The World’s Most Expensive Insult, Costs €60,000

The World’s Most Expensive Insult originates from Hamburg, Germany where a man was fined £60,000 for calling someone an “a**hole” in a fight over a parking space.

The flashpoint happened on December 23, 2011, when a man waited more than five minutes for a parking space on a busy road, only for the another individual, named Ernst-Gernot M, to chance his spot under his nose.

During the ensuing row, Ernst-Gernot M called the Man A an a**hole as confirmed by a female witness, who testified in the eight-day court case.

Unfortunately for Ernst, the person he was insulting was the Judge that was to preside over his case that same afternoon! Chai!

Outraged, Man A introduced himself and demanded a fine of €80,000 for the use of obscene language or to hold him in contempt.

A trial was instantly held and Ernst M had to coordinate with lawyers to cool the situation at hand.Though the incident itself did not take long to unravel, the court case got bogged down because the defendant pleaded about his financial situation.

He described himself as a “poor man,” who lived on €1,400 a month that his family gave him. But the 68-year-old was actually a property dealer who had been mentioned in the local newspaper a few years ago as owner of a high-rise block.

This forced the court to investigate his fortune, and found that he lived in a 171 square metre flat, and paid €2,000 a month on his car lease alone. The court also found that he withdrew around €10,000 a month from his bank, on the basis of which it estimated his monthly income at €60,000.

The fine, of 30 days’ income, was calculated at €60,000.

Moral of the story: be careful who you curse out.