Top 10 Most Outrageous Defendant Excuses on Judge Judy

Ivory Clark is not the first litigant to suffer sudden and convenient memory problems in Judge Judy’s courtroom. However, it seems particularly egregious here. The plaintiff, her mother’s boyfriend, had to smash his own car window to get Clark’s infant out of the hot vehicle, avoiding what could’ve been a tragic accident. He sues her for the cost of replacing the window and for removal of trash she left when she moved out of his house. Clark blames her mother for the whole event. She says she can’t remember promising to pay the plaintiff back, nor does she remember the day she moved out of his house. Given the circumstances, repayment is the very least she could do.

A dispute about tree trimmings on the wrong side of the property boundary turns into a feud of epic proportions. Plaintiff Stephen Hesley was irritated that his next door neighbor Sheila Blazofsky left trimmings in his yard. Things escalated enough that police reports were filed. The judge isn’t impressed with either litigant. However, Blazofsky admits she turned up the heat by protesting in front of his house, shouting expletives into a bullhorn and disturbing the peace of the neighborhood. Blazofsky insists she’s just exercising her first amendment rights. Judge Sheindlin disagrees. She calls it disorderly conduct.

The Dettenheim sisters are in court over a matter of car damage. Carol Dettenheim insists she could borrow her sister, Eve’s, car without asking because she had borrowed it in the past without issue. But then she hit a deer. Eve Dettenheim didn’t appreciate Carol’s offer of deer stew. She just wants her to pay. The judge is surprisingly patient with the defendant, even though many of her answers demonstrate complete obliviousness. She thought Eve had full coverage car insurance. It doesn’t occur to her to pay for the damage, though. The judge suggests she get a job and pay her sister what she’s owed.

Judge Sheindlin’s years in the family court system came back with a vengeance in this case. She is not impressed with litigant Cathleen Kreftmeyer’s parenting. She admits to telling her six-year-old daughter that the plaintiff might not be her father. There was no decent or appropriate reason to tell her this. But Kreftmeyer explains that she doesn’t keep secrets from her kids. This fills the judge with rage. She can’t believe a mother would tell a child that young that her father might not be their biological father, especially since she has no conclusive proof. It’s a gigantic lapse in judgment.

When their landlord gave them the legal thirty day notice to vacate her apartment, defendants Patrick Valdivia-Minsel and Rachel Bachakes heard something very different. They tell Judge Judy, with a straight face, that they took this as her not wanting rent money anymore. But they would absolutely be happy to stay in the place rent free. For months, that’s exactly what they did. The audacity of that defense is unbelievable. It makes their argument about harassment and filing an order of protection against the landlord all the more ridiculous. Apparently, being asked for rent is harassment. If that’s true, we all have a case.

As dog owners in these cases usually do, the defendants here argue their dog is docile. The bites the plaintiff’s son sustained indicate otherwise. Lourdes Rodriguez calls the child a liar from the first few minutes. She tells the judge that the plaintiff and his son are making up an elaborate story because the boy actually purposefully scared her dog, so the bite was warranted. Her version of events doesn’t square with her answer to the lawsuit. The judge is angry because not only can Rodriguez not keep her facts straight, but neither one absolves her of guilt in the dog’s actions.

Two coworkers arguing over a woman end up in a legal case when defendant Joshua Sumrow had a feeling the plaintiff was going to harass him at their shared workplace. She susses out very quickly that Sumrow was unfairly using an emergency protective order to try to get his coworker fired. He insists he believed the plaintiff might do something. As angry as she gets, it’s rare to hear her curse in the courtroom. But if there’s one thing she hates more than people who don’t respect her court, it’s people who abuse the legal system.

Valencia Carroll arrived at her mother and stepfather’s home with a strange request. She wanted to leave her friend’s young child with them to take care of indefinitely. The judge already smells a rat. This all seems a little unsavory. Allegedly, Carroll went on a tirade that ended with a broken TV and her stepfather’s car being vandalized. Carroll’s excuse is that it wasn’t her fault. She says her stepfather pushed her into the TV and his own car. Nothing she says makes any sense. She wants us to believe none of this damage was a result of her rage, but her decisions up to this point don’t give Sheindlin much faith in her judgment.

Running a daycare out of your home is already risky, as defendant Heather Scherer found out. When the plaintiffs arrived to pick up their children, their infant was injured. Scherer blames their nine-year-old for roughhousing with his younger brother. Unfortunately, that defense makes things even worse for her. The brother was also under her care at the time. Scherer still won’t accept responsibility. The baby, she says, might have just been having a bad day. The judge had some stern words for her and her home state’s licensing practices. If you’re this lackadaisical, it’s probably best to leave childcare to the professionals.

Some legends are born, and some are made through sheer force of stupidity. Accused of stealing plaintiff Ginny Paradeza’s book bag and all its contents, Steven and Samuel McQuay deny this. They were just there when someone else stole it. This doesn’t make them look good. Once Paradeza starts listing out what was in the bag, one of them slips up, and denies that one of the items was in the bag that they just said they didn’t take. Whether or not they were the thieves or just the lookouts, their explanations don’t wash with the judge. She takes pleasure in ruling against them, and a viral clip was born.

Which of these defendants had you yelling at the screen? Tell us in the comments.