Top 20 Strangest People to Appear on Judge Judy

Accused of vandalizing a friend’s car, the defendant in this case can’t stop smiling or laughing. Between his red face and inability to keep it together, it’s pretty apparent he did not show up to court with a clear head. If there’s one thing Judge Judy has no patience for, it’s disrespect for her courtroom. His airheadedness gets to the judge right away, and she can’t stop herself from taking him apart bit by bit. She even does a priceless impression of him right to his face. Even the defendant’s witness looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there.

In this case, a girl ran into a car and broke her clavicle. But driver Robin Brook believes she is the real injured party here, as the injured girl broke her vehicle’s side mirror. Judge Judy repeatedly explains how insensitive and wrongheaded this is. The plaintiff is not hearing it, though. She is so determined that the girl’s mother owes her that she can’t even see how many different ways this situation could have turned out worse than it did. The fact that Brook appears fairly calm almost makes her reasoning for the lawsuit that much more bizarre and harder to digest.

If there was an entitlement award, this guy would be a shoo-in. The plaintiff sued the employees of a restaurant because they vandalized his property. Okay, that seems fair enough. However, it comes out that the man actually refused to pay for the meal he ordered, saying he had a credit due to the restaurant previously forgetting extra salad dressing with his meal. Apparently, without the dressing, his entire lunch became magically inedible. So, the salad dressing vigilante took matters into his own hands. The judge was not having it, and neither was the audience. Vandalism is not okay, but neither is this guy’s behavior!

Plaintiff Glenn Hazelton started off on the wrong foot with the judge. He didn’t think her line of questioning about his arrest record was relevant to the current case. But Judge Judy has a way of deciding for herself what’s relevant. The plaintiff, who is suing his own mother for false arrest, clearly has an anger problem. At one point, he throws a fit and tells the judge to dismiss his case. Judge Judy is happy to accommodate him. Once he calms down and returns to reargue his case, the judge lets him rant and rave until he gets tired, only to dismiss his case again.

Driving uninsured and getting into a car accident while fighting a passenger didn’t endear her to the judge, but defendant Devesha Thomas’ courtroom dramatics made a bad situation worse. When Thomas wouldn’t answer her questions clearly, the judge grew impatient. Even when she seemingly told the truth, her answers were headscratchers. But it was her outsized reactions and comical gasping to even the most innocuous questions that made her an instant meme. Judge Judy doesn’t have time for stalling, histrionics, or nonsense. By the end of this one, she seemed like she was ready to retire.

Judge Judy has to sift through years of animosity between two neighbors to get to the heart of this case. Truthfully, neither litigant comes off well. What should’ve been a trivial feud about twigs and trimmings blew up when the defendant took it upon herself to protest at her neighbor’s house. She was captured on video spewing profanities into a bullhorn in front of his property. There’s no doubt these two have too much time on their hands, but to stand outside someone’s house and scream into a bullhorn is a whole other level of obnoxious.

Danny Gonzales decided he was the star of this show, and told the judge as much. This was right after he made a crass and borderline nonsensical joke about her daughter. You can decide whether it was stupid or brave, but if you ask us, it’s the former. Judge Judy’s not having it either. She doesn’t even dignify it with a real insult. Considering how obnoxious he is, it’s surprising the judge didn’t absolutely wreck him in front of the cameras. It’s a wonder someone would be foolish enough to even try this, especially since he was at fault in the case.

The plaintiff, Wendy Moore, allowed her underage son to drive her vehicle. But when her son allowed his friend to drive the car, the girl was killed in an accident. In response, Moore sued the grieving defendant – i.e. the deceased’s mother – for damages. Judge Judy makes it clear she has no case, but Moore’s smug expression and unwillingness to listen just makes her look even worse. As heinous as this case is, there’s something to be said for the way some people’s minds work. Most of us would probably feel incredibly guilty if we were in the plaintiff’s position, yet there are some who seemingly have no shame, and it’s tough to see.

The plaintiff here sues her ex-roommate over an attack with boiling water. Police reports from the night indicate that there were a lot of illicit substances involved. The plaintiff, however, alleges the cop was phony – or as she puts it: [fugazi]. The thing is, the report is corroborated by the medical records. Given her erratic behavior and trouble speaking, even Judge Judy wonders aloud if she’s under the influence in court. What becomes clear is that this woman needs help. It’s one of Judge Judy’s more empathetic moments with a litigant, and we certainly feel for the plaintiff as well.

This living situation went south as soon as the tupperware got involved. Karina Roy, now known as the infamous “Tupperware Lady,” got into an argument with the defendant over some missing items. Those items, of course, were tupperware. Roy’s spirited reenactment of these arguments does not impress Judge Judy. Her incredibly precise description of the events doesn’t really score her any points either. One could argue that self-awareness is in short supply here, and that’s what makes it so entertaining. Despite saying an awful lot, Roy’s testimony doesn’t always make a lot of sense, seemingly leaving Judge Judy, Officer Byrd, and the audience hilariously baffled.

Sometimes things break. It’s a natural part of life, and something that everyone has to deal with. In this case, however, the plaintiff, Lisa, decided she’d rather her ex-friend, Barbara, deal with it. After realizing Barbara broke her toilet by sitting on it, Lisa sued for damages. Unsurprisingly, Judge Judy was quick to call out the ridiculousness of the case and asked why Lisa thought the defendant should be responsible for her toilet. She didn’t have a good answer, and Judge Judy quickly dismissed the case as being stupid, telling the woman to “grow up” before determining the case closed.

Sometimes a situation has no easy solution, but the response to frustrating circumstances should never be violence - especially towards the people you're asking for help! In this case, a mother sued her twenty year old daughter for damages after she went on a bizarre rampage following her mother’s refusal to take her friend’s child. The friend was unable to support the baby, but instead of asking her mother to adopt the child legally, this woman thought it best to pawn the child off to her “like a kitten.” After hearing the story, Judge Judy was clearly perplexed by the audacity of the young woman to ask such a thing of her mother and, by extension, her stepfather.

It’s easy to blame a store or salesperson when something is wrong with an item days after you’ve purchased it. In this case, however, the plaintiff wasn’t complaining about broken furniture, but a sickly puppy! Steve Lightner had purchased the puppy from someone in a Walgreens parking lot on a Saturday and realized that it was sick the following Monday. After being told it was underweight, he sued the woman he bought it from, insisting that she was at fault for selling him a sickly dog. He even went so far as to accuse the woman of faking her death, and the deaths of her children - a claim for which he seemed to have very little evidence.

Car salesmen are sometimes known for using persuasive double talk to convince you to buy a vehicle, but this salesman skipped the pitch and went right to a full on scam. Salesman Robert Martin promised two separate people a car that he valued at $1500, and collected money from them both, before being taken to court by the plaintiff. As Judge Judy points out, he was effectively paid twice for the same car - and a car that was only valued to be worth $825 at that! Somehow, even after this revelation, the defendant still doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong and pushes for a $5000 countersuit. Even more baffling: his nephew, who was promised the car alongside the plaintiff, actually agrees with him!

This woman is the real “Karen” of dog owners. Having never owned her own dog, Rachel purchased a pug from a breeder. She and her son were happy with him, and they even wanted a second dog. So far so good! …That is, until her vet told her that the dog had to be neutered - which she appeared to think meant the pug was defective. Having wanted to breed the dog, she felt cheated, and demanded her money back. Even stranger, she insisted she should get the money and the dog. She even went so far as to call the attorney general! Judge Judy scoffed at the case, pointing out that a first-time dog owner had no business breeding a dog anyway.

To own a pet is to be responsible for its actions. This is a lesson the defendant, Lisa, learned the hard way when her pot-bellied pig escaped her backyard and bit the prized show dog of the plaintiff, Deborah. Interestingly though, this is a case where both plaintiff and defendant acted pretty strangely. Although most of the blame can be laid on Lisa and her unconventional pet, it’s hard to overlook the fact that Deborah videoed her prized pooch sniffing at the unfamiliar animal for an extended period of time. She only reacted and pulled the Great Dane away when the dog was bitten by the pig. Seems like both could be better pet owners to their “beloved” animals.

It’s not uncommon for “Judge Judy '' cases to revolve around the damaging of personal property. What makes this case so unusual is that the defendants decided to vandalize a man’s car with mustard. Prior to the condiment crime, Billy Dye had gotten a restraining order against his cousin, and allegedly quit the job they worked at together following her promotion. Unfortunately, he still lived in the area, and had to drive past his former workplace on the way to his new job. He said this is when she, and two friends, attacked - first with mustard, and then with rocks. To make matters worse, the trio snickered throughout the entire trial, and frequently interrupted both Judge Judy and the plaintiff.

Although “Judge Judy” often deals with cases between everyday people, occasionally a familiar face will appear on her show. One such case was when John Lydon, better known as “Johnny Rotten,” appeared on the show as a defendant against a drummer named Robert Williams. You would think that charges of assault, battery, and neglected payments would cause the singer to be on his best behavior for Judge Judy. True to his bad boy reputation, however, the Sex Pistols frontman consistently acted out in front of the famous judge, antagonizing and interrupting her as she attempted to hear both sides of the case. Surprisingly, she ended up ruling in his favor regardless, as the drummer lacked adequate evidence to support his claims.

On eBay, most items are used, meaning what you see is what you get, but this seller took that sentiment a little too literally. When someone won two cell phones by bidding on the items in Kelli Filkins’ online shop, she instead sent two photographs of the phones that had been shown online. Even as Judge Judy insulted the woman’s moral compass and called her an idiot, Kelli refused to back down. Her stance was that the listing was, and always had been, for the photographs, and that the plaintiff suing her received what they had paid $467 for. She even gave a bad review on the website when they complained!

Sometimes it’s not just one person who might seem strange, but an entire case. This episode saw two former roommates at odds when one of them moved out of their shared home. Realizing she still had belongings there, Rosalyn began “blowing up” her roommate, Latona’s, phone and social media (a term Judge Judy was unfamiliar with) before giving up and enlisting the help of a friend to break in. The pair successfully broke in - but got much more than they bargained for. The then-pregnant Latona allegedly emerged from the home naked, holding a knife and a stick and screaming “I’m gonna kill you!” before smashing the plaintiff’s windshield. Certainly a peculiar way to come at a burglar, but Judge Judy ruled in her favor anyway, deciding the break-in justified the unconventional defense.