McClurg Interviewed for “Criminal” Podcast Re “Mantraps”

“Criminal,” the highly rated podcast of true crime stories run by former NPR reporters, interviewed me for its newest episode called “Mantrap.” It addresses civil liability for harm caused by deadly booby traps set to protect uninhabited property. Here’s a link to the website podcast and here’s a link to all of the links where the podcast can be heard (e.g., Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, etc.).

My contribution involved one of my favorite tort law cases, Katko v. Briney, the infamous Iowa spring-gun case.

Plaintiff Marvin Katko broke into Ed and Bertha Briney’s uninhabited farmhouse in Eddyville, Iowa, in search of old jars and bottles he considered to be antiques, only to have his leg blown off by a shotgun wired to a bed in one of the bedrooms. The Brineys were fed up with people breaking into the house, which had stood empty for years, so they wired a shotgun to an inside door.

The court described the shotgun-trap as follows:

“After Mr. Briney cleaned and oiled his 20-gauge shotgun, the power of which he was well aware, defendants took it to the old house where they secured it to an iron bed with the barrel pointed at the bedroom door. It was rigged with wire from the doorknob to the gun’s trigger so it would fire when the door was opened. Briney first pointed the gun so an intruder would be hit in the stomach but at Mrs Briney’s suggestion it was lowered to hit the legs.” (Emphasis added.)

(In a previous post, I describe, image included, the amazing claim by the current property owner that he is in possession of the actual wire used for the trap.)

Katko sued the Brineys and—despite the fact that he broke into their farmhouse with an intent to steal—won a substantial jury verdict for both compensatory and punitive damages. Unable to pay it, the Brineys had to sell eighty acres of their farm to three neighbors who agreed to hold it in trust for the Brineys in the expectation that the Iowa Supreme Court would reverse the trial court’s judgment for Katko. But that didn’t happen. The judgment was affirmed on the ground that deadly force cannot be used to protect property only.

Criminal’s new podcast explores the Briney case along with a few other “mantrap” cases.

New Artifact from Katko v. Briney, the Infamous Spring-Gun Case

The actual wire used to set up the shotgun trap in Katko v. Briney

Lawhaha.com has uncovered new details—and a Torts artifact—regarding the infamous “Iowa spring-gun case”: Katko v. Briney. Most law students read and remember this unusual case, in which plaintiff Marvin Katko broke into Ed and Bertha Briney’s abandoned farmhouse in Eddyville, Iowa, in search of old jars and bottles he considered to be antiques, only to have his leg blown off by a shotgun wired to a bed in one of the bedrooms.

(I once assigned my students to write poems about the case and collected them in an Oregon Law Review article, Poetry in Commotion: Katko v. Briney and the Bards of First-Year Torts.)

The court described the shotgun-trap as follows:

“After Mr. Briney cleaned and oiled his 20-gauge shotgun, the power of which he was well aware, defendants took it to the old house where they secured it to an iron bed with the barrel pointed at the bedroom door. It was rigged with wire from the doorknob to the gun’s trigger so it would fire when the door was opened. Briney first pointed the gun so an intruder would be hit in the stomach but at Mrs Briney’s suggestion it was lowered to hit the legs.” (Emphasis added.)

Now stop and take a look at the image. That’s right, it’s purportedly the actual wire used to rig the shotgun to the doorknob. How did I obtain this artifact (actually, only the picture of it)? Read on.

Katko sued the Brineys and—despite the fact that he broke into their farmhouse with an intent to steal—won a substantial jury verdict for both compensatory and punitive damages. Unable to pay it, the Brineys had to sell eighty acres of their farm to three neighbors who agreed to hold it in trust for the Brineys in the expectation that the Iowa Supreme Court would reverse the trial court’s judgment for Katko. But that didn’t happen. The judgment was affirmed on the ground that deadly force cannot be used to protect property only.

Last fall, teaching Katko to a class of 1Ls, a student raised her hand and volunteered that her boyfriend’s parents owned the Iowa property where the legendary farmhouse once stood and were in possession of the actual wire that was used in the shotgun trap.

The student arranged for me to interview “Jim,” her boyfriend’s father. (I’ll leave out last names for privacy reasons). Jim’s parents were one of the neighbors who bought the Briney’s property to hold in trust.

(Caveat: I have no way to confirm the following tidbits Jim shared with me, so take them as one observer’s memory of events that happened several decades ago).

I asked Jim what the Brineys were like.

“Well, they were a little strange,” he said. “They used to leave food in the house because they thought the ghosts of Mrs. Briney’s mother and father lived there. They left the house fully furnished, the table set, et cetera. They left food in the cupboard behind the table.”

If true, this may answer one of the questions students often have about the case. The Brineys set the shotgun trap because the abandoned house had been repeatedly broken into. Students commonly ask, “Why didn’t they just take anything of value out of the house?”

Seeking to establish the provenance of the purported Briney wire, I asked, “How did you know to keep the wire?”

“It was still attached to the bed,” Jim said. “My wife took it off and we kept it.” That was before they intentionally burned down the house, a barn, and a machine shed because they “weren’t worth anything.” (I suggested he consider donating the wire to the American Museum of Tort Law, but he said they wanted to keep it.)

As for Marvin Katko, Jim said he knew him from school. He said they were in the school band together. Marvin played saxophone and even had a local dance band at one point.

“It was after high school that he [Katko] started being known as a delinquent,” Jim said. “He had somewhat of a reputation around town.”

Jim claims Katko was suspected of stealing a marble-top dresser from the Briney’s house prior to the occasion where he was shot. He also asserted, “Ed Briney tried to shoot Katko himself. Many nights he laid on his stomach in the house with his gun waiting for Katko to come.”

After the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the jury’s verdict, a dispute arose as to the land held in trust by the neighbors. According to the Prosser, Wade & Schwartz Torts casebook, the Brineys and Katko joined together to sue the neighbors and the lawsuit was settled for enough to pay the judgment against the Brineys. Jim says his father bought out the other two neighbors and handed the property down to him.

Jim said there was a great debate in Eddyville at the time of the case and for years after, with some people siding with Marvin Katko and others defending the Brineys. A niece of Marvin Katko once sent me an email affirming that it was very difficult for the Katko family to regain friends after the event.

Sadly, Marvin Katko committed suicide in 1994.

Tortious Intent? Girl Knocks Toddler Into Foam Pit

Yesterday I taught my first Torts class of the year and, as always, we began with Garratt v. Dailey, 279 P.2d 1091 (Wash. 1955), where an elderly woman sued a five-year-old boy for battery for pulling a chair out from under her as she was (allegedly) trying to sit in it.

The main issue was whether the Brian Dailey, the five-year-old, had what is called “belief intent” (aka “substantial certainty” intent) that the plaintiff would try to sit where the chair had been previously situated in the backyard.

But an interesting side issue was whether a five-year-old is capable of forming the requisite “intent” to commit an intentional tort.  Perhaps surprisingly to non-lawyers, the Garratt court, as have other courts, held that even young children have the mental capacity to form the intent to inflict a harmful or offensive bodily contact upon another.

Students often question this principle, arguing that five-year-olds lack the mental capacity to appreciate the consequences of their acts.  Importantly, the law of intent does not require that the child intended to “injure” the other or to appreciate all the ramifications of his or her acts (such as, in Garratt, that the elderly plaintiff would suffer a fractured hip when she fell to the ground).

But now a video clip of a young girl walloping her infant brother into a foam pit strongly suggests the courts got it right on this point:

Wet Baseball Field? No Problem. Set it on Fire.

People frequently ask me, What makes for a good lawyer?  “Problem-solving skills” is the first answer that comes to mind. Do you possess them? Take this test and see.

Problem: A high school baseball game is scheduled. Unfortunately, the field is wet from heavy rain. How do you solve this problem?

Answer choices:

(a) Play the game on the wet field because what’s the big deal with that?

(b) Recognizing that a wet field risks injury to players, make your best efforts to squeegee off or soak up the water.

(c) Recognizing that (b) would be too much freaking work, cancel the game and reschedule it for when the field is dry.

(d) Pour 24 gallons of gasoline on the field and set the damn thing on fire.

(d) was the choice made at a high school baseball field in Connecticut, turning the field into a toxic mess that will cost an estimated $50,000 to clean up. The town posted the news on its Facebook page, generously taking responsibility for the incident: “A poor decision was made … to ‘dry the field quicker’ and 24 gallons of gasoline was poured and set on fire.”

If you picked (d), congratulations! You should avoid law school (please), but have potentially positioned yourself to be an influencer for a major oil company.

Oven Requires Waiving Your Legal Rights Before Using

Waive your rights to warm up your dinner.

One of my students sent me this tweet from Morten Nielsen regarding a new oven requiring on the touch screen that, before using the product, the happy new appliance owner must waive their legal rights by agreeing to the “Terms of Service.”  Even in just the snippet of text visible in the picture, the user is assuming risks and waiving legal claims.

Stripping away the legalese, before you can warm up a pizza, you have to give up some legal rights.

A “contract of adhesion” is a form contract where the party being asked to sign it has no choice but to take it or leave it.  They’re always unfair because there’s no bargaining power.  That’s the very definition of a contract of adhesion.

The original concept of a contract is a bargained-for exchange of goods or services.  Courts supposedly look unfavorably on contracts of adhesion, but unless they involve a service on which the public depends (such as medical services or public transportation or public education), they’re upheld.

Did you know that each time you click “Accept” on an online click-thru agreement, you’ve bound yourself to a legal contract?  One survey found that 56 percent of people were not aware they were entering into binding agreement.

But, even there, you at least theoretically have the right to not use the service.  Don’t want to accept iTune’s or Facebook’s terms of service?  Don’t use those services.  But where is that choice when you’ve had a new appliance installed and can’t use it without first agreeing to the Terms of Service?

Welcome to the Internet of Things.  It’s only going to get worse, much worse.  The next generation oven will come with a built-in corporate lawyer who will send you threatening cease and desist alerts if you overcook or undercook your food and bill at a rate of $300 per hour.  If you don’t put a lid on the food and it spatters the inside, you will be sued for punitive damages.

At least this is what I heard from some person I met in a bar.  I think her name was Alexa.

–Thanks to Sean O’Brien for sending this along.

Lawn Darts for the Torts Museum

[Great News. The Torts Museum accepted my invitation. My lawn darts will be safely displayed in the museum’s “Dangerous Toys” section.]

When I first heard the news about Ralph Nader’s new American Museum of Tort Law, my first thought was, “Awesome!  A Torts Museum.”  My second thought was, “My lawn darts!  They belong there.”

In case you missed the news, the Torts Museum opened last month in Nader’s home town in Winsted, CN.  The museum offers a history of American tort law, with exhibits covering everything from the infamous McDonald’s hot coffee case to the even more infamous Ford Pinto exploding gas tank fiasco.

I bought my lawn darts about twenty years ago at a garage sale.  Never used.  No dirt or even bloodstains.  Pristine.  I knew it would be selfish for me to keep enjoying them, like hiding a Rembrandt in a private studio.

Lawn darts were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1988 on the basis that their risk outweighed their social usefulness.  The Commission reported three deaths associated with lawn darts from 1970-1988 and an estimated 700 annual emergency room cases. Then-Commissioner Anne Graham explained the Commission’s risk-utility analysis (which my current first-year students will recognize as Judge Hand’s famous formula for negligence):

What limited recreational value lawn darts may have is far outweighed by the number of serious injuries and unnecessary deaths. This week another child was severely injured by a lawn dart. She is now in critical condition. There are numerous alternatives to lawn darts, and I would urge adults who have lawn darts to throw them away now.

The most amazing aspect of my set of Jarts is that the packaging doesn’t include a single warning.

Most Exciting Outdoor Game TodayLawn Dart Headed Straight For MomTo the contrary, it touts lawn darts as “The Most Exciting Outdoor Game Today.”  No doubt.  Nothing like a screaming ambulance to liven up the neighborhood.

Best of all, it was a game for the whole family, except … oops, that missile on the cover appears headed straight for mom!

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s original notice of the ban “urge[d] consumers to discard or destroy all lawn darts immediately” and instructed them to call the Commission’s hotline if they find any still for sale.

Baby Showers with Guns

Not the real guy.

Stock photo – Not the real guy.

Leave it to insurance coverage guru/legal humorist Randy Maniloff to track down the most interesting cases for his monthly publication, Coverage Opinions.  Among this month’s excellent articles (which include a mock interview with Tom Brady), Randy revisits his insurance Coverage for Dummies contest with the case of Blank-Greer v. Tannerite Sports, LLC, No. 13-1266 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 21, 2015).

Here are the basic facts, borrowed from Randy’s excerpts from the court’s opinion:

In May 2012, [James] Yaney’s friend, Jason Vantilburg, in anticipation of the birth of his first child, asked Yaney to host a party to celebrate. Yaney and Vantilburg fashioned the party into a ‘diaper shootout,’ where guests could bring diapers for the new baby and enjoy an afternoon shooting guns in Yaney’s backyard. As a ‘grand finale’ to the party, they also decided to blow up an old refrigerator.

In preparation, Yaney used his [Yaney] Motorsports truck to haul the refrigerator from Vantilburg’s home to his property. He then used his trailer to tow a box van to his backyard so that guests had a target to shoot. On the day of the event, Yaney set up the Motorsports truck and trailer as a staging area for guns and ammunition. ***

Towards the end of the event, Yaney and Vantilburg decided it was time to blow up the refrigerator. They hauled the refrigerator from Yaney’s pole barn into the backyard. Guests stood behind tables fifty meters away from where the refrigerator was located. Vantilburg moved into position behind his rifle, fired at the explosives [H2] inside the refrigerator, and detonated them. The refrigerator immediately blew apart and sent shrapnel flying across the yard. A piece of shrapnel hit (guest) Plank–Greer’s hand, nearly severing it.

Read Randy’s full account of the case, which addressed the issue of whether the party host was acting in the scope of employment with respect to insurance coverage from his business.  The court said no.

–Blank-Greer v. Tannerite Sports, LLC, No. 13-1266 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 21, 2015)

Cartoon Scenarios that Made It to Court

Falling anvils can happen to anyone.

Falling anvils can happen to anyone.

Thanks to legal humorist extraordinaire Randy Maniloff for a nice shout-out to Lawhaha.com as part of his recent article exploring cartoon accident clichés that found their way to the courthouse.

Exploding cigars, falling anvils, you name it.  Turns out the experiences of Wile E. Coyote and Tom and Jerry also happen to ordinary people, and Randy cites the cases to prove it.

That’s one of the things we most appreciate about him.  Like Lawhaha.com (and unlike so many purveyors of legal humor), Randy doesn’t circulate undocumented anecdotes that may or may not have really happened.  He researches and provides citations to everything.

So check out his great list of cases involving common cartoon scenarios that made it to court.

Death Certificate Shows Man Died from Slipping on Banana Peel

Poor guy died from slipping on a banana peel.

Poor guy died from slipping on a banana peel.

Slipping on a banana peel is, of course, a classic clichéd accident depicted in cartoons.  As my 1Ls get ready to tackle the famous trilogy of banana peel slip and fall cases in the Prosser, Wade & Schwartz Torts casebook next week, the nagging question that lingers is: do people really slip on banana peels?

A previous post discussed this issue, but check this out.  It’s a 1927 Tennessee death certificate for a 74-year-old hospitalized man.  A bit hard to read, but the highlighted note written across the top and going down the right side says:

Inquiry at Hospital: They state that patient slipped on banana peeling and fell shortly before death.

Warning: Another Coffee Cup Maker Thinks Hot Coffee Is a Joke

More hot coffee warningsA while back I posted a picture of a coffee cup, reportedly from Canada, that made fun of U.S. tort law and, indirectly, poor Stella Liebeck, the plaintiff in the infamous McDonald’s coffee spill.

Now Chris Fergus, a professor in Australia, sends along this photo showing another coffee cup maker having a grand old time with the case by including a warning on its cups stating, “Avoid Pouring on Crotch Area.”  I don’t speak French, but  can guess the French version amounts to something like “Don’t Pour It on Your Oolala.”  Chris said he received the photo from one of his students and is unsure where it originated.

Hilarious, unless you happen to end up like Ms. Liebeck.  Sorry for the graphic pic, but this is actually one of the milder pictures of her burn injuries:

Stella Liebeck's burn injuries

And so here we are more than a decade later continuing to distort the American tort system with a case in which dangerously hot coffee sold through a drive-thru window caused third-degree burns to a 79-year-old woman who accidentally spilled it while a passenger in a stopped vehicle trying to add cream and sugar.  Consult the original post for links to some eye-opening information about what really happened in the McDonald’s coffee spill case.

–Thanks to Chris Fergus

Plaintiffs Say “Boo!” to Haunted Halloween Tort Immunity

Randy Maniloff

Randy Maniloff explores Halloween tort cases.

Insurance expert, stand-up comic, and friend of Lawhaha.com, Randy Maniloff, penned an interesting article in his latest issue of Coverage Opinions about whether people who get frightened at Halloween haunted houses, with resulting injury, can sue.

He writes:

On any other evening, presenting a frightening or threatening visage might be a violation of a general duty not to scare others.  But on Halloween at trick-or-treat time, that duty is modified.  Our society encourages children to transform themselves into witches, demons, and ghosts, and play a game of threatening neighbors into giving them candy.”  Bouton v. Allstate Ins. Co., 491 So. 2d 56 (La. Ct. App. 1986) (also noting that the Louisiana legislature has recognized Halloween as a special occasion by exempting it from the statute which prohibits the wearing of masks in public places).

But does this “Halloween rule” apply to haunted houses?  All sorts of duties are imposed on property owners to maintain a safe premises.  Do these same rules apply when the premises are advertised as having, as their only purpose, to scare visitors?  Indeed, many visitors will leave a haunted house disappointed if they were not frightened while there.  That being the case, can the visitor of a haunted house now turn around and sue for injuries sustained in the process of getting what he asked (and paid) for?

His research turned up five reported judicial decisions in which visitors of haunted houses sought recovery for injuries “sustained on account of being scared.”  Notably, the plaintiffs lost every case based on assumption of the risk analysis and the social utility of keeping haunted houses scary and darkly lit.  In one case, a startled plaintiff in a pitch-dark house turned to run and ran smack into a brick wall.

Hate to be a party-pooper, but I think there’s a duty to act reasonably to prevent highly foreseeable injuries at premises open to the public.  The goal of a haunted house is to terrify, the expected result is that customers will be terrified, and the instinctive response to terror is to run.  But no one can see!  Give them helmets, maybe even put flashlights on them, or scare them outside where they can run into the cushy-walls of cornfield mazes.

“Eerily,” as Randy notes, all five cases are from Louisiana.

Flow Chart for the Tort of Nuisance

Nuisance Flow ChartA student from my very first Torts course a million years ago sent me this brilliant flow chart for the tort of nuisance, which comprises substantial and unreasonable interferences with the use and enjoyment of one’s property.   The most interesting thing about it is that it actually summarizes the law pretty well, assuming one has dropped acid before studying it.  Credit on the chart attributes this work of art to one Margaret Hagen.  Well done!

“Torts Illustrated”

Torts IllustratedA 1L sent me this “Torts Illustrated” image, sort of a grown-up version of Garrett v. Daily, a famous case that all law students study in which a five-year-old was sued for pulling a chair out from under an elderly woman.  If anyone knows the original source, please send it along so we can give proper credit.

In the meantime, one can only imagine what the swimsuit issue would look like.

Warning: Canadian Coffee Seller Makes Fun of Hot Coffee Warnings

Liebeck coffee burn.

One of the milder pictures of  Stella Liebeck’s coffee burn injuries.

Any mention of lawsuits and hot coffee invariably invokes the grossly misunderstood “McDonald’s coffee spill” case of Stella Liebeck, a 79-old-woman who suffered third-degree burns after spilling a stryrofoam, takeout cup of McDonald’s coffee on her legs.

I apologize for the gruesome picture, but a large part of the misunderstanding of this case comes from people not appreciating that Ms. Liebeck suffered extremely severe injuries. There are much worse pictures of her injuries available on the internet. There is also a ton of information, and misinformation, out there about the McDonald’s case. Here (scroll down to “Public Perceptions: The McDonald’s Coffee Spill”) and here are a couple accounts of the facts. You might also want to check out the movie, Hot Coffee, which explores the McDonald’s case and, more generally, the tort reform movement.

Canadian coffee cup warning

Sideways on purpose. Click to expand.

At least one Canadian coffee seller found the idea of warning consumers about hot coffee to be amusing:

“If this was another country, we’d have to tell you this coffee may be hot. Good thing this is Canada!”

Dedicated Law Student Gets Judge Hand Tattoo

Judge Learned Hand tattooAre you in law school? Do you consider yourself to be a dedicated law student? Not sure? Measure yourself on McClurg’s simple 0-100 scale, with 0 being “I’m not totally thrilled with Judge Learned Hand” and 100 being “I aspire to be like the guy in this picture.”

Years ago, a student of mine at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law took a trip, to Philadelphia, I think. He struck up a conversation with a tattoo artist in a bar. When the artist learned he was in law school, she asked, “Have you ever heard of a judge named Learned Hand?”  “Of course!” the student replied.  All law students know and remember Judge Learned Hand.

The artist said the young man above came into her tattoo parlor with the accompanying picture of Judge Hand (the picture is from the famous Prosser, Wade & Schwartz Torts casebook used at 124 law schools) and asked to have Judge Hand, wearing a jester cap, tattooed on his arm. As proof, she followed up and sent this photograph to my student, who entrusted it to me.

For non-legals, Judge Hand was a famous judge who in a famous case–U.S. v. Carroll Towing–set forth a famous algebraic economic cost-benefit formula for determining whether injury-causing conduct was reasonable or unreasonable. If reasonable, the defendant is off the hook. If unreasonable, the defendant is liable for negligence and must pay damages. The formula is B < P x L. B stands for the burden of avoiding a risk of harm, P is the probability that the risk will actually cause harm, and L stands for the severity of the harm if it occurs. The formula states that if the burden of avoiding the harm is less than the probability of the harm occurring multiplied by the severity of the potential harm, the conduct is unreasonable (i.e., negligent). Conversely, if the burden of avoiding the risk outweighs the probability times the severity of harm, the conduct is reasonable (i.e., non-negligent).

The back of the picture is stamped with “Tattoo & Photo by Sherry Sears, Creative Images, Des Moines, IA.” So if you want to impress your professors and university’s counseling department, book a ticket to Des Moines.

Cardozo’s Pub

Cardozo's Pub Palsgraf

Two drink minimum; No packages wrapped in newspaper.

A student of mine posted this pic on Facebook of “Cardozo’s Pub” in Chicago. Is “Andrews’ Billiard Hall” next door by any chance?

For non-legals, Judge Benjamin Cardozo is one of the most famous American jurists. He authored several judicial opinions read by law students, including the majority opinion in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad. Judge William Andrews wrote a famous dissent in the same case.

Palsgraf, studied by every first-year law student, is the improbable tale of a set of scales allegedly knocked on top of the plaintiff, Mrs. Helen Palsgraf, as a result of an explosion that occurred when a man running to catch a train dropped a package of fireworks while being helped onto the train by railroad employees.

For the completely true fake inside story behind these opinions, check out Palsgraf Uncovered). Other posts related to the famous case are here, here, and here.

No known connection exists between this Chicago pub and the real Judge Cardozo.

Ill-Placed Bottle Rockets Create a “Palsgraf” for a New Generation

bottle rockets in anus lead to injuryA former student sent along the complaint below, which a friend of his suggested might be “the new Palsgraf for our generation.” Hmm, this might not be a good generational sign given the allegations.

For non-legals, Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad is a famous tort law case all law students read involving a bizarre accident at a train station, where the court ruled that a tort defendant owes a legal duty to act with reasonable care to another only if the other is a reasonably foreseeable victim of the defendant’s conduct. More Lawhaha.com posts involving Palsgraf are here, here, here, and here.

A national Greek fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, apparently held a “house party” at their frat house at a West Virginia university. The complaint alleges that many of the participants consumed intoxicating beverages. No surprise so far. But one of the guests  surprised at least one person (the plaintiff, allegedly) when he decided to light up–literally–the party by shooting bottle rockets from … er, I’d rather let the Complaint explain it:

Warning: Allegations are Disgusting

8. Defendant Hughes was highly intoxicated on this date and time, and decided in his drunken stupor that it would be a good idea to shoot bottle rockets out of his anus on the ATO deck, located on the back of the ATO house.

9. Upon information and belief, there were several other ATO fraternity members on the deck at the time of this incident, including one or more officers of the fraternity. Plaintiff and his girlfriend were also present on the ATO deck.

10. Defendant Hughes placed a bottle rocket in his anus, ignited the fuse, but instead of launching, the bottle rocket blew up in Defendant’s rectum, and this startled plaintiff and caused him to jump back, at which time he fell off of the ATO deck, and he became lodged between the deck and an air conditioner unit adjacent to the deck.

11. There was no railing on said deck at the time of the incident. Upon information and belief, the lack of a railing had existed for at least several months, if not years, before the incident. Upon further information and belief, the deck never had a railing when it was installed, or any time thereafter. The subject deck was approximately 3-4 feet high.

12. The subject deck was in the exclusive custody, maintenance and control of the ATO fraternity at all times relevant hereto.

Here’s your Palsgraf test: Was the plaintiff within the zone of foreseeable danger of the bottle rocket-defendant’s alleged conduct? Probably, although perhaps with some contributory negligence thrown in. Assuming the plaintiff was standing close by he could have been injured in any number of ways from someone setting off fireworks in such a dangerous, uncontrolled manner.

The more interesting question is the fraterity’s liability. Was it foreseeable to the fraternity that an intoxicated fraternity member would ignite fireworks in such a bizarre manner and cause a startled bystander to fall off the deck?  Probably not, but it is foreseeable that during social or other gatherings on a deck with no railing (which the complaint alleges violated building codes, likely making it negligence per se) someone would fall off it. Generally speaking, the precise manner in which the harm occurred need not be foreseeable so long as the same general kind of harm was foreseeable.  The injury that occurred–falling off the deck-is the risk that makes it negligent to not have a railing on a raised deck.

Just an off-the-cuff analysis of the facts as alleged.  As always, it will come down to the facts as proved–or, more likely, to a settlement.

—Complaint, Helmburg v. Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, Case No. 12-C-57, Circuit Ct., Cabell County, West Va., filed Jan. 23, 2012.

The “Emergency Doctrine” According to Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

Judge Carlin LOVED this guy.

A unanimous Strange Judicial Opinions Hall of Fame opinion is Cordas v. Peerless Transportation Co., penned in 1941 by Judge Carlin (no relation to George) of the New York City Court.

The defendant was a chauffeur and the victim of an armed car-jacking by a fleeing robber who threatened to blow the chauffeur’s brains out. In fright, the chauffeur slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the vehicle, which kept moving and hit the plaintiff pedestrian and her children (fortunately, injuries were slight).

The case stands for the unremarkable principle that under the basic negligence standard of reasonable care “under the circumstances,” people aren’t expected to exercise as much care in emergency situations as in non-emergencies where they have time to weigh and deliberate. It also stands as a literary masterpiece of judicial opinion writing.

Full appreciation of this classic can come only with a full reading, but here’s how it starts:

This case presents the ordinary man–that problem child of the law–in a most bizarre setting. As a lowly chauffeur in defendant’s employ he became in a trice the protagonist in a breath-bating drama with a denouement almost tragic. It appears that a man, whose identity it would be indelicate to divulge, was feloniously relieved of his portable goods by two nondescript highwaymen in an alley near 26th Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan; they induced him to relinquish his possessions by a strong argument ad hominem couched in the convincing cant of the criminal and pressed at the point of a most persuasive pistol.

Carlin apparently was a learned Shakespeare fan. In excusing the chauffeur from liability for jumping out of the moving vehicle, Carlin said:

If the philosophic Horatio and the martial companions of his watch were ‘distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear’ when they beheld ‘in the dead vast and middle of night’ the disembodied spirit of Hamlet’s father stalk majestically by ‘with a countenance more in sorrow than in anger,’ was not the chauffeur, though unacquainted with the example of these eminent men-at-arms more amply justified in his fearsome reactions when he was more palpably confronted by a thing of flesh and blood bearing in its hand an engine of destruction which depended for its lethal purpose upon the quiver of a hair.

Translation: It’s not negligent to react in fright when a carjacker has a gun pointed at your head.

Cordas v. Peerless Transp. Co., 27 N.Y.S.2d 198, 199, 201 (City Court of N.Y. 1941). Thanks to all the folks who sent in this classic.

Is this a Judicial Opinion or a Cookbook?

cookbook

More appropriate publication vehicle than the Northeast Reporter?

A lawsuit brought by a woman who got a fishbone lodged in her throat while eating a bowl of fish chowder at a Boston restaurant moved the Massachusetts Supreme Court to write an opinion devoted more to the joys of New England fish recipes than actual law.

The legal dispute is an old one: To what extent is food containing a harmful ingredient a defective product when the substance is a natural one as opposed to a foreign one?

Most modern courts apply a reasonableness test that looks at whether the substance was one a consumer would reasonably expect to find in a prepared dish, but the Massachusetts Supreme Court in this 1964 case adopted the older approach that there is no liability for harm-causing natural substances (i.e., bones as opposed to pieces of glass) in food.

Reading the opinion, it wasn’t hard to predict the defendant was going to win in the end. The court reminisced fondly about the history of fish dishes, recounted several recipes for the same, and included statements such as “we consider that the joys of life in New England include the ready availability of fresh fish chowder.”

The court went so far as to note that “[a] namesake of the plaintiff, Daniel Webster, had a recipe for fish chowder which has survived into a number of modern cookbooks and in which the removal of fish bones is not mentioned at all.”

The court concluded:

[W]e consider a dish which for many long years, if well made, has been made generally as outlined above. It is not too much to say that a person sitting down in New England to consume a good New England fish chowder embarks on a gustatory adventure which may entail the removal of some fish bones from his bowl as he proceeds. We are not inclined to tamper with age old recipes by any amendment reflecting the plaintiff’s view of the effect of the Uniform Commercial Code upon them.

This is a must-read opinion for all products liability lawyers and anyone looking for a good fish-chowder recipe.

Webster v. Blue Ship Tea Room, Inc., 198 N.E.2d 309, 312 (Mass. 1964). Thanks to Daniel Green.

Unreasonably Dangerous Underwear

tighty whities

Dangerous product?

A large guy (280-90 pounds) ironically won a one-week trip to Hawaii as a reward for selling more than $20,000 in diet products. But in a lawsuit against Hanes, the underwear maker, he alleged his “dream trip” went awry due to allegedly defective briefs which “gaped open and acted like a sand belt on my privates,” causing injury.

We’ll let the court elaborate on this interesting products liability case:

Plaintiff testified that by the second day in Hawaii he was in debilitating pain. However, … he ignored the pain until he returned to Pensacola two weeks later. He explained he was able to ignore the pain because he was enjoying himself so much on this long anticipated vacation that he did not dwell on or focus on the pain to any degree.

Plaintiff testified he believed sand that he picked up in his swim trunks while enjoying the Hawaiian surf had irritated his penis. Over the next few days he and his wife “walked all over the place” until his condition worsened to the point that he “could hardly walk.” Plaintiff testified his inability to walk was caused by defendant’s defective manufacturing of his underwear which caused his “fly” to gap open. The gap resulted in his penis protruding from his underwear, whereupon the edges of the opening abraded his penis like “sandpaper belts.” …

Under cross examination plaintiff admitted he never examined his penis to assess the problem and/or treat the problem. He testified he is a “belly-man” and his “weight” prevents him from looking down and seeing his penis. He further testified he declined to use the hotel mirror to view the “injury” because that is “not something he would do.” He also testified he did not ask his wife to examine his penis because he would never ask her to do such a thing, nor would he want to let her know about his pain because it would have “ruined her vacation” as well. …

So how does one prove a complex products liability case like this one? How else? Bring on the experts! Nothing like an in-court reenactment to drive home a point (will resist the obvious “if they do not fit, you must acquit” joke):

Both the plaintiff and the defendant’s expert demonstrated the “tensions” that are placed on men’s underwear. This was done by holding the allegedly “defective” underwear and placing it under various “stresses” while comparing it with similar briefs made by other manufacturers, as well as other old, worn out Hanes brand briefs owned by plaintiff.

The uncontroverted expert testimony was that once a man’s genitalia are adjusted in his briefs, “vertical tension” is far greater than horizontal tension and there is no tendency for the fly to “gap.”

Based on the expert testimony, the judge concluded that “it was clear to the court that plaintiff’s underwear would not have ‘gaped’ open as contended by plaintiff because the tension load on men’s underwear is vertical and not horizontal.” The court speculated that it was more likely that plaintiff’s problems were caused by the “plaintiff’s manner of getting into his underwear,” which was to put them on at the same time as his pants.

The surprising legal lesson of this case is that expert testimony about tighty-whities fit can apparently pass scrutiny as scientifically valid under Daubert.

Freed v. Hanes Brands, Inc., Case No. 2009 SC 003087 (Fla. Escambia County Ct. Oct. 12, 2009). Thanks to Cecile Mendizabel and others.

Plaintiff Sues for Loss of Psychic Powers

crystal ballA $600,000 jury verdict for losing psychic powers sounds ridiculous, and likely the grossly misunderstood McDonald’s coffee spill case, Haimes v. Temple University has been abused as a tool to whip up on trial lawyers and the tort system. But as with the McDonald’s case, Haimes got twisted in the telling.

Plaintiff Judith Richardson Haimes brought a medical malpractice action against defendant after a CT scan allegedly caused her chronic and disabling headaches and prevented her from practicing her occupation as a psychic. A jury awarded her $600,000 after a four-day trial.

Wow! But pro-tort reform accounts of the case omit two critical facts.  First, that the trial judge specifically instructed the jury it could NOT award damages for loss of her psychic abilities, and, second, that the court threw out the plaintiff’s verdict.

Having cleared that up, the most interesting part of the case was the testimony pertaining to her psychic abilities. The plaintiff presented several police officers as witnesses who testified that plaintiffs’ psychic abilities had helped them solve cases. One special agent testified that he sought plaintiff’s advice in solving five to seven homicide cases and that information provided by plaintiff proved to be 80-90 percent accurate. The opinion describes detailed information plaintiff provided to help solve a variety of cases. It’s interesting.

Haimes v. Temple University Hosp., 39 Pa. D. & C.3d 381 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. 1986). Thanks to Cynthia Cohan.

Creative Statutory Interpretation Put to Test

Ohio Court of Appeals Judge Mark Painter combined humor and common sense in Gibson v. Donahue, where the plaintiff was injured being thrown from her horse, which was spooked by two Irish Setters that the defendant allowed to run free in an area restricted to equestrian use.

Talk about creative lawyering. The defendant tried to escape liability by relying on an Ohio statute intended to provide tort immunity for riding stable owners and horse show operators for injuries resulting from the inherent risks of equine activity (a statute Painter said “is noteworthy mainly for using the word ‘farrier’ ten times”).

Judge Painter observed that the case was one of first impression, “probably because no one before has been audacious enough” to try to extend the statute to a situation like this one.

Defendant did have a slim statutory leg to stand on. The statute extends immunity to “an equine activity sponsor, equine activity participant, equine professional, veterinarian, farrier, or other person.” However, Judge Painter said that for defendant’s construction to prevail, the statute would have to be read as applying to “any other person in the whole world.” Construed as defendant argued, “[a] person who negligently crashes an airplane into the crowd at an equine event would thus be immune to liability.”

By the way, a farrier is a blacksmith. Remember that if you’re a law student in Ohio. It might be on the bar exam.

Gibson v. Donahue, 772 N.E. 2d 646, 648, 650 (Ohio Ct. App. 2002).

Negligence and “The Reasonable Dog”

Would a reasonably prudent dog batter a postal worker, negligently knock over a vase with a wagging tail or trespass on property to urinate or defecate?

Maybe we’ll find out, now that a court has held that a dog in a dog-bite case was to be judged by a “reasonable dog” standard.

In Kirkham v. Will, an Illinois intermediate appellate court held that, in deciding whether the defense of provocation applied in a dog-bite case, the appropriate test to apply was the “reasonable dog” standard; that is, how a reasonable dog would have reacted to the plaintiff’s presence under similar circumstances.

How a reasonably prudent person would have behaved under a given set of circumstances is one of the great imponderables of tort law that jurors, law students, lawyers, judges and law professors struggle with every day. Despite manifold attempts to define the standard, answers remain elusive.

We entrust the decision to jurors because they presumably know how reasonable people would act. Are they competent to determine how reasonable dogs would act? I can see it now, ads for expert witnesses in “Canine Behavior.”

Kirkham v. Will, 724 N.E.2d 1062, 1065 (Ill. App. Ct. 2000). Thanks to Darius Asly.

Sex and the Reasonable Person

lawsuit over fractured penis

Family friendly depiction of the injury.

Doe v. Moe, a May 2005 Massachusetts appellate case, gives a whole new meaning to the idea of safe sex. A guy sued his long-time girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) for negligence when an ill-advised change in position during consensual intercourse resulted in him suffering a fractured penis. (The opinion gives details about how the accident occurred.)

In a case of first impression, the court struggled to arrive at an appropriate and workable standard of care to apply to private consensual sexual conduct. The court noted:

There are no comprehensive legal rules to regulate consensual sexual behavior, and there are not commonly accepted customs or values that determine parameters for the intensely private and widely diverse forms of such behavior.

Accordingly, the court concluded that the general negligence standard of reasonable care under the circumstances was inappropriate for consensual sex-physical injury cases.

Instead, the court said the plaintiff needed to show conduct rising to the level of “wanton or reckless.” The court opined that while the trial record might support a finding that the defendant’s conduct exposed plaintiff to a risk of harm, it did not support a finding of wanton or reckless conduct.

The case does raise an interesting legal issue. With so many different preferences and positions and idiosyncratic fantasies and fetishes, is there such a thing as a standard of “ordinary and reasonable care” for sex?

Doe v. Moe, 827 N.E.2d 240, 245 (Mass. Ct. App. 2005). Thanks to David Keller and Professor Howard Wasserman.

Divinity Student Has Bone to Pick with A Yale Dog

strange judicial opinions dog puns

It's a dog-eat-divinity student world.

A dog-bite case against the dean of the Yale Divinity School by a divinity student gave U.S. District Judge Gerard Goettel a chance to “let the dogs out” in an opinion leaving no possible wordplay on dogs unpenned or unpunned.

The main issue was whether the Yale Divinity School could be held strictly liable under the Connecticut dog-bite statute as a “keeper” of the dean’s offending canine, Rocky, a Labrador, because the dog was permitted to roam free in common areas of the divinity school residences and chapel.

The court held the dean strictly liable, but let the school off because it didn’t “control” the dog’s activities.

Here’s a compendium of Judge Goettel’s fun canine puns:

“In this dog eat dog world, anything is fair game for litigation in the federal courts.”

“As compensation for her injuries, plaintiff seeks to take a bite out of the defendants’ pocketbooks.”

“[The plaintiff], now an Episcopal priest with her own ministry, obviously has a bone to pick as her injuries required substantial medical care, and Rocky is clearly in the doghouse.”

“In dogged pursuit of damages for her trauma, she filed this suit ….”

“Hounded by Connecticut’s [dog-bite statute] ….”

“The [individual defendants] do not deny that they were keeping Rocky who apparently was not licensed to anyone but had a nose for trouble.”

 “Plaintiff’s analysis is essentially the tail wagging the dog.”

“Rocky’s having access to common areas, without more evidence indicating an intent to give refuge to the dog or to control the dog’s activities on the part of the School is not a sufficient basis to collar the Divinity School.”

As for Rocky, we don’t know his fate, but the judge did offer a weak defense for the nice face-biting doggie in a footnote:

1. There is no indication that Rocky, like the dog in Oliver Goldsmith’s Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, “to gain some private ends, went mad and bit the [wo]man.”

Post v. Annand, 798 F. Supp. 189, 190–91 & n.1, 192 (S.D.N.Y. 1992). Thanks to Lillian Gustilo.

Defamatory in England to Call Someone Ugly

Steven Berkoff

Won a defamation judgment for being called ugly.

A 1996 English libel case reminds me of the old Rodney Dangerfield joke: “My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, ‘Doc, if you don’t mind I’d like a second opinion.’ He said, ‘Alright, you’re ugly too.’”

In Berkoff v. Burchill, an English court of appeals held that describing a person as ugly can constitute actionable defamation. No wonder people are flocking to England to take advantage of the country’s plaintiff-friendly libel laws. It’s highly doubtful calling someone ugly would be actionable defamation under U.S. law.

(By the way, this practice, known as “libel tourism,” resulted in enactment of a 2010 U.S. law that prohibits U.S. courts from enforcing foreign defamation judgments if they were rendered under legal protections less protective of speech than U.S. standards. Berkoff’s suit, against an English newspaper, was not a case of libel tourism.)

The English case arose from a Sunday Times article in which defendant Burchill reviewed the movie The Age of Innocence. Burchill described the film director, Steven Berkoff, as “hideous-looking.”

Nine months later, Burchill once again called Berkoff’s pulchritude into question, this time in a review of the movie Frankenstein. Describing “the Creature,” Burchill said: “It’s a very new look for the Creature—no bolts in the neck or flat-tap hairdo—and I think it works; it’s a lot like Stephen Berkoff, only marginally better-looking.”

Berkoff sued for defamation. The issue was whether calling someone hideous-looking is a defamatory statement capable of injuring a person’s reputation. The appellate court answered affirmatively.

The court said a jury could “conclude that in the context the remarks about Mr. Berkoff gave the impression that he was not merely physically unattractive but actually repulsive” and that this could injure Berkoff’s ability to make a living by “lowering his standing in the estimation of the public … [by] making him an object of ridicule.”

Is truth a defense? He looks okay in this picture (photo by Getty, borrowed from The Telegraph).

Berkoff v. Burchill, [1996] 4 All E.R. 1008 (Ct. App. 1996). Thanks to Heiner O. Mommsen.

The Encyclopedic Footnote of Pop Culture (Kozinski)

U.S. Ninth Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski is well known for sprinkling pop culture references throughout his opinions, particularly in the famous Syufy opinion, which wove in the titles of more than 200 movies. (See “Coming Soon to a Footnote Near You”)

A less noticed, but just as fun pop culture-laden opinion was his dissent to an order denying rehearing en banc in White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a case where the Ninth Circuit upheld a “right of publicity” claim by former game show hostess Vanna White against Samsung for using a robot resembling her game show persona in a television commercial.

Complaining that, “[u]nder the majority’s opinion, it’s now a tort for advertisers to remind the public of a celebrity,” Kozinski excoriated the court for over-extending intellectual property rights in an opinion jammed full of pop culture references.

(That’s one thing to love about Kozinski’s writing: he can be pithy, insightful, and amusing in less than twenty words.)

Pop culture ran amuck in a single footnote (footnote 6) that includes references to (in order): grunge rocker Tad Doyle, the Hell’s Angels, Marvel Comics, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Breakfast of Champions, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The Coca-Cola Kid, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Wonder Years, Wonder Bread, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, dada, Monty Python, Roy Clark, Mel Tillis, the Talking Heads, Andy Warhol, REO Speedwagon, 38 Special, Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys.

White v. Samsung Elec. Am., Inc., 989 F.2d 1512, 1512 n.6, 1514 (9th Cir. 1993) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from order denying rehearing en banc). Thanks to Katherine Shipman.

The Never-Ending Story of Bill Clinton’s Sex Life (Kozinski)

Where do scandals go when they die? They travel upwards, of course … to a U.S. Court of Appeals. At least if they’re scandals involving the saga of President Bill Clinton’s sexcapades.

U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski faced an appeal in a defamation suit filed by former lounge-singer Gennifer Flowers against Hillary Rodham Clinton, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. With that cast of characters (including Judge K), you know it’s going to be an interesting opinion.

This is an opinion to be admired as much for its lucidity as its colorful take on the events. Here’s a taste from the opening paragraphs (some paragraph breaks inserted):

Long after the public spotlight has moved on in search of fresh intrigue, the lawyers remain. And so we find ourselves adjudicating a decade-old dispute between Gennifer Flowers and what she affectionately refers to as the “Clinton smear machine”: James Carville, George Stephanopoulos and Hillary Clinton. Flowers charges that said machine destroyed her reputation by painting her as a fraud and a liar after she dis-closed her affair with Bill Clinton. We decide whether Flowers’s claims are timely and, if so, whether they survive a motion to dismiss.

Background and Proceedings Below

In the heat of the 1992 presidential primary campaign, the Star—that ubiquitous supermarket source for celebrity scandal—ran a story claiming that Bill Clinton had carried on an affair with an Arkansas woman named Gennifer Flowers. Clinton and Flowers both denied it at first, but a few days later Flowers (doubtless realizing that honesty is the best policy after all) sold her story to the Star.

Clinton continued vigorously denying the allegations and appeared on 60 Minutes with his wife to say they weren’t true. The following day, Flowers responded by holding a press conference where she played recordings of intimate phone calls from Clinton that she’d secretly taped. Later news reports suggested that the tapes may have been selectively edited.

According to Flowers, Hillary Clinton and her two “henchmen,” George Stephanopoulos and James Carville, conspired to protect Bill Clinton’s presidential candidacy from Flowers’s damaging revelations. Flowers claims that during the 1992 campaign and in later political memoirs and interviews, Carville and Stephanopoulos defamed her and painted her in a false light by claiming that she had lied in her story to the Star and “doctored” the tape-recorded phone calls.

Hillary Clinton, the alleged mastermind of the conspiracy, not only orchestrated the defamatory exploits, but also exposed private information about Flowers and organized break-ins of her residence. Flowers claims that, as a result of all this schemery, her reputation has wilted and her blossoming career as a Las Vegas lounge singer has been nipped in the bud.

It’s like the beginning of an intriguing political spy novel you want to keep reading. In the not-as-exciting climax, the Ninth Circuit panel felt compelled under the law to reverse the district court, which had dismissed all of Flowers’ claims.

Meanwhile, Kozinski gave us another Syufy-type mystery (see “Coming Soon to a Footnote Near You!”) by burying an amusing reference in one of the citations. I won’t spoil the mystery. See if you can find it.

Flowers v. Carville, 310 F.3d 1118, 1122 (9th Cir. 2002) (Kozinski, J.). Thanks to Elise Hendrick .

Must-Read Musmanno (Musmanno)

Michael Musmanno

Justice Michael Musmanno, a Lawhaha.com Hall of Famer

Any fan of judicial opinion writing needs to study the opinions of the Honorable Michael A. Musmanno (1897-1968). He led a remarkable life. Before joining the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Justice Musmanno enjoyed an illustrious career as a lawyer, U.S. Congressman and author. Highlights of his career include serving as the presiding judge at the Nuremberg war crime trials and as a defense lawyer in the Sacco & Vanzetti trial.

His opinions are marvelous concoctions of deep-hearted passion and brutal common sense, delivered in highly literate and often hilarious prose.

U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski, another notable opinion-writer,  reported to Lawhaha.com that Musmanno has been his model since law school and that he consciously tries to emulate Musmanno’s writing. He laments that today’s law school graduates have never heard of Musmanno and return only blank stares when his name is mentioned.

Here are a couple samples of Musmanno’s writing sent by Chris Nace:

In Bosley v. Andrews, a woman sued a neighbor whose cows trespassed on her farmland to eat her crops. After being chased away in the morning, the “bovine buccaneers,” as Musmanno called them, returned for lunch. “This time they came, eight of them, with reinforcements. They brought along their boy friend, a 1500-pound Hereford white-faced bull.” The bull took chase after the plaintiff, causing her to suffer a heart attack.

A majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the woman’s claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress damages, following the traditional rule that such a claim cannot be maintained in the absence of a “physical impact” with the plaintiff (the bull never actually touched the plaintiff).

In dissent, Musmanno skewered the majority for what he saw as an unjust result, closing his opinion by stating that the majority’s approach “is unsupportable in law, logic, and elementary justice – and I shall continue to dissent from it until the cows come home.”

In Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Bravo Enterprises, Inc., the plaintiff sought to enjoin a bullfight, but the majority held that the organization lacked standing. Musmanno began his impassioned dissent:

If there is one commodity of which there is no need for a further supply, it is violence. If there is one school that the world can afford to miss, it is one for the tutoring of methods of violence, brutality and cruelty. … [W]e can well do without a bullfight which is nothing less than an open air lyceum in the art of torturing helpless animals.

Add Justice Musmanno to your list of “four dead people with whom you would most like to have dinner.”

Bosley v. Andrews, 142 A. 2d 263, 267–68, 280 (Pa. 1958) (Musmanno, J., dissenting); Pa. Soc’y for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Bravo Enterprises, Inc., 237 A. 2d 342 (Pa. 1968) (Musmanno, J., dissenting). Thanks to Chris Nace.

Last Tango in Asparagus (Musmanno)

In a classic slip and fall case, plaintiff Joseph Rosenberg slipped on asparagus while dancing at a wedding reception with his sister-in-law and fellow plaintiff, Ruth Schwartz.

The issue was whether the defendant caterer had negligently spilled the asparagus on the dance floor. The trial judge had dismissed the lawsuit on theory that the offending asparagus could have been unwittingly transported onto the dance floor after becoming entrapped in the apparel of the dancers.

As with many of the judicial opinions posted on Lawhaha.com, brief excerpts don’t do this case justice. My favorite part is how the legendary Justice Michael Angelo Musmanno of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court bluntly and rather contemptuously rejected the trial judge’s theory of how the asparagus (which according to testimony formed a puddle three feet in diameter) got on the dance floor (some paragraph breaks inserted):

The trial judge, an ex-veteran congressman and thus a habitue of formal parties and accordingly an expert in proper wearing apparel at such functions, all of which he announced from the bench, allowed testimony as to the raiment worn by the banquetters.

All the men were attired in tuxedos, the pants of which were not mounted with cuffs which could transport asparagus and sauce to the dance floor, unwittingly to lubricate its polished surface. Ruling out the cuffs of the tuxedo pants as transporters of the asparagus, the judge suggested the asparagus, with its accompanying sauce, could have been conveyed to the dance floor by ‘women’s apparel, on men’s coats or sleeves, or by a guest as he table hopped.’

The Judge’s conclusions are as far-fetched as going to Holland for hollandaise sauce. There was no evidence in the case that anybody table hopped; it is absurd to assume that a man’s coat or sleeve could scoop up enough asparagus and sauce to inundate a dance floor to the extent of a three-foot circumference; and it is bizarre to conjecture that a woman’s dress without pockets and without excessive material could latch on to such a quantity of asparagus, carry it 20 feet (the distance from the tables to the dance floor) and still have enough dangling to her habiliments to cover the floor to such a depth as to fell a 185 pound gentleman with 35 years’ dancing experience who had never before been tackled or grounded while shuffling the light fantastic.

It can be stated as an incontrovertible legal proposition that anyone attending a dinner dance has the inalienable right to expect that, if asparagus is to be served, it will be served on the dinner table and not on the dance floor.

Judgment reversed with a procedendo.

Chief Justice Bell dissented:

 One cannot help wondering if plaintiffs had, in the alleged 35 years of dancing, ever been to any dance, let alone a wedding banquet dance. … A dancer cannot, with legal sanction, look only into the captivating eyes of his lovely partner.

 I certainly dissent.

Schwartz v. Warwick-Philadelphia Corp., 226 A.2d 484, 485–87, 488 (Pa. 1967). Thanks to Janet Heydt.

Law Professor Exposes Phony Tort Cases

Jonathan Turley

Professor Jonathan Turley exposed phony outlandish tort cases.

Although several years old, Professor Jonathan Turley’s USA Today article exposing phony tort cases remains must-reading for anyone concerned about the tort reform movement. Why? Because people are still circulating these tall tales.

You know those crazy tort lawsuits you read about, the ones that make people indignant about the tort sytem, the ones politicians and tort reformers use to build public support for the movement, the ones that get endlessly forwarded to email inboxes?

They’re crazy, to be sure. But, one problem. A lot of the most notorious cases are fabricated, as Turley explored in his article.

The notorious–but apparently fictitious winning-plaintiffs–and their outlandish “cases” include:

• Kathleen Robertson, a woman who–imagine this–received a $780,000 jury award against a furniture store after she tripped over her own son.

• Carl Truman, who won a $74,000 judgment after his hand was run over by a neighbor. The neighbor could not see Truman because he was kneeling down while in the process of stealing the neighbor’s hubcaps.

• Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pa., a man who received a $500,000 award against a garage-door manufacturer after he almost starved while trapped in the garage of a house he was burglarizing while the family was on vacation.

• And my personal favorite, a Mr. Grazinski, who won more than $1,750,000 against Winnebago when the RV he was driving went off the road after he put it on cruise control at 70 mph to go into the back to fix a cup of coffee.

Turley was unable to track down records showing that any of these, or several other notorious crazy lawsuits, actually existed.

It should be more than a little troubling to people that state legislatures have passed thousands of tort reform statutes throwing out 200 years of carefully considered common law (judge-made law) in part based on sound-bite reporting of cases that never happened.

— Jonathan Turley, Legal Myths: Hardly the Whole Truth, USA Today, Jan. 30, 2005.

Knocking Down Worshipper Not an “Act of God”

churchThe intersection of church and tort law is an interesting area. For the most part, courts–wisely so–have been reluctant to entangle tort law with church and religion except in cases of intentional physical batteries.  In Bass v. Aetna Ins. Co., the court had to decide whether “trotting under the Spirit of the Lord” in church, with the result of running into and injuring the plaintiff, was actionable or a protected “Act of God.”

Plaintiff attended the Shepard’s Fold Church in Louisiana, where moving or running in the aisles “in the Spirit” apparently is a common practice. During a revival, a fellow worshiper ran down the aisle where plaintiff was kneeling and praying and knocked her down, causing injury. Plaintiff sued for negligence.

At trial, the defendant testified he was “‘trotting’ under the Spirit of the Lord” and was not in control of his actions at the time of the collision. He raised “Act of God” as a defense and also asserted the plaintiff assumed the risk of the collision and was contributorily negligent. For non-legals, an Act of God under law is a harm-causing force of nature, such as a tornado or flood, the consequences of which humans generally are not held responsible for.

The trial court dismissed the case, finding that the plaintiff assumed the risk of the collision by praying in the aisle with her eyes closed, a decision affirmed by the court of appeals. But the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed.

The West headnote writers summed up the holdings succinctly:

[1] Negligence: Notwithstanding that worshiper testified he was trotting under the Spirit of the Lord, “Act of God” defense did not apply in action by worshiper who was injured while praying in the aisle against second worshiper who was running in church inasmuch as “Act of God” meant force majeure.

[14] Religious Societies: It is not contributory negligence to bow one’s head while praying in church, whether in the pew or in the aisle.

Bass v. Aetna Ins. Co., 370 So. 2d 511 (La. 1979). Thanks to a fellow Torts professor.

Palsgraf Curse?

Palsgraf curse

Cardozo wrote the famous majority opinion in Palsgraf.

Several lawhaha visitors sent in Mark Fass’s article in the New York Law Journal about an alleged curse on the family of Helen Palsgraf, the most famous torts plaintiff in history. Every lawyer remembers Mrs. P from law school. To test this theory, visit an elderly, dying lawyer in a coma and shout “Palsgraf!” Immediately, he will recite: “A man carrying a box wrapped in newspaper boarded a train at the Long Island Railroad Station … cough, cough … ack.”

The box contained fireworks. When it was dislodged by employees of the Long Island Railroad trying to help the man on the train, the fireworks exploded, allegedly knocking a scale onto Mrs. P. Mrs. P’s saga led to the legendary, and incredibly confusing, opinions by Judge Benjamin Cardozo (that’s Cardozo in the picture–handsome fellow he was) and Judge William Andrews studied by students year in and year out at law schools great and small.

Now Fass reports that Mrs. P’s accident began a curse on the Palsgraf family, at least that’s what some of her descendants believe. One descendant fell off a ladder in 1965 and sued the manufacturer, but never made it to trial because the ladder was stolen. Another lost her thumb when a ping-pong table collapsed. A lawsuit led to a small settlement. Another descendent tripped while jogging over a broken curb, but was discouraged by lawyers from filing suit.

The most intriguing Palsfraf mishap reported by Fass involves a descendant who lost control of his truck on an icy hill in 1968. The truck slid towards the edge of cliff. Guess what saved the life of Mrs. P’s closest living relative? The truck’s wheels got caught on a track of … you guessed it, the Long Island Railroad. (Cue Twilight Zone theme.)

— Mark Fass, Palsgraf Railroad Injury Proximate Cause of Family Curse?, New York Law Journal, Dec. 10, 2004.

Mrs. Palsgraf is Alive, in the U.S. Supreme Court

PalsgrafAs a Torts prof, I loved this tidbit sent in by Elise Hendrick. Good old Mrs. Palsgraf. You can try, but you can’t keep her down.

Elise was listening to oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Exxon Co. USA v. Sofec, 116 S.Ct. 1813 (1996), and came across the following exchange between George Playdon, counsel for Sofec, and Justice Scalia. The two were engaged in a colloquy about the maritime supervening cause doctrine:

Scalia: I’m not sure that you need a “doctrine of supervening cause.” Is a doctrine of supervening cause anything other than Palsgraf? When you say, you know, that the negligence … the causality … had long since terminated. Once you say you’re out of the scope of the risk, what do you need a doctrine of supervening cause for? And isn’t that basically your case?

Playdon (chuckling): I smile—I never envisioned thirty years ago that I’d have the opportunity …

Scalia: Of arguing Palsgraf!

Playdon (stammering, laughing): Obviously, Palsgraf is a foreseeability doctrine, just like Hadley v. Baxendale is a foreseeability problem.

Elise speculates that this may have been the first time the implausible case of Mrs. P has been mentioned in court since Palsgraf was decided in 1928.

— Thanks to Elise Hendrick.

Poor Poor “Poopi” the Poodle

pet malpracticePoopi the poodle and her owners sued their veterinarian after Poopi underwent anesthesia for teeth cleaning and woke up with a three-inch scar on her abdomen. The vet mistakenly tried to spay Poopi, even though she had already been spayed as a puppy.

Poopi’s owners sought emotional distress damages for themselves as well as for Poopi, including expenses for Poopi’s psychological care. Plaintiffs conceded that under Ohio law dogs are considered to be personal property, but argued that the court should “do the right thing” by distinguishing pets from inanimate objects. They quoted from a law review article that equated the death of a “companion animal” to “the wrongful killing of any other family member.”

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the trial judge, which had rejected the claim, although one member of the appellate panel concurred “reluctantly” and suggested that the legislature consider allowing damages for tortious injuries to pets.

Now that the suit has been wrapped up, perhaps Poopi should consult independent counsel about the possibility of pursuing emotional distress of having to go through life named “Poopi.”

— Oberschlake v. Veterinary Assoc. Animal Hosp., 785 N.E.2d 811 (Ohio Ct. App. 2003).


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