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Okay, it’s not quite the stairway to heaven, but this ladder is long enough to give the user a good head start. This picture, submitted by a University of Memphis law student, makes me shudder. Ladders are one of the most dangerous consumer products. A study published by the U.S. National Institutes of Health estimated that 2.2 million people received treatment in emergency rooms for ladder injuries during the 16-year-period from 1990-2005, an average of 136,000 cases a year. Nearly 10% of injuries resulted in hospitalization, roughly twice that of consumer product-related injuries overall. Other ladder –From Thomas Walk, Wake Forest University School of Law, Date of event: fall 1979 Our Corporations professor had the annoying habit of ending a lot of his sentences with the phrase “All that jazz.” Midway through the semester, my classmate who sat immediately to the left came to class with a notepad she bought at the mall. It had musical notes floating around the pages and the “All That Jazz” phrase. She wandered to the front of the classroom before the prof arrived and put the pad on his rostrum. The professor walked in, examined the pad with a confused look, and laid it to one side. This article from Time Newsfeed about how some governments make certain baby names illegal is reminiscent of one of our Hall of Fame Strange Judicial Opinions: “Hello, My Name Is … Oh, Never Mind.” Meanwhile, the article warns that the following baby names have been declared illegal in New Zealand: “Yeah Detroit” Twins named “89” “Sex Fruit” Good news though! New Zealand will still allow boys to be named “Number 16 Bus Shelter.” 
Professor and editor of the Torts Prof blog, Bill Childs, posted this picture of a warning sign at the new Harry Potter attraction at the Islands of Adventures theme park in Orlando. He noted that he particularly enjoyed that even the warnings are themed, as this one comes from the “Department of Magical Transportation.” See my ABA Journal column on Hogwarts Torts, suggesting that no student in the history of education has been subjected to as many torts as poor Harry Potter. It’s almost impossible to imagine a case that sounds more boring than “In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation.” In this multidistrict potboiler, the judge stayed an insurance coverage action, apparently hoping to facilitate a global settlement. Unfortunately, nothing was moving forward, prompting the Trust to ask the court to lift the stay to get things moving. Counsel didn’t take any chances that the court might miss her point, punching up her memorandum in support of the motion to lift the stay with a dramatic journalistic touch: Since this Court stayed the insurance coverage action ten months ago last March, no global mediation A judicial friend from Florida sent along a case of first impression involving a parental rights determination between a birth mother and a biological mother that she calls “a law professor’s dream case.” It does sound a bit like a law school exam question—a very difficult one. The case involved two women in a committed relationship who wanted to have a child. Ova from one of the women were removed, fertilized by donated sperm, and implanted in the other woman, who then gave birth to the child. Thus, one woman was the biological mother and one was the birth mother, 
Expert's testimony had more holes in it than this guy. In December 2011, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, per Judge Richard Posner, reversed a jury verdict in favor of an airline against Fed Ex for $65,998,411, the precise amount the airline had requested in damages. One issue was the admissibility of complex testimony regarding the damages calculations by the airline’s expert witness, a forensic accountant named Morriss. Posner was not impressed by the expert’s regression analysis testimony: Morriss’s regression had as many bloody wounds as Julius Caesar when he was 
McClurg’s new book, The “Companion Text” to Law School: Understanding and Surviving Life with a Law Student, has just been published by West. More info here. Law school is an adventure for the entire family. It profoundly affects not only students, but their loved ones. This book provides all the information and tools necessary to help loved ones of law students survive the wild ride through legal education. 
“Let’s see, where should we build the dangerous fireworks retail outlet?” “How about right here next to these dangerous gasoline pumps?” “Perfect!” University of Memphis law student Ella Hernandez caught this funny juxtaposition on a Florida vacation. (Click on the pic to expand and fully appreciate.) This picture has the makings of a classic Torts exam question. Just throw in some lightning and a school bus careening out of control. 
Taken in downtown Memphis, with the Pyramid building in the background. I guess one of those little yellow flags at the end might help (and may required by law), but that ladder still looks too long to be taking a ride in such a short truck. Wonder what’s holding it down inside the truck. Whatever it is, leverage is working against it. |
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Books  The 'Companion Text' to Law School: Understanding and Surviving Life with a Law Student  1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School  Practical Global Tort Litigation: United States, Germany and Argentina  Gun Control and Gun Rights  The Law School Trip: The Insider's Guide to Law School  Amicus Humoriae: An Anthology of Legal Humor Selected  Fight Club: Doctors vs. Lawyers - A Peace Plan Grounded in Self Interest  Neurotic, Paranoid Wimps - Nothing has Changed  Kiss and Tell: Protecting Intimate Relationship Privacy Through Implied Contracts of Confidentiality  Dead Sorrow: A Story About Loss and A New Theory of Wrongful Death Damages  A Thousand Words are Worth a Picture: A Privacy Tort Response to Consumer Data Profiling  The Public Health Case for the Safe Storage of Firearms: Adolescent Suicides Add One More 'Smoking Gun'  Armed and Dangerous: Tort Liability for the Negligent Storage of Firearms  Good Cop, Bad Cop: Using Cognitive Dissonance Theory to Reduce Police Lying  Poetry in Commotion: Katko v. Briney and the Bards of First-Year Torts  The Tortious Marketing of Handguns: Strict Liability is Dead, Long Live Negligence  Bringing Privacy Law Out of the Closet: A Tort Theory of Liability for Intrusions in Public Places  The Rhetoric of Gun Control  It’s a Wonderful Life: The Case for Hedonic Damages in Wrongful Death Cases  Your Money or Your Life: Interpreting the Federal Act Against Patient Dumping  Logical Fallacies and the Supreme Court: A Critical Analysis of Justice Rehnquist's Decisions In Criminal Procedure Cases  |
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is a scholar and teacher in the areas of tort law, products liability, legal education, privacy law and firearms policy. He currently holds the Herbert Herff Chair of Excellence in Law at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.
