History ObviousRulePatch / RealLife

* In 1996, Pepsi ran a TV campaign for the ability to collect "Pepsi Points" from cans and bottles, which could be traded in for prizes. The commerical culminated in a Harrier vertical take-off fighter jet, listed for seven million points. The rules allowed points to be purchased at ten cents each to meet a target. With the help of an investor, John Leonard sent in $700 thousand dollars to buy the $37.4 million military plane. Pepsi returned the check after pointing out that the jet was not for sale. Leonard sued Pepsi over the fact that his check was rejected, arguing that Pepsi had to pay up with the promised jet. The assigned judge threw the case out, noting that any reasonable person would understand that the offer of a military fighter jet was just a joke. But in the interim, Pepsi re-released the ad with the price of the jet increased to seven hundred million points, followed by a "just kidding!" disclaimer along with it. Ad companies learned quickly to add similar "prize not actually available" disclaimers to joke offers in their promotions, just in case somebody thought to try this again. In 2022, the Netflix documentary ''Pepsi, Where's My Jet?'' detailed the entire story.

* Due to the convoluted way airline tickets are priced, it's sometimes cheaper to book a flight where your actual destination is a stop on another route rather than have the route end at the destination itself. This is known as "Skiplagging." Since this cuts into the airline's revenue (among other possible issues), most airlines have a policy against skiplagging. Though there's plenty of downsides to this anyway for the passenger [[note]]Which include this only works on one-way flights, you can't check-in any baggage, and the airline may alter the original route for some reason so your actual destination may not be one of the stops[[/note]]

* Downplayed example, regarding underaged sexting and its relationship to child pornography. During the late 2000s and early 2010s, there were reports of teens sexting images to each other, with some getting prosecuted for "child pornography". This led to fears that, due to the way child porn laws are written, a child could (potentially) be given a hefty prison sentence (typically 10 years) for something as innocent as sharing a racy picture of themselves. Although, no such sentence has been given for this sort of thing, many states and countries have since altered their child pornography laws to make a separation between adults who commit the offence, and children who do the same, with the later have only minor penalties attached. However, the truth is, is that despite fears, no child was ever in any danger of receiving such a disproportionate punishment in the first place [[note]] Except in cases where the judge is really corrupt[[/note]] as juvenile courts focus more on rehabilitation then punishment. As such, judges must take account whether incarcerating a child is necessary (which in this case it wouldn't be, unless that child was really out of control and posed a sexual threat to others), and they would definitely no receive a sentence of more than two years, unless they do something really heinous like murder. Essentially, meaning the law wasn't so much changed to save kids from being unnecessarily incarcerated, so much as to stop people threating over the idea of it happening.
** Played a lot straighter in the UK (a country known for its leniency towards crime) where the issue wasn't so much fear of kids going to prison for sexting, but rather the fact that kids were even being prosecuted for it in the first place [[note]] changing a law to make child produced porn a less serious offence doesn't stop kids being prosecuted[[/note]]. The argument being that even though judges do typically go easy on children, it doesn't change the fact that that child still had to go through the unpleasant ordeal of being arrested, taken to court and put in front of a judge just for taking nudies, which itself could be considered a "harsh" response. As a result, Outcome 21 was introduced to allow police offices to drop an investigation if it's not in "the public interest" (meaning, the person who committed the crime isn't a danger to anyone). An outcome that's not only used to tackle sexting, but any crime (typically committed by children) that can be solved without prosecution.

* In 1996, Pepsi ran a TV campaign for the ability to collect "Pepsi Points" from cans and bottles, which could be traded in for prizes. The commerical culminated in a Harrier vertical take-off fighter jet, listed for seven million points. The rules allowed points to be purchased at ten cents each to meet a target. With the help of an investor, John Leonard sent in seven hundred thousand dollars to buy the $37.4 million military plane. Pepsi returned the check after pointing out that the jet was not for sale. Leonard sued Pepsi over the fact that his check was rejected, arguing that Pepsi had to pay up with the promised jet. The assigned judge threw the case out, noting that any reasonable person would understand that the offer of a military fighter jet was just a joke. But in the interim, Pepsi re-released the ad with the price of the jet increased to seven hundred million points, followed by a "just kidding!" disclaimer along with it. Ad companies learned quickly to add similar "prize not actually available" disclaimers to joke offers in their promotions, just in case somebody thought to try this again. In 2022, the Netflix documentary ''Pepsi, Where's My Jet?'' detailed the entire story.

* In the U.S., it was at one point common for a divorcing couple to avoid the DivorceAssetsConflict by settling all the money stuff right away...only for the person making payments (usually the husband) to skip down over to the federal courthouse to declare bankruptcy. This would wipe out a good portion of equitable distribution, among other things. Congress therefore patched this by banning the practice in 2005.

* The [[TropeNamer original]] GrandfatherClause. When southerners regained control over the governments of Southern states after the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, they proceeded to set up many roadblocks to prevent freed slaves from voting. One of these roadblocks was the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test literacy test]]; if you failed the test, you were not allowed to vote. Naturally, it was almost always rigged so prospective black voters would fail[[note]]The questions would be difficult even to many modern audiences, let alone people at the time affected by artificially enforced barriers in education, such as interpreting vague parts of the US Constitution under arbitrary scrutiny. [[https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/right-to-vote-suffrage-women-african/voter-registration-literacy See a sample test from 1964 for yourself]][[/note]]. However (as noted in [[https://bit.ly/2A85Rzc this political cartoon]]), many poor white voters also failed the tests. So the Southern governments added rules saying that anybody whose grandfather could vote before the Civil War would automatically be allowed to vote...which, naturally, never applied to black voters since almost all of their grandfathers were slaves.

** Thermodynamics has a First, Second, and Third law...and later they added a Zeroth Law.

* Before the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 became law, the vice president's role in the quadrennial Electoral College vote count as presiding officer was unclear. This was an issue after the 2020 election as then-president UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump controversially claimed the VP can unilaterally replace a candidate's slate of electors with an alternate slate, which was debunked as nonsense. The law cleared up much of the confusion by specifying that the veep's role in the Electoral College is purely ceremonial.
** The law also raised the threshold that members of Congress can object to a state's electors to 20% of both chambers ''and in'' writing. It also limited the objection types to either the electors not being properly certified or their vote was not being counted. Previously, an objection required the signature of only one member of each chamber for basically ''any'' reason.
** Unless specified by state law, the governor of each state would sign off the winning candidate's slate of electors.
** Any claims made by a candidate will be adjudicated by a panel of three federal judges. If the judges erred in their decision, any appeal to the Supreme Court will be expedited. The Supreme Court would have to render all verdicts at the latest on the day before the electors' meeting in mid-December.

** If there is no clear victor five days after the election, the law allows multiple "apparent successful candidates" to receive presidential transition funds. The General Services Administration gets to determine when and who should get the transition funds.

** The law also raised the threshold that members of Congress can object to a state's electors to 20% of both chambers and in writing. It also limited the objection types to either the electors not being properly certified or their vote was not being counted. Previously, an objection required the signature of only one member of each chamber for basically ''any'' reason.

** Any claims made by a candidate are fast-tracked by a panel of three federal judges, who will adjudicate accordingly. If the judges erred in their decision, any appeal to the Supreme Court would also be expedited. The Supreme Court would have to render all verdicts at the latest on the day before the electors' meeting in mid-December.
** States selecting their electors by popular vote can only change voting rules due to "extraordinary and catastrophic" events based on laws passed prior to the voting period.

** In 2015, nets were not on the list of banned weapons, despite them being present before. This did not escape the eyes of Derek Young, builder of Complete Control, who covertly put a rope net into a sealed cardboard box covered in gift wrap and attached it to the front of Complete Control before its fight with Ghost Raptor. [[SchmuckBait Despite it looking obviously like a trap,]] Ghost Raptor drove straight into the box, causing the net to come out and jamming its spinning blades, resulting in the match being immediately stopped. In one of the fastest cases of this trope, nets and other entanglement devices were immediately banned once more, and the match between Complete Control and Ghost Raptor was restarted, except with no net for Complete Control.

* The PowerMetal band Music/{{Sabaton}} is based in Falun, Sweden, but its frontman Joakim Brodén is half-Czech: his mother emigrated to Sweden during the Communist era. [[http://www.metalstorm.net/events/news_comments.php?news_id=30648 In 2016, Joakim entered the Czech music competition Český slavík]] (similar to the American UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s) and came in fifth place. [[http://www.metaladdicts.com/site/sabatons-joakim-broden-withdrawn-from-cesky-slavik-voting-options/ The next year they changed the rules so that only artists who primarily perform in the Czech Republic could enter, and booted Joakim off the list.]]

** The FDCA's limits, in turn, were exposed in the late '50s and early '60s with the thalidomide scandal, which saw an estimated 10,000 babies worldwide born with birth defects, some of them fatal, because their mothers had taken a drug marketed as a treatment for morning sickness. Thalidomide had gotten past regulators in Western Europe, Canada, and Australia with only animal testing, having never been tested on humans and certainly not on the pregnant women it was marketed to, which would have revealed how dangerous it was to a developing fetus. Fortunately, FDA pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey (who had participated in the research exposing the aforementioned elixir sulfanilamide as a pharmacology student) heard about alleged dangers from the British doctor Lesley Florence, causing her to have her doubts and order clinical trials on test subjects. The resulting scandal led to the Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the FDCA in 1962, which clarified that they had to be safe ''and effective'', and moreover, pharmaceutical companies had to conduct clinical trials on ''human'' test subjects proving that their drugs were safe and effective, including reporting any side effects and adverse reactions.

** The second was the Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the FDCA, passed in 1962 in response to the thalidomide scandal of the late '50s and early '60s, which saw an estimated 10,000 babies worldwide born with birth defects, some of them fatal, because their mothers had taken a drug marketed as a treatment for morning sickness. The FDCA stated only that medications had to be "safe". The Kefauver-Harris Amendment clarified that they had to be safe ''and effective'', and moreover, pharmaceutical companies had to conduct clinical trials on human test subjects ''proving'' that their drugs were safe and effective, including reporting any side effects and adverse reactions. Thalidomide had skirted by regulators in Western Europe, Canada, and Australia with only animal testing, and would've done the same in the US if not for FDA pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey, who had heard about alleged dangers from the British doctor Lesley Florence, having her doubts and ordering clinical trials on test subjects.

* The Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed in 1962 in response to the thalidomide scandal, which saw an estimated 10,000 babies worldwide born with birth defects, some of them fatal, because their mothers had taken a drug marketed as a treatment for morning sickness. The FDCA stated only that medications had to be "safe". The Kefauver-Harris Amendment clarified that they had to be safe ''and effective'', and moreover, pharmaceutical companies had to conduct clinical trials ''proving'' that their drugs were safe and effective, including reporting any side effects and adverse reactions. Thalidomide had skirted by regulators in Western Europe, Canada, and Australia with only animal testing, and would've done the same in the US if not for FDA pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey, who had heard about alleged dangers from the British doctor Lesley Florence, having her doubts and ordering clinical trials.

* In 1996, Pepsi ran an TV ad campaign for the ability to collect "Pepsi Points" from cans and bottles for prizes; culminating in a Harrier vertical take-off fighter jet for 7,000,000 points. The rules allowed points to be purchased at 10 cents each to meet a target. With the help of an investor, John Leonard sent in $700,000 to buy the $37.4 Million military plane. Pepsi returned the check after pointing out that the jet was not for sale and was merely a joke. Leonard sued. Pepsi won, but in the interim re-released the ad with the price of *700,000,000* points followed by a "Just Kidding" disclaimer. Ad companies learned quickly to add disclaimers to similar jokes in their promotions. In 2022, Leonard's story was told in a Netflix documentary ''Pepsi, Where's My Jet?''

* The Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed in 1962 in response to the thalidomide scandal, which saw an estimated 10,000 babies worldwide born with birth defects, some of them fatal, because their mothers had taken a drug marketed as a treatment for morning sickness. The FDCA stated only that medications had to be "safe". The Kefauver-Harris Amendment clarified that they had to be safe ''and effective'', and moreover, pharmaceutical companies had to conduct clinical trials ''proving'' that their drugs were safe and effective, including reporting any side effects and adverse reactions.