If Wile E. Coyote sued the Acme Products Co. over a defective anvil that fell on his head, would he get to take discovery on Acme rocket sleds? Or Acme explosives? Or Acme spring-loaded shoes meant to propel the shoes’ wearers to soaring heights at stupendous speeds? We ask these questions because a federal court in New York recently and correctly denied a (human) plaintiff discovery into products different from the one that allegedly harmed him.
We ask these questions also because we recently saw the movie Coyote vs. Acme, a surprisingly entertaining send-up of product liability litigation. As you know, Wile E. Coyote is the persistent and very resilient cartoon coyote who chases a lightning-fast roadrunner around the American Southwest. In his endless quest to capture a meal, Coyote devises elaborate schemes that invariably involve Acme products—rocket-powered roller skates, giant magnets, sharpened bear traps, fast vehicles, explosives of all kinds, and loads and loads of birdseed. The use of Acme products always ends with Coyote suffering great bodily injury and, presumably, substantial emotional distress.
Hence, we have the movie Coyote vs. Acme, in which Mr. Coyote sues Acme for injuries caused by allegedly defective products. Parts of the movie rang true (Coyote hires a plaintiff’s lawyer whom he saw advertising on TV, played by the always likeable Will Forte); and others did not (no, if you lose your case in state court, there is no de novo appeal to Congress).
But perhaps the best nugget we took from the film was in the credits, where we learned that the movie is based on a New Yorker article from 1990 in which humorist Ian Frazier parodied products litigation by presenting an “opening statement” in the fictional case of “Coyote v. Acme.” This very funny piece includes laugh-out-loud moments like this one involving Coyote’s use of an Acme rocket sled: As Coyote rode astride the sled at breakneck speed,
the animal he was pursuing veered sharply to the right. Mr. Coyote vigorously attempted to follow this maneuver but was unable to, due to poorly designed steering on the Rocket Sled and a faulty or nonexistent braking system. Shortly thereafter, the unchecked progress of the Rocket Sled brought it and Mr. Coyote into collision with the side of a mesa.
And this about Acme rocket skates:
Again, Defendant sold over the counter, without caveat, a product which attached powerful jet engines (in this case, two) to inadequate vehicles, with little or no provision for passenger safety. . . . Mr. Coyote lost control of the Rocket Skates soon after strapping them on, and collided with a roadside billboard so violently as to leave a hole in the shape of his full silhouette.
Alleged injuries include “Severe singeing of the hair on the head, neck, and muzzle” and “Fracture of the left ear at the stem, causing the ear to dangle in the aftershock with a creaking noise.”
Alas, (spoiler alert) movie Coyote did not get his payday—it turns out the defense of product misuse is alive and well in cartoon litigation. But we all learned a valuable lesson about commitment to a cause and the nobility of picking yourself up off the ground (or a railroad track, or the side of a mountain, or the bottom of a desert canyon) and trying again.
So in our hypothetical anvil case, would Coyote get discovery into other products? If the order in the very real case of Ryger v. Sunbeam Products, No. 1:25-cv-08876, 1026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 216474 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 11, 2026), is any indication, the answer is no. The plaintiff in Ryger filed his product liability lawsuit over a mattress pad, but he sought discovery concerning other of the defendant’s products, including heating pads. We are all familiar with the rule that evidence of other incidents can be admissible only if substantially similar to the incident at issue, and while plaintiffs get some leeway in discovery, they should not get much.
That is what a federal judge in New York ruled in Ryger. Heating pads are different from mattress pads. “[T]hey are subject to different UL standards; different FDA classifications, if any; different warnings and instructions; different intended uses; different controls and circuitry; and different temperature regulation.” Id. at *1-*2. Thus, “[t]o the extent, Plaintiff seeks discovery concerning other . . . heating products, including Heating Pad products, those discovery requests seek information that is not relevant to Plaintiff’s claims because the request concern unrelated products.” Id. at *1. Put another way, information regarding the performance of “those unrelated and different products is irrelevant.” Id. at *2.
Those last two sentences are the ones you will want to use to resist discovery into other products, and kudos to the defense lawyers here for marshaling a list of compelling differences that made this a no-brainer, in our biased view.
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