Law360 Canada (September 1, 2026, 8:14 AM EDT) --

John L. Hill

After years spent in litigation for my clients and, in retirement, assisting a prominent litigation lawyer in writing his autobiography, it is good to take a break. Last Friday I attended a showing of the newly released feature Coyote vs. Acme.

Coyote vs. Acme can be read as a surprisingly sharp satire of modern litigation, especially if you look past the cartoon premise. The central joke is that Wile E. Coyote has finally had enough of being injured by Acme products and decides to sue the corporation responsible. But beneath the humour lie familiar questions about access to justice, corporate power, causation, evidence, litigation costs and whether the legal system provides a level playing field.

The movie, a live-action and animation hybrid, is especially interesting in 2026 because its own history mirrors its story: Warner Bros. nearly destroyed the completed film by refusing to release it and locking it away in a vault to claim a tax break.

The movie is essentially the little plaintiff versus the giant corporation. The most obvious analogy is David versus Goliath. Coyote is the quintessential individual litigant. Acme is a huge corporation with resources, lawyers and institutional power. Coyote’s lawyer, Kevin Avery (Will Forte), is hardly the equal of a Bay Street litigation powerhouse. The film therefore poses a serious question disguised as comedy: can an ordinary person obtain justice when the defendant has vastly greater resources?

That is a very contemporary litigation issue. In real litigation, the merits of a claim are only part of the battle. A plaintiff may have a good case but still face years of discovery, expert evidence, motions, appeals and costs. The corporate defendant can sometimes make the process itself an economic weapon.

The film’s corporate defendant is therefore more than a villain. Acme represents the structural advantage that large institutions can have within litigation.

An even better legal joke is buried in the premise. Coyote has been injured repeatedly by Acme products. But there is an obvious defence: was the product defective, or was Coyote using it in an entirely unreasonable way? There is a problem of causation.

That is classic product-liability litigation. If someone buys rocket-powered roller skates and uses them to chase a Road Runner off a cliff, the manufacturer can hardly be expected to accept responsibility for every consequence. The movie consequently raises the familiar distinction among defective products, negligent manufacture or design, inadequate warnings, foreseeable misuse and injuries caused primarily by the plaintiff’s own conduct.

The extraordinary thing about Coyote is that he is both the victim and the architect of his own disasters. That makes him a wonderful plaintiff from a lawyer’s perspective and, at the same time, a terrible one.

The movie also illustrates an important distinction between justice and legal liability. Coyote clearly feels wronged, and the audience sympathizes with him. But sympathy does not establish negligence or product liability.

A court would still need to determine: what exactly did Acme promise? Was the product defective? Was the defect the cause of the injury? Was Coyote’s use foreseeable? Did he disregard warnings? Did he voluntarily assume the risk? What evidence establishes his damages? How much responsibility should be attributed to Coyote himself?

The movie was a two-hour lesson in tort law. It deals with something lawyers encounter constantly: the person with the most compelling story does not necessarily have the strongest case.

As well, the lawyer’s role in the machinery is significant. Kevin Avery is also significant. He is not portrayed as some all-powerful courtroom warrior. He is a relatively ordinary lawyer who takes on an enormous opponent. That permits the film to make fun of another feature of modern litigation: the lawyer’s role in converting an individual’s grievance into a legally recognizable claim.

Coyote cannot speak for himself in the conventional sense. His lawyer must translate his experience into legal language. That is precisely what litigation lawyers do. A client says: “This company ruined my life.” The lawyer must ask: “What is the cause of action? What duty existed? What was breached? What evidence proves it? What damages are recoverable?”

The transformation from story to cause of action is a central process in litigation. The case can also be read as a criticism of litigation itself. There is an amusing paradox here. Coyote has spent his life repeatedly buying Acme products. When they fail, he buys another. Eventually, rather than stop dealing with Acme, he goes to court.

That is almost a metaphor for modern litigation. Instead of solving a problem informally, the parties can become trapped in an increasingly elaborate system of making a claim, responding to the defence, conducting discovery, hiring experts, bringing motions, going to trial, appealing and dealing with costs. The process can become so consuming that the original dispute almost disappears. That is one of the great ironies of litigation: the legal system designed to resolve disputes can sometimes become another source of conflict.

The corporation has something the individual doesn’t: institutional memory. Acme’s advantage is not merely financial. A large corporation has lawyers who handle litigation repeatedly. It has risk managers, insurers, investigators, experts and records departments. It knows how the system works.

Coyote, by contrast, is essentially a one-time litigant. This is a serious access-to-justice issue. Repeat players generally have advantages over those who encounter the legal system only once. The movie exaggerates this for comic effect, but the underlying point is legitimate: the courtroom may be formally equal, while the parties entering it are anything but equal.

The film’s real-life history makes the satire even sharper. The opening credits state, “Based on a true story.” There is perhaps an irresistible irony here. The movie is about an individual trying to hold a powerful corporation accountable. But the movie itself was completed and then effectively shelved by Warner Bros. for financial and tax reasons, only to be rescued after considerable public pressure and ultimately acquired for distribution by Ketchup Entertainment.

In other words, the film became a real-life version of the story it told.

The filmmakers themselves became the little guy whose creation was caught in the machinery of a much larger corporation. Director Dave Green has acknowledged the parallel, describing both the movie and its release history as an underdog story about fighting a giant corporation.

That makes the film’s corporate satire considerably more pointed than it might otherwise have been.

The law promises a forum in which the powerful and the powerless can meet as equals. But litigation is not necessarily an equal contest simply because both parties appear before the same judge. Coyote has the right to sue Acme. But having the right to sue is not the same thing as having the practical ability to litigate against a corporation with vastly greater resources.

And that raises questions familiar to Canadian lawyers about contingency fees, class proceedings, litigation funding, costs awards, expert-witness expenses, lengthy discoveries, interlocutory motions, appeals, delay, and the ability of a wealthy defendant to make litigation prohibitively expensive.

That is why Coyote vs. Acme is more than a courtroom comedy. It can be viewed as a parable about the modern civil justice system: the injured individual believes that the courtroom will provide equality, only to discover that entering the courthouse is merely the beginning of the battle.

“Who is responsible when a defective product injures someone who was using it foolishly?” That is the movie’s central premise, which it uses to examine the larger question of whether modern litigation is designed to produce justice or merely to determine which side can survive the process.

Maybe we shouldn’t overthink it. It is basically a chance for us older folk to get away and remember days laughing in front of the small screen as Coyote suffered another loss to Road Runner.

John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a JD from Queen’s and an LLM in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.

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