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In addition to pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating, lawsuits can be added to the list of longstanding traditions linked to Halloween.
In a lawsuit initiated in 1989, Susan and Frank Ferlito sued cotton ball maker Johnson & Johnson Inc. after a Halloween costume that Mr. Ferlito wore caught fire and left him with burns over one-third of his body. The cotton balls, which were festooned on long underwear to make Mr. Ferlito look like a sheep, caught fire when he lit a cigarette.
While a lower court awarded the Michigan couple a combined $625,000, the award was set aside on appeal.
Elsewhere, a woman in Louisiana sued a nonprofit corporation, Gretna Athletic Boosters Inc., after she broke her nose in a haunted house. In the suit filed in 1996, Deborah Mays alleged she needed two surgeries on her nose after she ran into a cinder block wall in a pitch black room while fleeing in fright from one of the volunteers working in the haunted house. The court ultimately found in favor of the defendants, saying that people should expect to be frightened when entering a haunted house.
Similarly, a woman in Louisiana filed suit in 2004 after breaking her ankle in an attempt to get away from a chainsaw-wielding, masked man in a Halloween corn maze. Once again, the court found in favor of the defendants, noting that the plaintiff, Lei Lani Billings, had paid to be frightened.
Animals are a frequent source of mobile phone mishaps in Britain, according to a company that sells cellphone insurance in the United Kingdom.