10 Bizarre Times the Law Redefined Ordinary Things

Most people can identify bread, cake, fish, or a sandwich without legal assistance. Yet when taxes, contracts, copyrights, or conservation laws are involved, ordinary definitions can have expensive consequences.

Courts have therefore faced questions resembling riddles: Is a tomato a fruit? Can a bumblebee be a fish? Is a superhero human? Their answers can appear absurd because the law does not always use words as scientists, cooks, or shoppers do.

These cases reveal what happens when familiar things enter the legal system and emerge with unexpected definitions.

Related: 10 Weird Court Cases Featuring Supernatural Beings

10 The Tomato Became a Vegetable at Dinner

Botanically, a tomato is a fruit because it develops from a flower and contains seeds. For American tariff collectors, however, botany proved less important than dinner.

The dispute began when John Nix & Co. imported tomatoes into New York. Under the Tariff Act of 1883, vegetables faced a ten percent duty, while fruits entered duty-free. The company paid the tax but sued customs collector Edward Hedden, arguing that tomatoes were fruits.

In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the law used “fruit” and “vegetable” according to ordinary speech rather than botanical science. Tomatoes were commonly served with soup, fish, or meat—not as dessert. For the purposes of that tariff, they were vegetables.

The ruling did not overturn botany. It recognized that cooks and scientists classified the same object differently. The tomato remained a fruit in the greenhouse, became a vegetable at dinner, and attracted a duty at customs.^[1]

9 Jaffa Cakes Had to Prove That They Were Cakes

British tax law generally zero-rates cakes and biscuits but applies value-added tax to chocolate-covered biscuits. This placed the Jaffa Cake in a difficult position: It looked like a biscuit, was sold beside biscuits, and was commonly eaten like one.

McVitie’s insisted that its chocolate-and-orange creation was a cake. A tax tribunal considered its ingredients, manufacture, texture, presentation, and behavior over time.

Jaffa Cakes have a sponge base rather than biscuit dough. They also behave more like cakes when left out: A biscuit tends to soften as it goes stale, while a cake tends to harden. An aging Jaffa Cake hardens. That detail helped McVitie’s case, though no single test settled the question. The tribunal considered the product as a whole and accepted that Jaffa Cakes were cakes, allowing them to remain zero-rated.

The decision showed that a snack’s tax classification could depend partly on what happened after it was forgotten in the cupboard. Anyone unable to settle the question by tasting a fresh Jaffa Cake might be tempted to leave one unattended and see how it aged.^[2]

8 Pringles Were Potato-Like Enough to Be Taxed

Pringles resemble potato chips closely enough that people rarely demand an explanation before eating them. Their manufacturer once argued, however, that they were not sufficiently potato-based to be taxed like chips.

British law applies value-added tax to potato chips and similar snacks made from potatoes, potato flour, or potato starch. Procter & Gamble argued that ordinary Pringles differed because they were manufactured from dough containing several ingredients. Potato flour accounted for a little over 40 percent of the product.

A tax tribunal rejected that argument, but the High Court subsequently sided with the company. In 2009, the Court of Appeal reversed the High Court’s decision. It concluded that the quantity of potato flour, combined with the snack’s similarity to potato chips, placed ordinary Pringles within the taxable category. The law did not require them to be made wholly or principally from potatoes.

The ruling did not declare a Pringle identical to a sliced chip. It decided only that the snack was similar enough for one tax rule. Its uniform shape and complicated recipe could not free it from its potato ancestry.^[3]

7 A Burrito Was—and Wasn’t—a Sandwich

In 2006, a Massachusetts court confronted a question that could divide lunch tables everywhere: Is a burrito a sandwich?

A Panera Bread lease prevented its shopping center from renting space to another sandwich shop. When the center prepared to admit a Qdoba restaurant, Panera sought an injunction, arguing that Qdoba’s burritos and tacos violated its exclusive rights.

The Worcester Superior Court consulted ordinary usage and dictionary definitions. A sandwich generally consisted of two pieces of bread with filling between them. A burrito used one tortilla wrapped around its contents. Judge Jeffrey Locke concluded that the foods were not commonly understood to be the same, so Qdoba could open.^[4]

Indiana later complicated matters. In 2024, a Fort Wayne restaurateur wanted to open a taco shop on land restricted to restaurants serving made-to-order or “Subway-style” sandwiches. A judge ruled that tacos and burritos could qualify as Mexican-style sandwiches under that development agreement.

Neither ruling created a universal definition. Each interpreted a different agreement. A burrito was not a sandwich in the Massachusetts dispute, qualified as one in the Indiana dispute, and remained lunch everywhere else.^[5]

6 Subway’s Rolls Were Too Sugary to Count as Bread

A Subway order usually begins with, “What kind of bread?” In Ireland, the legally accurate answer became more complicated: For one tax purpose, none of the chain’s rolls qualified.

In Bookfinders Ltd. v. Revenue Commissioners, an Irish Subway franchisee sought refunds for value-added tax paid in 2004 and 2005. Among its arguments was that its sandwiches should receive the zero-percent rate available to certain staple foods, including bread.

Irish law limited the ingredients permitted in zero-rated bread. Sugar could not exceed two percent of the flour’s weight. In Subway’s dough, sugar equaled approximately ten percent of the flour’s weight—five times the permitted amount.

In 2020, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that the rolls fell outside the statutory definition. Because the sugar exceeded the limit, the franchisee could not claim bread’s favorable tax treatment.

The court did not prohibit anyone from calling Subway’s rolls bread or create a universal culinary definition. They failed the test within that tax law. A baker or customer could still call them bread; the tax collector saw an unexpectedly generous spoonful of sugar.^[6]

5 California Bumblebees Became Fish

Bumblebees lack gills, scales, and any obvious talent for swimming. Nevertheless, a California court determined in 2022 that they could qualify as “fish” under the state’s endangered species law.

Conservation groups asked the California Fish and Game Commission to consider four bumblebee species for protection. Agricultural organizations objected that the California Endangered Species Act covered fish, not insects.

The strange result came from the Fish and Game Code’s technical definition of “fish,” which included mollusks, crustaceans, and invertebrates. The challengers argued that the definition covered only aquatic invertebrates. The California Court of Appeal disagreed. Legislative history and the earlier protection of a land-dwelling snail showed that the term was not restricted to aquatic life.

Since bumblebees are invertebrates, the Commission could consider the four species for listing. The ruling did not itself grant them endangered status.

No biologist had to redraw the animal kingdom, and no beekeeper needed an aquarium. The bees remained insects in science and ordinary speech. Within one conservation law, however, “fish” had a surprisingly broad meaning.^[7]

4 An Actual Fish Was Not a “Tangible Object”

After California law allowed bumblebees to qualify as fish, federal law supplied a companion ruling: An actual fish was not a “tangible object” under one provision of an obstruction statute.

In 2007, an officer boarded the Miss Katie in the Gulf of Mexico and identified 72 undersized red grouper. He placed them in crates and instructed Captain John Yates to preserve them. According to a crew member, Yates instead ordered the fish thrown overboard and replaced.

Prosecutors charged Yates under a provision of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, passed following the Enron accounting scandal. It prohibited destroying any “record, document, or tangible object” to obstruct an investigation.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Yates’s conviction under that provision. Read in context beside “record” and “document,” the majority concluded that “tangible object” referred to an object used to record or preserve information. Congress had targeted the destruction of records, not every form of physical evidence.

Justice Elena Kagan dissented, arguing that a fish plainly had physical form and even citing Dr. Seuss. The ruling did not make fish intangible or excuse every aspect of Yates’s conduct. The grouper was simply the wrong kind of object for that particular statute.^[8]

3 Marvel Argued That the X-Men Were Not Human

The X-Men have spent decades defending the idea that mutants are people. In a tariff dispute over action figures imported in 1994, however, Toy Biz argued that many Marvel characters belonged in the nonhuman toy category.

The American tariff schedule at the time distinguished between dolls representing humans and toys representing animals or nonhuman creatures. Dolls faced a duty of 12%, while the other toys faced a duty of 6.8 percent.

Customs classified numerous Marvel figures as dolls. Toy Biz challenged the decision, and the Court of International Trade examined figures from the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man ranges. Their mutations, unusual features, costumes, and equipment persuaded the court that the disputed action figures did not clearly represent human beings. The court therefore placed them in the other-toys category.

The financial distinction was already historical by the time the court issued its final opinion in 2003: Both categories had become duty-free. Toy Biz also lost its separate argument concerning Jumpsie, a doll sold with a toy trampoline.

The ruling classified imported merchandise rather than deciding whether Marvel’s fictional characters counted as people. Still, fans noticed the irony. In the comics, the X-Men fought those who treated mutants as less than human; in a tariff dispute, their importer argued for the cheaper nonhuman category.^[9]

2 A Stormtrooper Helmet Was Not a Sculpture

The Imperial Stormtrooper helmet is among cinema’s most recognizable objects. Artists conceived its appearance, and modelmakers gave it form. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom Supreme Court concluded that it was not a sculpture under British copyright law.

Andrew Ainsworth manufactured helmets and armor for the original Star Wars film. Decades later, he began selling replicas made using his original tools. Lucasfilm sued for copyright infringement.

The helmet’s classification mattered. If it qualified as a sculpture, it could receive copyright protection as an artistic work. If it was a prop made from a design, a different provision of British copyright law gave Ainsworth a defense against the claim based on the design drawings.

The Supreme Court accepted that imagination had gone into the Stormtroopers. It nevertheless upheld the conclusion that the helmets were costumes and props whose primary function was to portray characters in a film. Not every three-dimensional realization of an idea automatically became a sculpture.

That finding did not end the entire dispute. The court also held that Lucasfilm’s claims under U.S. copyright law could be heard in English proceedings. The helmet therefore failed to qualify as a British copyright “sculpture” while the broader copyright battle remained very much alive.^[10]

1 A River Became a Legal Person

New Zealand’s Whanganui River flows about 180 miles (290 kilometers) from the mountains of the North Island toward the Tasman Sea. Since 2017, it has possessed something associated with humans and corporations: legal personhood.

The designation came from a settlement between the Crown and Whanganui iwi after generations of conflict over the river’s ownership and treatment. For the Māori communities connected to it, the river was never simply water or a resource. Their relationship is expressed by the saying, “I am the River, and the River is me.”

The Te Awa Tupua Act recognized the river as an indivisible, living whole extending from the mountains to the sea. It declared Te Awa Tupua a legal person with the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of one. Representatives called Te Pou Tupua act as its human face, with one member nominated by the iwi and another by the Crown.

Legal personhood does not mean the river can vote, marry, or hold a passport. It gives the river a legal identity whose interests its representatives can advance.

Companies have long been legal persons without heartbeats. New Zealand used that legal concept to recognize a relationship Whanganui iwi had expressed for generations. In doing so, the law gave the river a voice.^[11]