Andrew McClurg's

Medical Students Beat Law Students in Song Parody Match-Up

Adding to the ongoing battle for supremacy between the two dominant professions–law and medicine–Lawhaha.com seeks your input as to who does the best song parodies, law students or medical students? Many examples of each populate YouTube, so I just picked the two with the most views.

They’re both impressive and hilarious in my view, but I give the nod to the med students in this particular Fight Club Doctor-Lawyer Parody Video Match-Up.

Law Students (Law School parody of Payphone by Maroon 5)

Medical Students (I Don’t Know parody of Let it Go from Frozen)

I argued in a law review article that doctors and lawyers should learn to work together out of self-interest. They need each other. Public esteem in all professions is on the decline. Lawyers and doctors shouldn’t contribute to it by bashing each other. And both groups are already stressed out enough. Studies show members of both professions suffer high depression, substance abuse and even suicide rates. The stress starts early, as you can see in both of these videos. Indeed, it’s arguably the main theme of both.

Great job by both groups in creating these fun stress relievers for others. Long live Medico-Legal humor (new category I just made up)!

Baby Showers with Guns

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)

Warning: Dogs to the Left, Horses to the Right

So sorry to see my friend and colleague move to Switzerland, but on the upside, Lawhaha.com has a great new source of pictorial instructional and warnings signs, which we love (as shown by a few examples here, here, here, here, here, here). Remember that the goal of a pictorial warning is to advise of risks or deliver instructions to persons who cannot read or understand the written warning.

Here we have a sign at a swimming beach for dogs and horses. That’s the first thing to note: Switzerland actually has swimming beaches for dogs and horses. A recent worldwide survey showed the Swiss are the happiest people in the world. The dogs and horses must be absolutely beside themselves.

As for the substance of the sign, it is instructing that dogs swim to the left and horses to the right. For non-Swiss readers, would you have known that is what the sign is attempting to convey?

–Thanks to Pat Crowell.

Motion to F*** This Court

… and Everything It Stands For.

As bad as the title to this motion is, the content is even worse. I’m sure you can find the entire motion somewhere online, but Lawhaha.com, as we know, is a family friendly website.

Gee, I wonder if the motion was granted.

Warning: No Hunting within 100 Feet of Trail

Went for a wonderful hike over the weekend with a friend in a state park. It’s a really nice park with well-maintained, well-used hiking trails.

And it was comforting to note that they take visitor safety seriously, as shown by this sign at the trail head:

NO HUNTING WITHIN 100 FEET OF TRAIL

Surely one hundred feet is a more than adequate safety margin for hunting around hikers. After all, how far could a bullet possibly travel?

Well, that’s where there might be a problem. A bullet fired from an average deer-hunting rifle, say a 30-06, has a maximum range of 5,675 yards–or 3.22 miles.

Pictorial Warnings from Picturesque Italy

We love pictorial warnings at Lawhaha.com, as shown here, here, here, here, here, here, and several other places. Remember that the goal of a pictorial warning is to advise of risks or deliver instructions to persons who cannot read or understand the written warning. So in trying to figure them out, you have to set aside the textual versions that usually accompany pictorial warnings.

Europe, with free travel among so many people of different cultures and languages, relies more heavily on pictorial warnings than the United States.

Here we have a sign from Italy with six pictorial warnings/instructions. Which ones can you figure out without consulting the accompanying text?

Me? Going left to right starting at the top row, I’d say:

1. The first (no dumping trash on the ground) is reasonably clear.

2. The second (no camping) is not clear. Maybe it could be used for “No public sex,” as it looks kind of like one person lying on top of another. Just don’t see the camping angle.

3. The third (no eating near monuments) may work, but it raises the question, “Why can’t you eat near monuments?” Probably because: go back to number one. Eaters leave trash. But dilution of impact results with the proliferation of warnings and instructions. The more there are, the less likely people pay attention to any of them.

4. They could have done a better job with the fourth one (do not smear or deface). The figure could be spraying bug repellant or air freshener or anything. But more important, picture a person with a can of spray paint prepared to tag monuments. He sees the sign. Is it really going to change his mind? “Oh, I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to deface the monuments with spray paint. I came all the way out here for nothing.”

5. In the fifth one (no bathing in fountains), I can’t get past laughing at the little doggie in the picture. He’s really cute, but what is he doing there? And the guy looks like he’s taking an actual bath. The canine is probably there to indicate no dog-bathing in fountains, but it still cracks me up.

6. The sixth one (do not go bare-chested in public) does not compute because the diagonal “do not ever this”-slash covers the entire image, which includes one person wearing a bathing suit top. Looks more like “No hand-holding” or “No couples.”

So, maybe three out of six would be my scoring. What do you think?

–Thanks to Pat Crowell.

Warning: No Protection in Texas from Dangerous Farm Animal Activities

From Texas comes this warning sign that:

A farm animal professional is not liable for an injury to or the death of a participant in farm animal activities resulting from the inherent risk of farm animal activities.

First, we notice the evolution of the term “professional” in modern society. Originally, there were only three professions: clergy, lawyers, and doctors. Over time, the number of groups laying claim to the title of a “professional” has expanded to include architects, engineers, pharmacists, et cetera. Add to that list “farm animal professionals.”

Not sure of the history of the referenced statute, but it would be interesting to see if the dangerous “farm animal activities” that relieve farm animal professionals from death or injury is defined. Logically, those activities would include things like mules kicking, horses rearing, bulls charging, and the like.

But what if the farm animal professional has notice of the animal’s dangerous propensity? Does this change the result under the statute? (It might. I haven’t looked at it.) Or what if, following in Gary Larson’s Far Side footsteps, the farm animals band together and decide to participate in more dangerous activities, such as racing all-terrain vehicles or shooting off fireworks?

–Thanks to Peter Dawson.

The Law School of Rock

Believe it or not, lawyers like to rock. You’d be surprised by the number of lawyer musicians. Here’s a psychedelic nugget from the sixties as performed by my cover band, The Rants. Believe it or not, our band plays for tens of dollars in a single night.

Where the First and Second Amendments Intersect

Exercise your First and Second Amendment rights in the same place.

Former student Ben Wilkins took a trip to Somerville, Tennessee to search through deeds from decades past. Now that’s genuine, old-fashioned lawyering.

While there, he snapped this picture, astutely noting that he’d found a place where one can exercise their First and Second Amendment rights at the same time.

–Thanks to Ben Wilkins.

Warning: Pacemakers and Chainsaws Bad Mix

The highlighted warning in this image sounds like a joke, but it’s part of a real set of FAQs on a pacemaker information site.

Overall, it’s good news. You can use a lawn mower and other power tools with a pacemaker, but not chainsaws:

Can I use a chainsaw?

Chainsaws are hard to operate at a safe distance from your chest pacemaker. They should be avoided altogether.

Hard to argue with the factual assertion. The user would either: (1) have to rip the pacemaker out of his chest and leave it in the house; (2) set the chainsaw up in the backyard, start it, and run like hell; or (3) tap in to Rubber Man’s secret.