Calling All Lawyers! A Contest ...

As young articling students years ago, a group of us had a contest to see who could work the most ancient citation in to a bit of paying business, in a manner that was not overly contrived (that is, it was actually a useful cite for some reason). I was the front-runner for a while with a cite mentioning the Magna Carta (in a reference dealing with reform of the laws dealing with financial guardianship), but I lost out … I can’t remember what cite won, but I think it was a cite to the Code of Justinian. :smiley:

[Cites to the religious texts were disqualified]

Anyone want to play? What’s the most ancient reference you have seen in a case, or used yourself?

Wasn’t Hammurabi around in 1700ish BC?

Something like that. Did you work in a reference to the laws of Hammurabi? If so, that would be tough to beat … :wink:

Just the other day I filed a brief citing three laws from the time of Edward III, which are still in force and were germane to the topic of my brief.

Not a lawyer, but this is interesting. I keyed in Justinian Code + Supreme Court; and got this among others;

In the Pennock case (1829) Justice Story attempted to answer this by invoking Sir Edward Coke as an authority on the English Statute of Monopolies (1624).

One of the 1st Code’s I learned of when I took Criminal law in College.

Cool! Without betraying any confidences, can you tell us what in general terms the topic was?

The best cite I know of (not, alas, anything I had anything to do with) is from our Canadian Supreme Court in a case on punitive damages, Whitten & Pilot Insurance:

Work that into a brief and you are golden. :smiley:

I think the winner would have to be a citation to the law of gravity. It goes way back.

What about the seminal case of Finders v. Keepers?

Let me just add that I will never be a great lawyer because I am simply not nerdy enough.

I’ve said too much already.

[checks nervously over his shoulder for the Plantagenet Police]

We gotta get our fun somehow. :wink:

I have cited the* Corpus Juris Civilus* a few times and I have read a brief with Code of Ur-Nammu cited.
The earliest case that I have ever personally cited was one from the 14th century, Court of Common Pleas.

Missed Edit window.

Specifically it was these clauses of the Ur-nammu code.

1
[QUOTE=wiki]
8. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out ½ a mina of silver. (15)
19. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels. (16)
20. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver. (17)
21. If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver. (18)
22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver. (19)
[/QUOTE]

It was a Personal Injury case.

I think the oldest I’ve used is *Lampleigh v. Brathwait *[1615] EWHC KB J 17.

I didn’t really use it in a case; rather, I used it to explain to a client why I needed a retainer.

How many shekels of silver was the plaintiff asking for? :wink:

It was a personal injury case as a result of a car accident. The plaintiff suffered loss of mobility and quality of life. At the trial the Court found for her and granted damages for both heads of loss equally. At appeal the Defendant (more accurately her insurance company) argued against the quantum, saying that precedent was that awards could be quantified for actual specific injury and not for unspecific quality of life issues and that different amounts for different types of injuries.After oral argument, the court allowed some additional written briefs. This cite was in one of the footnotes, to the effect that “we have always had different amounts awarded for different injuries”,see here.

The Appeal was dismissed. With costs. No idea if there was any linkage.

That ruling was overturned in the landmark decision Rubber v. Glue.