- New suits claim lack of web accessibility features in online employment applications violates California’s ADA equivalent law [Kristina M. Launey & Myra Villamor, Seyfarth Shaw]
- Sugar in candy? Who knew? [John O’Brien and John Breslin, Legal Newsline/Forbes] Slack-fill lawsuits reveal nonfunctional void within class-action industry [Baylen Linnekin]
- Musical instruments in court: the stories behind six famous gear disputes [Jay Laughton, Reverb last year]
- “Secret of David Copperfield’s signature trick revealed in slip-and-fall suit by audience volunteer” [ABA Journal]
- Given Congressional presence in area, California not entitled to use foie gras regulation to impose its views of duck and goose husbandry on producers outside state [Ilya Shapiro and Reilly Stephens on Cato cert amicus in Association des Eleveurs de Canards et d’Oies du Quebec v. Becerra]
- “The earliest versions of the “People’s Court” TV show used law professors as the judges. They were picked because they were articulate and looked like judges but weren’t state bar members; for bar members, being on the show was seen as unlawful advertising.” [@OrinKerr linking Roger M. Grace, Metropolitan News-Enterprise in 2003]
Posts Tagged ‘humor’
April 11 roundup
- For best effect, read it aloud: “Do YOU appear in the form of water droplets? Are YOU found on grass and windows in the morning? If so you MAY be dew condensation.” [Andy Ryan]
- “Bezos could get out of Trump’s kitchen by telling the editors and reporters at his newspaper to shut up about the President.” [John Samples]
- Wave of ADA web-accessibility suits hit banks: “N.Y. lawyers sue 40-plus companies on behalf of blind man in a month” [Justin Stoltzfus, Legal NewsLine] More: Jonathan Berr, CBS MoneyWatch;
- “Law schools should not continue hiring faculty with little to no practical experience, little to no record of scholarship, and little to no teaching experience. ” [Allen Mendenhall, Law and Liberty]
- U.K.: “Couple claiming compensation for food poisoning exposed by holiday selfies” [Zoe Drewett, Metro]
- Federal judge: “every indication” that prominent Philadelphia personal injury firm “essentially rented out its name in exchange for referral fees” [ABA Journal]
Caution: do not swallow!
From @thrillscience on Twitter:
You can’t be too careful! @overlawyered pic.twitter.com/5jufzFlasr
— (((Thrill Science))) (@ThrillScience) March 27, 2018
“This is by no means the first time a city council has sued itself, or tried to”
Instances of local governments litigating against themselves include Auckland, New Zealand’s appeal of its own land use decision, and a London council’s appeal of a parking ticket it had issued to one of its own vehicles [Lowering the Bar]
Charles Dickens in Tax Court, courtesy Judge Mark Holmes
Bob Kamman, Procedurally Taxing: “I searched other Tax Court orders and decisions available at the Court’s website. Surprisingly, this is the only reference to Jarndyce. I searched for Dickens. There were petitioners named Dickens, and petitioners with an address on Dickens Street. But the only other Dickens reference came from an opinion by the same Judge Holmes” [U.S. Tax Court Judge Mark Holmes, who has won praise for his writing style]. It was a quote from Tale of Two Cities about oppressive rural taxation:
[The town’s] people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed.
[Image from Joseph Hémard’s illustration of the French Tax Code, via Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog]
Law of the Nursery
‘It’s my toy’ – property law
‘You promised me’ – contract law
‘He hit me first’ – criminal law
‘Daddy said I could’ – constitutional law
— the late Harold Berman of Harvard Law School, via John McGinnis, Law and Liberty.
Some others, via social media:
‘Mama said NO’- Supreme Court decision — Cathy Maddox on Twitter
‘Last week you said’ – case law — Dave Ferguson on Twitter
‘Stop repeating everything I say’ – copyright law — John Althouse Cohen
‘Make him turn it down’ — nuisance law
“The £400,000 comma”
Is it a true story? It is at the least a widely circulated old story that many persons would have been in a position to correct if untrue. Here is a 1928 version [via Jot 101]
Solicitors in their private practice have evolved a language of their own, which weird though it may be, is seldom open to the reproach of obscurity. Very wisely they discard punctuations almost completely. They know that the omission or use of a comma in a legal document can be dangerous. A comma once cost the United States Government £400,000. It was nearly fifty years ago that the United States Congress in drafting a Tariff Bill enumerated in one section the articles to be left free of duty. Amongst these were “all foreign fruit-plants”. The copying clerk in his wisdom removed the hyphen and substituted for it a comma, making the clause read “all foreign fruit, plants, etc.” It took a year to rectify the error, and during that period all oranges, bananas, grapes, and other foreign fruits were admitted free of duty with the big loss to the State already mentioned…
Here’s another reference to the story, and many more can be found at this search.
Alexander Pope on litigation
Alexander Pope’s translation of a poem by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, via Eugene Volokh:
Once (says an author; where, I need not say)
Two Trav’lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice passed along.
Before her each with clamor pleads the Laws,
Explained the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife remov’d so rarely well,
“There take” (says Justice), “take ye each a shell
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you:
‘Twas a fat oyster — live in peace — Adieu.”
“Welcome to Life: The Singularity, Ruined by Lawyers”
“Please accept these terms and conditions in order to continue Life.” Hilarious and unnerving: “Your stored mind contains one of more patterns that contravene the Prevention of Crime and Terrorism Act of 2050. Please stand by while we adjust these patterns.” And don’t miss, at 1:57, the fate of memories covered by other people’s copyright [Tom Scott, YouTube video, 2:44]