Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging 
by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness 
to make it look as if he had hanged himself.
When his wife came home and saw him she fainted. Hearing a disturbance a 
neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized 
the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms 
laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the 
backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart 
attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife 
were reconciled.

A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety
          record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the
          use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial
          Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial
          accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered
          minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room.
          Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches
          after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the
          film.

    Burn Baby Burn - A Cigar Story

   ONLY IN THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM
   A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very
   expensive cigars, insured them against ... get this ...fire.
   Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars,
   and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man
   filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man
   stated that he had lost the cigars in "a series of small fires."
   The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that
   the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man
   sued...and won!
   In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a
   policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were
   insurable, and also guaranteed that it would insure the cigars against
   fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire,"
   it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss.
   Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance
   company accepted the judge's ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the
   rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed his check,
   however, the insurance company had him arrested ... on 24 counts of
   arson!
   With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case
   being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of
   intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive
   one year terms!