People with too much time on their hands

. In December 2003, Yves Julien worked a regular 11-hour shift, plus overtime, all at premium pay, for the Canada Border Services Agency, and then demanded an additional $9 (Cdn) for a sandwich he had purchased when asked to put in the extra hours. The agency said he was not entitled, by contract, because the overtime was already at premium pay. In September 2008, after nearly five years of multiple reviews, hair-splitting legal decisions and lengthy appeals, Julien won his $9.

. In September, Melvin Dummar, now 62, the man who famously claimed to be in Howard Hughes' hand-written will (based on having given Hughes a ride in the desert in 1967), was turned down again by a federal appeals court in his latest challenge to the "official" 1976 will.

. The U.S.'s most-ridiculed litigator, Roy Pearson of the Washington, D.C., dry-cleaning case (who in 2005 sued for $54 million over a pair of pants), announced in September he was appealing the dismissal of his case.