Since midway through the 20th century, the influence of the United States Supreme Court has slowly grown. As such, it seems that every decision the Court makes is closely scrutinized by a litany of scholars. Because the Supreme Court is so important, it has always seemed strange to me when the Court decides a case with a bizarre set of facts. To recognize this, I decided to write a list naming the 15 Weirdest Cases Ever Decided By The U.S. Supreme Court. Though many of these cases are fairly recent, I have delved deep into the Court’s history for some of our entries. You may also find a correlation in these entries between the practices of religious minorities, and the weird cases that make this list. No matter what the underlying legal themes were, every single case mentioned here started because of a set of truly bizarre facts. If nothing else, this list should illustrate the humble beginnings of some serious social change. If you can think of any strange Supreme Court cases that did not make our list, feel free to mention them in the comments.

15. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah

When I began compiling this list of weirdest U.S. Supreme Court cases, I couldn’t resist a case whose main focus point was the legality of animal sacrifice. In the case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, Pichardo Ernesto sued a city in Florida that had passed a law forbidding the ritual or ceremonial killing of animals. This law was passed as a way to crackdown on the practitioners of Santeria, a religion based on African and Catholic traditions which was popular in Cuba before coming to the U.S. This religion required its priests to perform certain sacrifices as tributes to certain powerful saints and demigods. In this case, the Court ruled that the statute in question discriminated against Santeria, and therefore, was a violation of Ernesto’s and others First Amendment rights.

14. Bush v. Gore

Given the fact that it was only 17 years ago, I am consistently surprised to learn how few people remember the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore. After the 2000 Presidential Election, there was significant worry that the crucial state of Florida had been subject to miscounting or voter fraud. The Bush administration (understandably) fought a recount tooth and nail, and the conflict between the two campaigns quickly made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In true bipartisan fashion, the four Democrats on the Court found in favor of a recount, and the five Republican appointees all ruled to halt the recount of Florida ballots. As a result, George W. Bush was elected as President of the United States.

13. Dred Scott v. Sanford

One of the most famous cases in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court is Dred Scott v. Sanford. This case is well known not only for its terrible legal precedent, but also for being perhaps the most racist decision in the Court’s history. The ruling in this case established that former slaves (and their children) can never be granted the full rights of American citizens. The facts of this case were not only heinous, they were also incredibly odd. The former slave Dred Scott brought suit against a man named Sanford who he claimed was his owner. There is evidence to suggest, however, that Sanford had not owned Dred Scott and his family for a number of years. Despite this, Sanford never complained about being the defendant in this case, evidence that some other, shady, factors were at play.

12. Baker v. Same-gender Couple

Not only is Baker v. Same Sex Couple a very weird Supreme Court case, it is also very recent. This case, which of this writing has not even been decided, involved a complaint brought by two gay men against a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for their wedding. The baker claimed that he refused to make the couples cake because of certain religious convictions against homosexuality. Here, the Court had a perfect example where it could define religious protections as defined by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause against various discrimination statutes. This puts the United States in the awkward situation where an important body of law is being determined because of a wedding cake.

11. United States v. Ninety-Five Barrels, More or Less, Alleged Apple Cider Vinegar

I don’t think there was a more interesting time in the legal history of the United States than during the Prohibition Era of the early 1900’s. Not only was this a time rife with corruption and mobsters, it was also a time when the food market was rapidly expanding. Food companies were involved in various shady activities during this time, including the misbranding of food products. In this bizarre case, the U.S. government sued the Douglas Packing Company because they used dried apples rehydrated with water to make apple cider vinegar, instead of using traditional fresh apples. This may have led to a rather tedious case, but it also led to the hilarious name listed above. While the Prohibition Era has ended, some of the ridiculous food laws have not.

10. Employment Division v. Smith

In Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, a suit was brought against the state of Oregon because they withheld benefits from two men because they were fired from their jobs due to drug use. The issue with this, is that the men were fired because they used peyote, a ritual drug commonly used in Native American religious ceremonies. Since both these men were official members of the Native American Church, they thought that their activities should be protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The thing that’s so weird about this case is that both the men were actually drug rehabilitation counselors before they were fired. This seems to signal that they both viewed peyote in a different light than the substances for which they treated their patients.

9. Birthday Song Case

Have you ever noticed that when you go to a restaurant they rarely sing you the traditional happy birthday song? This isn’t an attempt at uniqueness, it is actually the result of our next entry, the Happy Birthday Song Case. This series of trials began in the mid 1900’s, when the happy birthday song (the one sung at home birthday parties across the country) was officially patented. This meant that anyone who used the song owed the patentors a certain sum of money. The patent wasn’t routinely enforced until the 1980’s, when a series of restaurants were sued for using the song without permission. Because of this, you now have the litany of songs which are sung in different restaurants. These restaurants now have their own patents on these songs, thus making them perfectly legal for use.

8. Yoder v. Wisconsin

When people think about religious warriors fighting for their cause, they probably do not picture the Amish community. A sub-sect of the Mennonite tradition, the Amish have traditionally chosen to isolate themselves from the rest of the country, rather than attempt to conform the world around them. As such, it was surprising to many when Yoder and a group of Amish parents challenged a statute which forbid them from taking their kids out of public school. To make this case even weirder, the Superintendent of the local school tried to make a deal with the Amish that they could take their kids out of school, so long as they were still there when the state did their annual auditing. This would allow the school to claim the students during the yearly budget debates.

7. Buck v. Bell

Buck v. Bell is not only one of the weirdest cases in the history of the Supreme Court, it is also one of the most despicable. In the early 1900’s, John and Alice Dobbs sent their foster daughter, Carrie Buck to an insane asylum on the grounds of promiscuity and feeble-mindedness. Buck had been sexually assaulted by the Dobb’s nephew, and by committing her they hoped to avoid the embarrassment which would come upon their family name. Things only got worse for Buck, because in Indiana at the time, it was common practice for the “feeble-minded” to be sterilized. Since Buck’s mom had also been institutionalized, the line of argument was that there must be some hereditary disorder that was causing these issues.

6. Diamond v. Chakrabarty

The next entry has our list has some startling implications. In the 1980’s the Supreme court decided that human-made living things can be patented and owned. The case, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, was the result of Ananda Mahan’s attempt to patent a micro-organism that he had created in his lab. The bacterium Mahan created was capable of eating crude oil, something that could be incredibly useful in the case of oil spills. Under the court’s ruling, “you can patent a living thing, as long as you’ve created it specifically to defy nature.” While this is a fathomable decision in regards to Mahan, it certainly opens the door for the kind of supervillain activities found in your everyday comic book.

5. Nix v. Hedden

By now, everyone seems to know that a tomato is not a fruit, but is actually a vegetable. But have you ever wondered when this decision was made? While scientists have known about the tomatoes fruity origins for a while, it first came to the attention of the general populace thanks to the case of Nix v. Hedden. In Hedden, the Court ruled on a New York state statute that was taxing tomatoes as vegetables. The Nix family imported large numbers of tomatoes, so they sued to try and lessen their tax burden. In making its ruling, the court was forced to rule on whether the tomato was, in fact, a fruit or a vegetable. These are the kind of minuscule issues that the highest court in the land is forced to decide from time to time.

4. United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins

Anyone who has studied legal history will tell you that sometimes the best part of a Supreme Court case is its name. A perfect example of this is our next entry, United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. This case emerged as a result of statutes meant to clamp down on shark hunting. While shark meat is sometimes stored and sold, during the 1900’s it was much more common for a shark to be taken for their dorsal fin, and the rest of the meat was left to simply spoil in the ocean. If you have any doubts about this being a substantial problem, just look at the name of this case. The fact that a single defendant could be responsible for this many shark fins is simply astounding.

3. U.S. v. Causby

It is a sad fact of our justice system that most of our modern courts have been road jammed by old people just looking for something to complain about. Our next case, however, included a grouchy old man who got his complaint taken all the way to the highest court in the land. Thomas Lee Causby was a chicken farmer in rural North Carolina. Near Causby’s farm was a military airstrip. “The sound of low-flying planes scared the chickens into running at the sides of the coops—usually to their deaths.“ Prior to his case being brought, Causby had lost an estimated 150 chickens because of the noise. He sued the government for compensation of his lost livestock under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

2. Oklahoma v. Skinner

I think the Oklahoma v. Skinner case comes off as so strange because the facts of it are so different than the current world we live in. Even though it took place only 75 years ago, the country in which Skinner happened is totally different from ours now. In Skinner, the state of Oklahoma was charged with violating the rights of an inmate in an insane asylum, when they forced him to undergo a forced sterilization procedure as part of his treatment. The idea (which was actually fairly common at this time) was that forcing inmates to be sterilized would prevent them from passing on undesirable traits to any children that they might have. This sounds like something from Nazi Germany, but eugenics was a fairly common philosophy, especially in many southern states.

1. Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department

Have you ever pulled a pile of mail from your mailbox, excited to see what letters you’ve received, only to realize that you are holding a pile of only junk mail? In the case of Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department, the Court ruled that the plethora of junk mail that people get is actually protected speech as defined by the First Amendment. In the 1960’s the federal government passed a statute granting people the right to opt out of mail advertisements that they don’t want. The Rowan case, which was decided in 1970, was the reaction by the advertising companies. These mass mailings only work if they are sent to a lot of people, so the advertisers were desperate to get the statute reversed.