In September 2015, journalist Harris Faulkner sued Hasbro Inc. for unlawfully utilizing her likeness to promote a toy hamster with winged eyeliner. No less than that is what she asserted within the submitting. Faulkner’s lawsuit claimed {that a} yellow hamster that shared her identify, Harris Faulkner, was an unlawful maneuver by the corporate to capitalize on her identify and likeness. Her criticism stemmed from the toy firm “creating, manufacturing, and distributing on the market a plastic toy hamster named ‘Harris Faulkner'” (through NBC Information). It additionally claimed, amongst different issues, that Hasbro, “willfully and wrongfully appropriated Faulkner’s distinctive and priceless identify and distinctive persona for its personal monetary achieve.”

Hasbro then requested to have Faulkner’s lawsuit, alongside along with her request for $5 million in damages, thrown out in courtroom. Within the submitting, which NBC Information included in its replace on the case, Hasbro broke down what it believed to be key variations between their product and Faulkner: “As demonstrated by even a cursory comparability of Ms. Faulkner and the Hamster Toy, the 2 look nothing alike.” Beneath a cut up shot of the Fox Information host and the toy, the submitting continued, “First, Ms. Faulkner is an grownup, African American, human, feminine newscaster; the toy hamster is an inch-tall, cartoon-like plastic animal, which has no obvious gender or occupation, and even clothes which may establish its gender or occupation.”

Regardless of pushback from the corporate, Faulkner walked away with a settlement.

Harris Faulkner took on an enormous firm and received. Okay, possibly “received” is a stretch, provided that she settled with Hasbro. Whereas she initially wished her destiny to be determined by a jury in a trial, she and Hasbro Inc. reached a settlement roughly a 12 months after she launched the lawsuit. In line with The Hollywood Reporter, the events got here to a personal settlement — which has but to be made public — in October 2016, months after a choose blocked Hasbro’s try and throw out the preliminary lawsuit. Sadly, this implies there is not any solution to know whether or not or not Faulkner acquired the $5 million she believes she deserved.

No matter Faulkner’s triumph, the Fox Information anchor did not handle to garner a lot on-line sympathy. Beneath one in every of a number of Reddit threads impressed by her authorized battle, followers unleashed on the anchor for launching what they felt to be a frivolous lawsuit. “So how has a toy having the identical identify as her brought about $5M price of harm to her life?” commented one person. “Oh that is proper it hasn’t, she’s simply being a grasping s***.” In the meantime, a second person doubted the validity of Faulkner’s argument. “It is a stretch on the likeness factor,” they wrote. “Harris Faulkner feels like such a randomized identify that I would not be stunned {that a} identify generator got here up with it and slapped it on the toy.” They continued, “Hasbro ought to come out and say that and make her appear to be extra of a joke.”