America's Least Funny Lawsuits
By David L. Yas
Lawyers Weekly

"Videos featuring a chimpanzee who falls in love with a monkey mask, fishing mishaps and a look at some comical babies."

That's the show description for last Friday's installment of "America's Funniest Home Videos," the show that has been a sturdy component of ABC programming since the early 1990s.

You know this show. You know its formula. Toddlers dozing off into a bowlful of oatmeal. Dogs doing cute things. Aunt Mildred losing her dress while doing the twist at Bobby's Bar Mitzvah. Harmless, mindless fun. Video clips sent in from the unwashed masses, collected from Middle America's backyards and living rooms.

Of course, there is a dark side to "AFHV." Men getting smacked in the groin by their kids' wifflebats. Women who can't swim getting pushed into pools. Uncoordinated people falling off of tractors. Videos that exploit misfortune. (Fishing mishaps?Hello? Visit any suburban E.R. on a weekend and you'll see the victims of fishing mishaps, protruding hooks and all. Not exactly funny stuff.)

Which brings us to the recently filed lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston captioned David Sawicki v. the ABC Television Network, et al.

Sawicki apparently had a few cocktails with a friend one night (already, this story sounds like trouble, doesn't it?) and dozed off at the friend's apartment. Sensing an opportunity, the friend grabbed two things: a razor and his videocamera. Hey, that's what you would do, right? Incidentally, calling this guy "friend" only refers to the events prior to when the razor came out.

Moments later the videocam was running, capturing the friend's handiwork: a "smiley face" shaved in Sawicki's chest hair. The friend sent the video off to AFHV, and it aired in July. Sawicki was none too pleased, and quickly sought legal representation (maybe even before his chest hair had grown back).

Enter attorney K. William Kyros.

Kyros listened to Sawicki describe L'Affair Chest Hair and thought to himself: Is there a lawsuit here? Now, we've all experienced embarrassing things. Bad haircuts. Ill-timed burps. Unfortunate dance moves. Freudian slips. Banana-peel slips. You name it.

Sawicki's moment, unfortunately, was captured on tape and inserted into a block of trash TV. But, really, should he have pushed the matter or simply purchased some tighter-fitting pajamas and gotten on with his life?

"My initial reaction was that I was skeptical," attorney Kyros admits. "But the client is a very put-together guy. He wasn't some marginal character."

According to the lawsuit, Sawicki is "a married professional man, has one child and is currently employed as a consultant at a very reputable consulting firm in Boston."

Kyros explains that he quickly became convinced that, to Sawicki, this was more than some harmless late-night chicanery. And ... the more one ponders it, the more lurid it sounds, doesn't it? Attacking one's bodily hair while they are unconscious for the purposes of broadcasting the maneuver to millions? I'm getting the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

"We can laugh and joke about it," Kyros says, "but it's unseemly. If they're trying to amuse the public, this isn't the way to do it."

The lawyer says the damages "weren't solely to his chest hair. ... And I don't think the guy is smiling." His client's reputation has taken a serious hit, he notes.

Kyros is looking to find other lawsuits against AFHV but has yet to unearth any. Keep looking, Bill. I bet one of those people who took a football in the groin has filed a pleading or two.

According to Kyros, AFHV has a policy of obtaining consent from everyone depicted in the videos. Sawicki was never asked for his. This doesn't necessarily mean the plaintiff will cash in on the case, but, according to Kyros, he has certainly met his initial burden.

Some might ask: isn't Sawicki's beef more with the dolt who sent the video to AFHV, rather than the show itself?

"I would not be happy with the friend, but when it got put on TV, that's when it became a problem," he says. The clip is apparently part of an AFHV compilation that is being sold via the Internet for $140 a pop. ... I know ... $140? Who's buying this thing? Do we underestimate the allure of men with pot bellies falling off of ladders?

"The show is a variant of trash TV," says Kyros, noting that the only reason it's not as popular as it used to be (AFHV was the number-one show in the country for a while in the early 1990s) is that "it got eclipsed by trashier stuff. ... It's appealing to lowbrow elements. ... It's symptomatic of a decaying pop culture."

Well, I don't know about that, but I do know this: AFHV might want to consider a policy of avoiding videos depicting people being manipulated when they're passed-out drunk. Just a thought. Hey, America's funniest evidence in assault cases!I tried to contact ABC on this matter, by the way, but just got a lot of voice-mail messages. They haven't called me back yet, but I understand. I'm sure they get sued all the time. I myself have sued them dozens of times, for reasons ranging from post-traumautic flashbacks involving Regis Philbin to the damage they have done to society in general by airing "The Bachelor" to my wife's strange new addiction to "Life With Bonnie."

But ABC does offer "Monday Night Football," which somehow always keeps me up into the wee hours of the morning. And as long as I'm awake, my chest hair is safe.

David Yas is publisher and editor-in-chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly