# Calling All Lawyers! A Contest ... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 21, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848 "2013-10-21T18:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/1 "2013-10-21T18:44:53Z")
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. 😃 [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? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/2 "2013-10-21T19:09:16Z")
Wasn’t Hammurabi around in 1700ish BC? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/3 "2013-10-21T19:11:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > 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 … 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/4 "2013-10-21T19:33:54Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![lawbuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@lawbuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawbuff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/5 "2013-10-21T19:37:02Z")
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). > **[Should the U.S. Supreme Court Cite Foreign Precedents? | History News ...](http://hnn.us/article/23499)** > > \ The use of foreign law in U.S. courts continues to be in the news. Justice Antonin Scalia has been a forthright spokesman against outsourcing American law to foreign authorities. In contrast, other justices have expressed an openness to foreign... ---
**Author:** ![lawbuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@lawbuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawbuff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/6 "2013-10-21T19:38:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Wasn’t Hammurabi around in 1700ish BC? One of the 1st Code’s I learned of when I took Criminal law in College. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/7 "2013-10-21T19:39:37Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > 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. Cool! Without betraying any confidences, can you tell us what in general terms the topic was? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/8 "2013-10-21T19:42:32Z")
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: > [@](#): > > 41 Long before the days of Lord Pratt C.J., the related idea of condemning a defendant to a multiple of what is required for compensation (in the present appeal, as stated, the punitive damages were roughly triple the award of compensatory damages) reached back to the Code of Hammurabi, Babylonian law, Hittite law (1400 B.C.), the Hindu Code of Manu (200 B.C.), ancient Greek codes, the Ptolemaic law in Egypt and the Hebrew Covenant Code of Mosaic law (see Exodus 22:1 “If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep”). Roman law also included provisions for multiple damages. Admittedly, in these early systems, criminal law and civil law were not always clearly differentiated. The United States Supreme Court in BMW, supra, referred at p. 581 to “65 different enactments [in English statutes] during the period between 1275 and 1753 [that] provided for double, treble, or quadruple damages”. > **[2002 SCC 18 (CanLII) | Whiten v. Pilot Insurance Co. | CanLII](https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2002/2002scc18/2002scc18.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAJaGFtbXVyYWJpAAAAAAE)** > > Access all information related to judgment Whiten v. Pilot Insurance Co., 2002 SCC 18 (CanLII), \[2002\] 1 SCR 595 on CanLII. Work that into a brief and you are golden. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/9 "2013-10-21T19:52:35Z")
I think the winner would have to be a citation to the law of gravity. It goes way back. ---
**Author:** ![llcoolbj77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/10 "2013-10-21T19:56:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/11 "2013-10-21T20:19:05Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Cool! Without betraying any confidences, can you tell us what in general terms the topic was? I’ve said too much already. [checks nervously over his shoulder for the Plantagenet Police] ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/12 "2013-10-21T20:51:29Z")
> [@llcoolbj77](#): > > Let me just add that I will never be a great lawyer because I am simply not nerdy enough. We gotta get our fun somehow. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/13 "2013-10-22T05:31:51Z")
I have cited the\* Corpus Juris Civilus\* a few times and I have read a brief with [Code of Ur-Nammu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu) cited. The earliest case that I have ever personally cited was one from the 14th century, Court of Common Pleas. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/14 "2013-10-22T05:35:52Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/15 "2013-10-22T10:25:28Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/16 "2013-10-22T13:14:13Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Missed Edit window. > > Specifically it was these clauses of the Ur-nammu code. > > 1 > > It was a Personal Injury case. How many shekels of silver was the plaintiff asking for? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/17 "2013-10-22T14:28:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > How many shekels of silver was the plaintiff asking for? 😉 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. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-lawyers-a-contest/671848/18 "2013-10-22T15:01:23Z")
> [@llcoolbj77](#): > > What about the seminal case of Finders v. Keepers? That ruling was overturned in the landmark decision Rubber v. Glue.