'Coyote vs. ACME': New Documentary Shows Importance of Product Liability Law (A Satirical Review)

A shocking, newly released legal documentary, Coyote vs. ACME, about the efforts of an Albuquerque billboard tort lawyer to obtain relief for his long-suffering client, Wile E. Coyote, demonstrates the importance of having effective product liability laws and a fair legal system. Advertisement The fact that the ACME Corporation could manufacture without consequence such defective products as malfunctioning rocket-propelled roller skates and giant catapults that throw boulders the wrong way is a scandalous indictment of the flaws in our justice system as well as the incompetence of government regulators. As is the fact that the loud and obnoxious billionaire head of ACME, Foghorn Leghorn, could get away with selling such defective products to an innocent, unsuspecting public, such as Mr. Coyote, for so long to feed Leghorn's greed. In fact, according to the Forbes annual 'World's Billionaires List - the Richest in 2026,' Leghorn is the world's richest chicken, far surpassing Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and the oil-rich sheiks of Saudi Arabia who have long dominated the list but are no longer the cocks of the walk. Leghorn doesn't hesitate to crow about his wealth and undeserved success, which has made him the dominant rooster in the billionaire barnyard with the biggest pile of corn. And it is not as if Mr. Coyote is an unsophisticated consumer. He admits that he has a genius-level IQ and a detailed engineering background that has allowed him to design numerous, complicated Rube Goldberg-type devices. But his devices have resulted in one disaster after another due to the deceptively defective parts supplied to him by ACME, such as giant electromagnets that have led to Wile being run over by speeding trains and trucks, defective detonators that have blown him up with large amounts of TNT, and dangerous Do-It-Yourself Tornado kits that have enveloped him in raging whirlwinds. Advertisement It is due to ACME's negligence and reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of its customers that Mr. Coyote is constantly falling off cliffs and has been unsuccessful in his professional work as a carnivorous predator: trying to catch an extremely fast, but also extremely annoying, Road Runner. This is an important occupation since this bird is a serious danger to public safety. He is probably the fastest, most successful lawbreaker in the desert West who is constantly defying speed limit laws as well as the law of gravity. The legal doctrine of 'assumption of risk' that can be used to defend against a product liability claim, which ACME asserts in the lawsuit filed by Wile E. Coyote, does not apply when a company deceives the public by guaranteeing that its products, such as missiles, explosives, and rocket sleds, are perfectly safe and manufactured to the highest possible standards. In fact, the documentary vividly shows that the company took extreme measures against its chief researcher and scientist, Dr. Peter Lorre (who is married to Granny), when he raised concerns about ACME's products. ACME also retaliated against another company whistleblower, the Tasmanian Devil, the head of its Public Relations Department. I won't reveal how ACME's lawyer violates basic rules of courtroom civil procedure by retaliating against the Tasmanian Devil. I know, however, that every lawyer who has ever had a bad witness in a trial would pay a fortune to ACME for the device the ACME lawyer had in his briefcase. Advertisement It is no wonder the company has made so much money and has successfully defeated every lawsuit filed against it or settled cases for peanuts (taking advantage of vulnerable elephants harmed by ACME products), including one lawsuit by a Hollywood performer from the famous Looney Tunes studio, Po-Po-Porky Pig. Recommended: Did a Big Law Attorney Act Unethically to Sabotage Trump's Travel 'Ban'? An important point to note is the possibly corrupt actions by ACME (not covered in the documentary) to prevent the release of this startling film. According to the Washington Post, this documentary was completed in 2022 by Warner Bros., the famous film production company started in 1923. Yet according to the Post, Warner Bros. suddenly decided, without explanation, not to release the finished documentary. Unconfirmed rumors have been circulating in Hollywood that this decision was made after a visit to the studio's headquarters by the ACME rooster himself, carrying a bulging briefcase. When the studio guard asked him what was in the briefcase, Leghorn replied: 'Well, I say, I say, it ain't chicken feed.' Apparently, the film is only seeing the light of day due to its sale to a new distributor, Ketchup Entertainment, after a visit to Warner Bros. by a certain wise-cracking rabbit. He warned the studio heads about the Warner skeletons he could pull out of his rabbit hole and that the carrot-chewing star, the studio's biggest box office draw, was thinking of going on strike. One of the documentary's most embarrassing revelations is the behavior of the two Harvard-trained lawyers involved in the litigation. ACME's general counsel, Buddy Crane, displays an appalling lack of ethics and a shocking level of corruption that should have gotten him disbarred long ago. By a strange coincidence, the opposing lawyer, Kevin Avery of Avery, Jones & Maltese, who is representing Wile E. Coyote, is a former classmate at Harvard of ACME's shyster. Advertisement Avery demonstrates a profound level of incompetence in mishandling this product liability case, amounting to per se malpractice, which would be extremely disappointing to the original founders of the firm, Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. His courtroom performance is so bad that a giant anvil might as well have dropped on him, for all the good he does his client. Both Crane and Avery are unfortunate examples of how the quality of the legal education provided by Harvard Law School has degraded, although that is not covered in the film. Much of that is due to the ideologically radical professors who predominate law school faculties, but also to the invidious discrimination that the admissions office has been practicing. It is hoped that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Students for FAIR Admissions v. Harvard, which declared such discrimination unconstitutional, will begin to repair the damage. I am reliably informed that FAIR stands for Funding Animals In Re-education, an organization dedicated to sending its cartoon members to elite institutions like Harvard so they can be reeducated away from unproductive professions, such as chasing cats that look like skunks, trying to get ducks shot during rabbit season, chasing fast birds in the New Mexico desert, or trying to catch small, caged yellow birds with speech impediments. But these days, Harvard 'educates' its students in equally unproductive majors such as 'Victimization Professional,' 'Anti-Semitism Advocate,' and 'Discrimination, Exclusion, and Indoctrination Specialist,' or DEI.S, which can only qualify you to be the president of an Ivy League university. Advertisement According to the documentary, this product liability lawsuit did catch the attention of Congress, which set up a special committee chaired by Sen. Elmer Fudd to investigate Mr. Coyote's claims. As a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, I believe Fudd's cavalier handling of the committee's investigation should generate a campaign finance investigation by the FEC. The documentary does not explain how much funding in his re-election campaign Fudd may have received from ACME's Political Action Committee, the SPLC (SPecialized Lobbyists for Corruption), which has a notorious reputation in Washington. Someone ought to investigate this to find out what influence this might have had on Sen. Fudd's behavior. Moreover, in 2024, Fudd pulled off a surprising victory despite polls indicating he was going to lose to his opponent, Daffy Duck, another ACME victim, who was vowing revenge for all of the times Fudd had shot him. Shortly before that election, Fudd's home state installed new voting machines manufactured by a division of — you guessed it — the ACME Corporation: the Election Domination Voting Systems Company. That in itself should generate an investigation by Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice to determine if there was any hanky-panky software (technical computer programming term) in the machines used to cast votes and tally up Fudd's unexpected victory. All in all, this is a documentary well worth seeing. It is a hare-raising tail of corporate wrongdoing; legal shenanigans, large boulders, and ejection seats used to thwart justice; and regulatory incompetence. But it shows what needs to be fixed to ensure that all of us have the ability to buy quality products from reputable companies, whether it is TNT, explosive cigars, rocket sleds, giant catapults, jet-propelled tennis shoes, or anything else we need to enjoy the quality of life to which we have a natural right as Americans. Advertisement That's all folks! Editor's Note: Hollywood, academia, and liberal elites are out of touch with the average American. Help us continue to report the truth about what 77 million patriots voted for by joining PJ Media VIP and using promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.