A Progressive on the Prairie » Law

Friday Follies 3.21

Tim — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:42:12 +0000

Lawsuit To Determine If Dogs Have Souls (via)

Top 5 Ice Cream Truck Crimes of 2011

Your choice: The 5 Most Outrageous Lawsuits of 2011 or The 8 craziest lawsuits of 2011

Man Killed By Train Sued After His Flying Body Parts Injured Woman

But a headline just doesn’t do this one justice: A Canadian man is appealing his conviction for cocaine trafficking because the judge told the jury the the government need to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Guilty – I’m sorry, that Mr. Wilson – is guilty of the crime charged.” (via)

The parties are advised to chill.

Mattel v. MCA Records (9th Cir. 2002)

Friday Follies 3.20

Tim — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:30:05 +0000

Here’s some Christmas cheer for you. “A 44-year-old woman stole her 3-year-old grandson’s Christmas gifts and sold them for crack.” (via)

A man is suing a popular blog for defamation for publishing a “satirical” post with the headline: “Jersey City Pedophile Loses His $4 Million Lotto Ticket, Sues the Whole World.” Now why would anyone take offense at that headline?

Don’t: Use your legal brief to call someone a “mindless numbnut (who) would follow church orders with a vengeance.” (via)

It’s would be bad enough for a judge to tell you your motion is “improper” but when he says it is “harebrained” you probably aren’t going to win.

A Pennsylvania man was charged with disorderly conduct after putting a phony obituary in the local newspaper for his still-living mother in a bid for paid bereavement leave from work.

“…it is highly questionable whether attending law school is a legally cognizable injury, notwithstanding that the rigors of law school are well known and undoubtedly unpleasant to some extent.”

The 10 strangest naked crimes of 2011

Year-ending angry lawyer roundup

Public Records Dispute Leads to Lawsuit Seeking $1.25 in Damages

The judicial pecking order does not permit little peckers to overrule big peckers.

South Side Woodwork (1979) Ltd. v. R.C. Contracting Ltd. (Queen’s Bench, Alberta 1989)

Friday Follies 3.19 (Headline Edition)

Tim — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 02:28:57 +0000

This week’s edition of the follies — the first in quite a while — consists entirely of headlines in the interweb tubes this week. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

Convicted Kidnapper Sues His Victims for Breach of Contract

German man sues Pope for violating seatbelt laws by standing and waving from popemobile

Lawyers Reportedly Hiring Strippers to Pose as Paralegals in Miami Jailhouse Visits

Jim Thorpe’s Sons Can Fight for Dad’s Remains

Florida Man: ‘Fighting Is What Redneck People Do’

Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real

If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf … then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States … to decide What Is Golf.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting, PGA Tour v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 (2001)

Friday Follies 3.18

Tim — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:50:32 +0000

For future reference, there is no First Amendment right to attend illegal cockfights.

A hunter in Alaska is suing the National Park Service for threatening to prosecute him if he keeps hunting moose from his hovercraft in a federal preserve.

Meanwhile, in nearby British Columbia a man who was abandoned as a teenager is being sued by his elderly mother for parental support. (via)

Maybe you shouldn’t apply for a job at a jail if you have an outstanding warrant for manslaughter.

Things you don’t want a federal appeals court to say, Part 278: Your pleading “crossed the line from just ‘unnecessarily long’ to ‘unintelligible’” and much of your writing “is little more than gibberish.” (via)

A securities fraud lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s office has been suspended following news reports she has an outside job as a dominatrix.

The “Black Hills” are not black; they are verdant green. The Black Hills are not hills; they are mountains.

Smith v. City of Rapid City, 307 N.W.2d 598 (S.D. 1981)
(Justice Henderson concurring in part and dissenting in part)

Friday Follies 3.16

Tim — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:34:45 +0000

Having spent my fair share of time in them, I can’t say the holdings of law libraries are such that they would encourage a person to do this.

A mistrial was declared last week in the sex-trafficking prosecution of a massage parlor owner when an employee who testified for the prosecution recognized the defense lawyer as a client.

A class action sex discrimination lawsuit has been filed after men were charged $44 to attend the Exxxotica Expo in Los Angeles but women were admitted free because it “caused discontent, animosity, harm, resentment and envy among the sexes.”

A federal judge entered an order inviting two opposing attorneys to a “kindergarten party” for some “exciting and formative lessons” about discovery for those “unable to practice law at the level of a first year law student.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem a surprise that the lawyers then settled the case.

A Delaware state court judge evidently liked that approach, as she has entered an order requiring all attorneys in a lawsuit to attend “a ‘special’ emergency refresher course in first year ethics and civility” — over the Labor Day weekend.

The description “beer burka” seems entirely appropriate for a Utah law requiring bartenders in restaurants that serve beer to be shielded from public view when they open beer bottles or cans or pour it from a tap.

Instant karma’s gonna get you

John Lennon, “Instant Karma”