The big product liability case: Coyote vs. Acme

Is there anything sadder than getting excited about a film involving a product liability case?

I'll avoid answering that one. But tomorrow just such a film comes out, Coyote vs. Acme (and yes, that's not the way to cite a case...) in which Wile E. Coyote takes on the company which supplies all his defective equipment:

(Yes it doesn't come out until next week in the US. But this is a UK based blog and here proceedings start tomorrow.)

And this is not the first time that this dispute has been contemplated. Back in 1990 The New Yorker carried a fictitious legal case document, Coyote v. Acme by Ian Frazier.

Although comedic, this is based on a serious legal concept, product liability. A manufacturer and supplier has a duty to supply well-designed goods that work as intended and come with warnings. Wile E. Coyote's attempts to catch the Roadrunner have so often failed because the equipment he's obtained from Acme has been defective. The US based Pisanchyn Law Firm has a blog post explaining this in more detail at What Coyote vs. Acme Teaches Us About Product Liability (Yes, Seriously).

So tomorrow we'll see one coyote take on a big corporation and it should be fun.

One line of defence I doubt we'll see is the question as to whether Wile E. Coyote is a single animal. This moment, from the 1955 short Ready.. Set.. Zoom! suggests otherwise and there may be a limit to how much one coyote can claim:

So tomorrow we'll see some fun as Wile E. Coyote finally takes on his true nemesis. And have some legal fun at the same time.