendment to their complaint that most respectfully says that since Frazier’s dumber than a mentally‐challenged monkey for remaining so calm,

I demand the sum of FORTY! BILLION! DOLLARS!

Most respectfully, this is a concept that even a mentally‐challenged monkey could grasp, but, apparently, defendants cannot — or, more likely, refuse — to do so, for as defendant, Fraser, stated recently to the Associated Press, he is “not worried” about the outcome of this litigation.

5. As a result of defendants, jointly and severally, stating that they are “not worried” about this litigation, your original plaintiffs, on behalf of the class of persons sought to be certified pursuant to FRCP 23 hereby amend their demand to demand the following damages against the defendants, jointly and severally, for the benefit of the class sought to be certified.

a) Plaintiffs, on behalf of the entire class, including themselves, seek the sum of One Million ($1,000,000.00) Dollars, multiplied by the number of servicemen killed in the Iraq War to date, or Four Thousand Fifty‐Two (4,052), and, thus, sue, on behalf of the members of the class, for total compensatory damages for the class in the sum of Four Billion, Fifty‐Two Million ($4,052,000,000.00) Dollars.

b) Plaintiffs, on behalf of the entire class, including themselves, seek the sum of Nine Million ($9,000,000.00) Dollars, multiplied by the number of servicemen killed in the Iraq War to date, or Four Thousand Fifty‐Two (4,052), and, thus, sue, on behalf of the members of the class, for total punitive damages for the class in the sum of Thirty‐Six Billion, Four Hundred Sixty‐Eight Million ($36,468,000,000.00) Dollars.

Even the aforesaid “mentally‐challenged monkey” should be worried about potential exposure in this amount.

Because they don’t like a $10 T‐shirt in a shop, they sue the storeowner for an obscene sum of $40.5 billion dollars, so that their lawsuit will be taken more seriously. PrawfsBlog thinks this would fall under improper purposes for a pleading.

• Operation Iraqi Liberation was a codename for the United States of America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Because this led to an unfortunately apt acronym OIL, this codename was soon changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• Dr. Evil is a megalomaniacal supervillain who was cryogenically frozen for 30 years in a spoof spy movie, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Dr. Evil suggests holding the world for ransom for one million dollars, but when his henchmen explain inflation over the past thirty years, he revises his demand to one hundred billion dollars.