My mother-in-law is so litigious...

Comic wins legal fight to joke about family

An American stand-up has won her legal fight to joke about her family – after her mother-in-law sued her over the gags.

Sunda Croonquist bases her material on being a half-black, half-Swedish woman who married into a Jewish family – but the in-laws took offence and claimed the gags meant they were subject to public ridicule.

US District Judge Mary Coop has now thrown the case out of court, saying the routine is protected under the First Amendment right to free speech.

Croonquist’s sister-in-law Shelley Edelman, who was among the plaintiffs, complained to the court about the on-stage comment comparing her New Jersey accent to a cat in heat.

But the judge ruled that the line was ‘colourful, figurative rhetoric that reasonable minds would not take to be factual’.

To add to the family tension, Croonquist's husband, Mark Zafrin, is a partner in the law firm that successfully represented the comic.

The case was brought by Croonquist’s mother-in-law, Ruth Zafrin, and brother and sister-in-law Neil and Shelley Edelman.

Here is her set:

Published: 5 May 2010

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