Why Is a Woman in New York Suing the City for $900 Trillion?

Joe Raedle, Getty Images

There are million-dollar — and even billion-dollar — lawsuits. But if a woman in Staten Island, NY has her way, she’ll get trillions in damages.

Fausat Ogunbayo, 46, recently filed a $900 trillion (no, that’s not a typo) suit against the city and its Administration for Children’s Services for allegedly improperly placing her two sons in a Queens foster home more than three years ago, a move she says violated the civil rights of both her and her children.

The court papers, filed in a Brooklyn federal court, say the city removed the boys from Ogunbayo’s care after erroneously claiming she was mentally unstable, suffered hallucinations and delusions, and had refused treatment. The city also said Ogunbayo left the boys at home alone for extended periods while she was working.

But Ogunbayo, who is representing herself (go figure), has branded the allegations a “huge lie,” and says she and her children, who are now 16 and 13, have suffered “over three years of terror, horror, grievous harm, time lost, substantial economic hardship and injuries” due to their separation.

A city spokeswoman declined comment on most of the lawsuit, but did say Ogunbayo’s demands have “no bearing on whether the case has any merit and no relation to actual damages, if any.”

Ogunbayo maintains she just wants her kids back, and that the city is “treating me very bad and now they want to come around and lie against me.”

[SI Live]