It’s the season to reprise those two holiday favorites from the Harmless Error vault:
Santa Suit — The children of the world file a class action lawsuit seeking redress for perceived grievances against the man in the red suit. (Caroline Kennedy selected this column for inclusion in her A Family Christmas anthology.)
Santa Strikes Back — Turns out the jolly one has his own issues about his Christmas job. Mightily ticked off, he files his own lawsuit.
Enjoy and Happy Holidays from Lawhaha.com!
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.
The “Companion Text” to Law School: Understanding and Surviving Life with a Law Student has been named one of the Amazon Editors’ Favorite Books of the Year. Pretty cool.
My law school prep book, 1L of a Ride, gets a lot more attention, but my book written for the loved ones of law students–The “Companion Text” to Law School: Understanding and Surviving Life with a Law Student (West 2012)–got a nice shout-out on Paul Caron’s popular TaxProf blog.
Thanks to Al Sturgeon, Dean of Students at Pepperdine Law, for his insightful take on my chapter called Eight Things to NEVER Say to a Law Student, which include:
If you’re attending or planning to attend law school and want your loved ones to understand your crazy, stressful journey, check out The “Companion Text” to Law School. Here’s the Table of Contents.
A fleeing bank robber made the mistake of seeking refuge in his 94-year-old great-grandmother’s home with pursuers hot on his trail. When the police arrived, the only ones present were the accused and great-grandma. At trial, the defendant, Mr. Jones, elected to represent himself, never a good idea.
The prosecution called his great-grandma as a witness. To say she wasn’t happy about the proceedings and, in particular, the conduct of her great-grandson would understate her disenchantment with sitting in the witness box.
We’ll let her explain. Here’s the text of page 209 of the trial transcript shown in the photo, where she concludes her testimony:
THE WITNESS: He’s a sick ass, that’s what he is.
THE COURT: The record will reflect that she’s identified Mr. Jones.
…
THE WITNESS: Have me dragging out in the cold in the wintertime and everything and shit.
THE COURT: Mr. Jones, did you have any questions?
DEFENDANT JONES (the great-grandson): No.
THE COURT: All right. You may step down.
THE WITNESS: And since when did he get a law degree? Dumbass.
THE BAILIFF: Ma’am, you’re finished, okay?
THE WITNESS: Damn right. Get the hell out of here and get back home.
THE BAILIFF: Okay, you don’t need to say anything else, okay?
Law degree or not, give the great-grandson credit for the smart strategy decision not to cross-examine. Small wonder the prosecutor described the great-grandmother as “one of the most entertaining witnesses this writer has ever encountered” in the state’s appellate brief.
— Trial Transcript, State of Ohio v. Jones, Case No. 2014CA-00051, at 209 (Ohio 5th Ct. App.). Thanks to Laura Ozak.
For Halloween, we reprise Hogwarts Torts, a Harmless Error column fan favorite, detailing the torts inflicted on poor young Harry Potter.
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.
A former student of mine at the Florida International University College of Law sent this along, his entry for “Best Case Name of the Month.”
This month’s contestant is Wise v. Strong, 341 S.W.2d 633, 634 (Mo. Ct. App. 1960).
Spoiler alert: Strong wins. Strong always wins. *Tear.
Send along any entries you come up with!
–Thanks to Michael Hirschkowitz.
One doesn’t have to look far to find criticism of law professors for spending such a large portion of their time writing long, heavily foonoted, sleep-inducing law review articles. We even poke fun at ourselves for it, Exhibit A being The World’s Greatest Law Review Article.
But law review articles can and do have an impact. Have to share the good news that my proposal for a statutory presumption of elder financial exploitation in my recent Hastings Law Journal article, Preying on the Graying: A Statutory Presumption to Prosecute Elder Financial Exploitation, was signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott on June 20. The proposal passed unanimously through every legislative committee and both the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate, showing that at least some bipartisan issues still exist.
The article arose from a cruel financial exploitation incident involving our remarkable dad shortly before he passed away last year. He’s shown here during WWII.
On October 1, 2014, when the law takes effect, prosecutors in Florida will have several more tools at their disposal. In addition to my presumption statute, the new law (HB 409/Offenses Against Vulnerable Persons) creates the nation’s only elder hearsay exception and eliminates the requirement of proving deception or intimidation in elder exploitation cases.
Elder financial exploitation is a problem of enormous scope and growing rapidly as baby boomers age. The crimes are notoriously underreported and under-prosecuted, often due to the same factors that make older adults vulnerable to exploitation in the first place. If you care about this issue and know a legislator in your state, contact them and let them know they can help by supporting legislation similar to Florida’s.
In the meantime, watch after your own elders. Don’t make the mistake of assuming they are immune to exploitation. We would have voted our father to be the World’s Most Unlikely Victim.
… at least that’s what these two signs seem to be indicating.
–Thanks to Gary Golden.