It could only happen in Tinseltown. In LA a standup comedian who was sued for making mother-in-law jokes has had the last laugh after a federal judge threw the case out of court!

The comedian whose act for years has been to describe her life as a half-black, half-Swedish woman who marries into a Jewish family was sued by her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law claiming that her jokes held them up to public ridicule.

In a 21 page judgment, the US District Judge concluded that the examples they cited including one in which the comedian says her sister-in-law’s voice” sounds like a cat in heat” fell under the category of protected speech as being statements of opinion and not fact and therefore protected by the First Amendment.

The added twist to all this being that the comedian’s husband is a partner in the law firm which represented her and is quoted as saying “he’s excited about the win but he is not happy about the legal fees his firm had to incur!”

Obviously no familial love has been lost here!