• Publicist Lizzie Grubman is a victim of the people she mowed down. When Grubman backed her Mercedes into a crowd outside a Hamptons nightclub, her lawyers said, the resulting injuries were "caused in whole or in part by contributory negligence, comparative negligence and/or culpable conduct" of those she hit.

  • A 16-year-old hockey player was exposed to intense psychological pain when he failed to win his league's most valuable player award, according to his father, Michael Croteau of New Brunswick, Canada. So the father is suing the league for $300,000. The suit asks that the MVP award and the playmaker award be removed from the two winners and given to Steven Croteau, the disappointed son.

  • A Somali warlord was victimized by the movie "Black Hawk Down." Though he hadn't yet seen the film, Osman Ali Otto said he was incensed at his screen portrayal and is thinking of suing.

  • Schoolchildren were victimized by a word that sounds a bit like a racial slur but isn't. After Stephanie Bell, a fourth-grade teacher in Wilmington, N.C., used the word "niggardly" (stingy) in class, she was forced to apologize to parents, then counselors were dispatched to comfort her students.

  • Disabled people are victimized by Quasimodo. To avoid hurting the feelings of those with scoliosis and other disabilities, a British theater company changed the name of the play "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" to "The Bellringer of Notre Dame."

  • Californians are victimized by cue chalk and chocolate. Citing California's 1986 law requiring warning labels on dangerous chemicals, creative lawyers are suing over the unlabeled toxins in electrical tape, lightbulbs, game darts, hammers, cue chalk, terrariums, Slim-Fast and chocolate, which contains traces of lead.

  • A dead giraffe's privacy was threatened by prying reporters. When The Washington Post asked to see the National Zoo's medical records of a beloved giraffe after its death, the zoo said that viewing the records "would violate the animal's right to privacy and be an intrusion into the zookeeper-animal relationship."

  • Your dog and cat are victims of Christians and Jews. Eccentric Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer said the biblical message of mankind's dominion over animals leads to "speciesism" -- the wrongful conclusion that humans are more valuable than other creatures.

  • Atheists are victimized by believers. The National Secular Society of Britain complained that Colin Powell and President Bush have been disrespectful of atheism. A Colorado man wrote a letter to The Washington Times saying that atheists are targeted by vandals and falsely accused of conducting human sacrifices. "So many of us are in the closet," lamented one spokesman at the Godless Americans rally last month in Washington, D.C.