A trending story of “Man sues himself and wins 300000” is false, as confirmed by several fact-check sources. Social media has recently revived this decades-old story.
Man sues himself and wins 300000: a fictional story gaining popularity on X
Users are sharing a screenshot of a 1996 South China Morning Post (SCMP) article that reported its own version of the fabricated story as real.
According to the shared posts, a man in Kentucky won a $300,000 lawsuit against himself after a boomerang he threw hit him on the head when it came back.
But after checking the authenticity of the news, AP News and other sources found it to be false. As per the publication, this story is entirely fictional and was originally published in the 1996 edition of Weekly World News, a magazine known for making up stories.
The Weekly World News, formerly a supermarket tabloid now operating online, earns its reputation for wildly fictional stories. Among these are tales like a zookeeper’s demise by elephant feces, a scientist’s scheme to destroy the sun, and a meat-growing tree. This fabricated news story gained further unwarranted credibility when the SCMP reported it in August 1996.
False story lacks supporting evidence in court records
According to a court official, the man supposedly involved is Larry Rutman. He was from Owensboro, Kentucky. And does not appear in the county court records where someone would have filed such a lawsuit.
— internet hall of fame (@InternetH0F) June 2, 2024
“A Kentucky man who threw a boomerang that flew back and hit him on the head has sued himself for US$300,000 (HK$2.32 million) – and won,” the SCMP article reads. “And astonishingly, it will not cost him a cent because all the money he won comes from his insurance company.”
On July 4, 2015, the Facebook page “What the ‘F’ Facts” shared a photograph. They claimed that a Kentucky man named Larry Rutman had sued himself and won $300,000 (paid by his insurance company) after he hit himself in the head with a boomerang.
A tweet featuring the screenshot had received more than 236,000 likes. More than 11,700 users had shared the post by Friday. An Instagram post had received more than 12,000 likes.
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