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

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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.

No Cash Here, Just Blood and Urine

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Not a legal warning, but an interesting notice posted on a lock box at a local medical facility: “No Drugs or Money Kept in Box; Blood and Urine Specimens Only.”

Probably effective unless, of course, it’s encountered by someone actually looking to steal blood or urine samples, in which case it’s an invitation.  Of course, that’s silly because no one would ever want to steal a blood or urine sample.

Or would they?  (Spoiler alert:  The link leads to an article about a man who stole his wife’s urine to submit as a sample, leading to the revelation the man was pregnant.)

 

The Amazing One-Day Warranty

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“Hurry up and break!”

That’s what you might be saying to your new “Mini Garment Steamer” if you read the User’s Manual and come across this one-day warranty:

“If your product has a manufacture defect, we want to improve your using experience by giving you a replacement or refund.  For a minimum of 1 day after the date purchase, we promise to cover any manufacture defects your product may have.”  (Bold added.)

There are some other warranties in the manual, so this appears to be more a case of poor drafting than an effort to limit consumer remedies.  After all, it doesn’t say a “maximum” of one day; only a minimum.

For further evidence of that conclusion, we offer this warning, also found in the User’s Manual:

So if you’re weak, sluggish, mentally disabled, lack experience with mini garment steamers, or just don’t have any common sense, avoid this product.

Halloween Law

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Not Randy Maniloff

Randy Maniloff has penned an interesting piece for the Wall Street Journal on what he calls the “Halloween Exception” to established legal principles.  Randy–a leading expert on Halloween law, the “baseball rule,” and other legal topics too numerous to list–discusses several instances where judges have departed from traditional legal principles to facilitate Halloween traditions.

In other words, on Halloween you can get away with mischief that would be criminal or tortious in other seasons.  Fascinating.

Here’s one of his examples:

It’s a great read!  Check it out.

In other Halloween-related legal news, a former student explored the legal implications of insurance coverage for decomposing bodies in a Facebook post.  His research led him to conclude that a decomposing body does not qualify as an “explosion” under an insurance policy, but–good news!–is not excluded from coverage under a “pollution exclusion” in a policy.

Happy Halloween from Lawhaha.com!

Caution: Don’t Eat Gum From Urinal

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This is one of those head-scratchers that leaves you wondering whether it’s fake news because it just seems too bizarre, even by wacky warning standards.  Let’s assume, probably justifiably, that there are indeed people who eat gum from urinals.  Are there really enough of them to warrant a laminated “Caution” sign?  And do people really need a warning not to do it?

“Dang, I was going to eat that piece of gum someone spit out that maybe a hundred people have peed on.  It’s a good thing I saw the sign in time!”

The image appears to be real (that is, not photoshopped), but I don’t know where it originated.  A person in my area posted it on the Next Door app, with the comment, “There’s one in every crowd.”  Don’t know if she took the picture.

Publish or Perish: “Get Me Off Your F****** Mailing List”

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After reading a rundown on the day’s latest depressing news, it was a true joy to come across this Vox article about this real article accepted for publication in an “academic journal.”

In academia, it’s publish or perish.  Good teaching is important, but it won’t get you promoted or tenured without publishing.  To assist academics on their climb up the steps of the ivory tower, professors in all disciplines are constantly bombarded with email from dubiously credentialed sources offering to publish their books and articles.

As the Vox article explains, this classic work, Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List, was actually accepted for publication by something called the “International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology.”  The ten-page article is nothing but the sentence, Get me off your fucking mailing list, repeated hundreds of times.

If it’s over your head, as much of the best academic stuff can be, no worries.  The authors included this helpful flow chart explaining the whole thing.

Oven Requires Waiving Your Legal Rights Before Using

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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.

Warning: Sign Tells Robbers to “Have a Nice Day”

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I’ve always heard that folks in Virginia are nice, and here’s proof, a warning sign to criminals in the window of a Sonic restaurant near the Norfolk airport:

Attention Robbers

Time Delay Safe

Have a nice Day.

I take issue with the unnecessary capitalization of “Day,” and I suppose if they were super-nice, they could have put an exclamation point at the end instead of period.  But this is quibbling.

Warning: Diarrhea? Keep the Gate Closed

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Like the old Certs commercial, “It’s two, two signs in one!”

Were they trying to save money by combining these two unrelated instructions on one sign?  Or maybe they really were telling people with diarrhea to keep the gate closed, especially the sphincter gate.

(And do they really think people who have had diarrhea within the past two weeks are going to follow this instruction?)

–Thanks to Randy Maniloff.

Law Review Humor – Ode to the Bluebook

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As faculty advisor to a law review, I deliver opening remarks at the law review’s annual banquet.  Mostly these consist of giving thanks to the graduating law review members for their dedication and hard work.  They devote thousands of hours each year to painstakingly selecting, editing, formatting, proofing and–of course, cite-checking–scholarly articles.

Cite-checking requires mastering The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a ridiculously-but-addictively complex 560-page manual of rules for referencing legal authorities.  (See The World’s Greatest Law Review Article.)

This year I tried to add levity to my remarks with some words of wisdom incorporating every “introductory signal” from Rule 1.2 of The Bluebook and throwing in a few “short-form” citation rules.  (If you are not a law review or Bluebook geek, this will make no sense at all.)

Corny, but it went over well, maybe because law review students are starved for frivolity.