Rebuttal

(WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE) “I am astonished how successful these urban legends have been in influencing policy. . . .The people that created these stories did so with remarkable skill.”

The Grazinski case, the Carson case, and the Walton case, to name a few. They've all been cited as true by a wide range of major media outlets, including CNN and U.S. News & World Report.

There's just one problem: These cases don't exist. And neither do the people in them. No, AI didn't hallucinate them. Big corporations did...

...For more than 30 years, Stella Liebeck's lawsuit has been debated on talk shows, parodied in television commercials, mentioned in congressional debates, and is firmly lodged in the public consciousness. In U.S. popular culture, her case has come to symbolize greedy plaintiffs and lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits and win hugely excessive sums in a broken legal system.

And that was exactly what the big corporations, and their powerful lobbyists, wanted you to think. 

Reb spills all of the real, true, and graphic details of Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants (1994).

***

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***

00:00 - Intro / CONTENT WARNING.

00:15 - LEGAL URBAN LEGENDS.

02:43 - THE BAD GUYS AND YOU.

06:16 - Tort Law vs. Tort "Reform"

08:42 - CASE BEGINS: The McDonald's Hot Coffee Case

09:59 - THE INCIDENT.

12:03 - INJURIES AND PERMANENT DISFIGUREMENT.

14:21 - STELLA'S LETTERS TO MCDONALD'S.

19:17 - THE TRIAL: What the jury heard + Transcripts

32:27 - THE VERDICT.

37:25 - MCDONALD'S LEARNS NOTHING.

38:10 - JUSTICE FOR STELLA.

38:32 - Reb's Rebuttal



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(WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE) This is our fourth **Reb's Round-Up** episode—A rapid-fire (or as rapid as Reb can make it) list of cases that deserve to be included in the Rebuttal Podcast universe but are too short to devote a full episode to.

For this Round-Up, Reb gives you *14 bonus cases* for you to tell unsuspecting friends and strangers all about, including:

Drones delivering packages to prison;

An ex-lawyer in a purple G-string hallucinating a Giant Panda;

A bank robbery research project;

A $517,000 rock, paper, scissors game;

A trip to the morgue and back to the ER;

A (former) judge banned from a mall for being a creep;

An update on the infamous bee assault case;

And more...

Enjoy!

LINKS & CASE NAMES

Case #1: The Giant Panda Defense

Case #2: Moore v. Cecil, et al. (11th Cir. 2026)

Case #3: United States v. Stanley (2005)

Case #4: Wright v. Shotgun Willie's (2022)

Case #5: Wilson v. Midland County Texas, et al. (5th Cir. 2026)

Case #6: United States v. Petro (10th Cir. 2026)

Case #7: Denison v. Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency, Inc. (Miss. 2026)

Case #8: United States v. Blair (11th Cir. 2026)

Case #9: United States v. Weatherspoon (8th Cir. 2026)

Case #10: Neisser v. Pravec (2008) (Czech Republic)

Case #11: United States v. Russell (4th Cir. 2026)

Case #12: Commonwealth of Mass. v. Woods (2026) (and YouTube video of bee "attack")

Case #13: Operation Bear Claw

Case #14: Hooper c. Primeau (2017) (Quebéc's Court of Appeal)

***

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***

00:00 - Intro

00:25 - CASE #1: The Giant Panda Defense

03:33 - CASE #2: The Creepy Judge

04:50 - CASE #3: Robbing Banks For Research

06:20 - CASE #4: Two Bodies at the Strip Club

09:20 - CASE #5: "Utterly Bonkers," Says Court

10:11 - CASE #6: Naked and Acquitted

11:10 - CASE #7: Donation Gone Wrong

16:25 - CASE #8: Tan Lines & Can Lines

20:36 - CASE #9: Prison Phone Tag

21:24 - CASE #10: Your Body Scratched My Bumper

23:53 - CASE #11: Cat Blamed For Crime

25:11 - CASE #12: (UPDATE!) Beekeeper Sentenced!

28:41 - CASE #13: Operation Bearclaw

31:09 - CASE #14: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Throuple, $517,000

40:03 - Reb's Rebuttal

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(WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE) "By all appearances, a man who went by William Woods had turned his life around. . . .There was just one problem: Although William Woods is a real person, the man is not that person." –Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

Reb visits a really messed up hot dog cart from 1988 and a saga that'll make you question everybody's last name. Just to be sure.

This is United States v. Keirans (8th Cir. 2026).

Enjoy.

SOURCES:

8th Circuit Opinion (April 23, 2026): https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/26/04/251339P.pdf

University of Iowa article: https://stories.uiowa.edu/uipd-detective-unravels-decades-long-identity-scheme

Find William Woods' name and SUPPORT: https://exonerationregistry.org/

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***

00:00 - Intro

00:31 - CASE BEGINS.

03:38 - THE FIRST ARREST.

05:17 - FOUR YEARS LATER...

07:40 - (REB RANTS) 23andMe + Prosecutor budgets

12:00 - BACK TO THE CASE.

13:13 - "WILLIAM WOODS".

14:15 - "CALIFORNIA BILL".

16:56 - Campus police are useful for once?!

17:10 - (REB RANTS) Your husband is a psychopath. Act like it.

19:55 - (REB RANTS) You did a good deed. Stop bragging.

21:23 - "WHO IS YOUR SON?"

24:34 - WHO IS MATTHEW KEIRANS?

28:13 - Identity theft statistics.

29:56 - THE SECOND ARREST.

35:16 - the District Attorney said WHAT?!?!??!?!

37:04 - THE CHARGES + LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE.

39:36 - THE APPEAL & OUTCOME (April 2026).

45:30 - REB'S REBUTTAL.
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(WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE) "You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from." –Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men.

Two tiger sharks, a tattoo, and a richocheted bullet off a man's skull.

Reb dives into the Shark Arm Case (1935), the Confrontation Clause, and the Dead Witness Dilemma.

Enjoy.

***

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***

00:00 - Intro / Setting the Scene

01:02 - PART I: THE SHARK

06:57 - PART II: THE BOXER

12:33 - PART III: SHARK, 1; BULLET, 1; GANGSTERS, 0

25:35 - PART IV: HEARSAY LESSON

34:00 - PART V: THE CONFRONTATION CLAUSE

35:29 - Medieval "Trial By Ordeal" was a nightmare

38:16 - WHY DON'T YOU JUST KILL A WITNESS?

39:18 - PART VI: WOULD SHARK ARM TESTIMONY BE ADMISSIBLE TODAY?

43:20 - Reb's Rebuttal

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(WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE) One August day in 2019, Ina and David Steiner, a married couple in their late 50s and early 60s respectively, were in their offices at their Natick, Massachusetts home when they each noticed an email pop into their inboxes. The message was bizarre. It said their “wet specimen” was ready and asked, Did they want to accept delivery?  . . . .

Reb explains the (very insane, very stupid, very scary) case of United States v. Baugh, et al. (2020).

Enjoy!

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***

00:00 - Intro

00:32 - THE STEINERS.

14:34 - THE EMPLOYERS.

18:27 - THE WEBSITE.

20:45 - THE EMPLOYEES.

21:55 - THE EXECUTIVES.

28:15 - THE MESSAGES.

31:37 - THE CAMPAIGN.

34:17 - THE AFTERMATH.

41:42 - Reb's Rebuttal

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