Illegal In Some States

So, it appears as though the woman who claimed she found a fin­ger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili has been arrested for attempted grand lar­ceny. From the few details avail­able, it appears as though she’s being charged with larceny/theft because her accu­sa­tions cost Wendy’s $2.5m, charges which “thrilled” Wendy’s offi­cials. Now, accord­ing to California law, the clos­est approx­i­ma­tion to her activ­i­ties was using “false or fraud­u­lent rep­re­sen­ta­tion or pre­tense, defraud any other per­son of money, labor or real or per­sonal prop­erty.” But she didn’t defraud or attempt to defraud Wendy’s of any­thing. One could argue that she “attempted” to defraud Wendy’s by suing them, but I’m under the impres­sion that it is the job of the civil trial to decide whether her claims are fraud­u­lent or not.

But more to the point, how crazy is it that a multi­na­tional cor­po­ra­tion can have you arrested for cost­ing them assumed prof­its? Even if the woman’s claims are all lies (which they may very well be), the legal response to some­one slandering/libeling is to sue them for slander/libel, not to have a SWAT team raid their house and trump up some charges which claim they “stole” your prof­its through their claims.