Did the little GPL component force itself into the codebase without anyone noticing? Was it so useless that nobody could have removed it from the project to get

Did the little GPL component force itself into the codebase without anyone noticing? Was it so useless that nobody could have removed it from the project to get rid of this obvious parasite? I think it will hold in court specifically because, since it is so aggressive in what it is set to do, a company choosing to use it in their otherwise non-GPL codebase is declaring that it is not easily replaceable and thus proving it contributes to the overall value.