Here’s a linkto one of the best/snarkiest decisions I’ve found for grins (only 3 pages):
It actually gets even better.
Seriously, from A Man for All Seasons:
“More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the devil turned around on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws being all flat?”
And just to end on an elevated note, I also submit this snippet from a complaint in an Aussie case:
“the hotel breached its duty of care by its failure to remove [co-defendant]… in the knowledge that he was inebriated and was clad with pork chops strapped to his feet.”
Wacky Warning Labels 2001[ol][]Warning label on a pair of shin guards made for bicyclists warned: “Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover.”[]Warning on the back of a public toilet: “Recycled Flush Water… Unsafe for Drinking.”[]Jetski advisory: “Warning! Riders of personal watercraft may suffer injury due to the forceful injection of water into body cavities either by falling into the water or while mounting the craft.”[]This diddy to carpenter’s using an electric wood router: “This product not intended for use as a dental drill.”[]Those indendiary Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts: “Warning: Pastry Filling May Be Hot When Heated!”[]Bat Man Halloween costume box: “Warning: Please exercise caution-mask and chest plate are not protective; cape does not enable wearer to fly.”[]On a hammer: “Caution: Do not use this hammer to strike any solid object.”[]From a butane lighter: “Warning: Flame may cause fire.”[]A box of Tampax Tampons: “Remove used tampon before inserting a new one.”[]On a baby stroller: “Warning: Remove child before folding baby stroller.”On prescription sleeping pills: This drug may cause sleepiness."[/ol]
Damn, Humble Servant, that was a great case. This one’s old, but I reckon it bears repeating:
Fisher v. Lowe, 122 Mich. App. 418. The facts:
Plaintiff commenced this action in tort against defendants Lowe and Moffet for damage to his “beautiful oak tree” caused when defendant Lowe struck it while operating defendant Moffet’s automobile. The defendants won at trial, and the plaintiff appealed.
The complete text of the decision of the court, exactly as published:
Jodi, you are formally invited to make tea with my boxer shorts!
You assume I am referancing the line from the play, when in fact, I am stating a personal conviction. If I had wanted to qoute an old English fag, I would have given him his due.
P.S.~ My Fiat is faster than yours!
I scream, you scream, we all denounce Christ for Ice Cream!
Ah. But, you see, if you state your “personal conviction” by stealing and then mangling someone else’s words, it seems to me that you cannot be surprised that someone would (a) correct you and/or (b) assume you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Perhaps if you want to claim a thought as your own, you might strive to have an original one?
And as far as decisions are concerned, my three favorites are:
(1) (Possibly apocryphal) One lawyer reminded the court that the rules of Civil Procedure allow that a deposition may be used “for any purpose” and moved to use one to “hit opposing counsel upside the head.” Hearing no objection (was counsel asleep?), the court granted the motion, whereupon the first lawyer whacked the second in the head with the deposition transcript. The second lawyer then objected but was told to sit down because the objection was not timely.
(2) An unpublished Montana district (lower court) decision in which a frustrated judge described himself by saying “This Court is up to its ass in alligators, trying to drain this legal swamp!”
(3) State v. Bristow (Montana) – don’t have the cite, but I know it’s published – which is not a funny decision but which boasts the strangest facts I’ve ever heard – namely, that two thugs hired by a wife to beat up her husband dressed up as Easter Bunnies and came to his door with baskets of candy. Then when he opened the door, they beat the crap out of him. While dressed as big pink Easter Bunnies.
In 1961, in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Robin, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the novel The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller could not be banned because, while it was graphic in its language, it also had some redeeming artistic merit. One of the Justices, Michael Musmanno, disagreed and wrote a dissent, extracted below, which contained his opinions of the book’s literary worth.
Glad ya liked it, Max. I liked the tree thing too–there’s another one from the Michigan EPA about beaver dams (it may be a hoax because it was pretty ridiculous) that I can’t find just now, but it does seem that Michigan gets its fair share of natural law (hee) cases. Montana may have the edge here, though, what with the alligators and Easter Bunnies and all.
And surely someone will know the answer to this: did they ever use the Musmanno dissent as a book blurb? Man, I sure would have!
JohnBckWLD, I can add one more to your list. We use finger print ink where I work. On its list of warnings, it tells us to avoid skin contact with the product.
How quaint, coming from an obvious fan of a profession creating few original ideas, based almost entirely on precedent.
Eat me. Blackened. Feel free to add spicy cajun sauce.
Help Wanted: Must speak spanish, have extensive literary background and knowledge of the legal system. Garlic Picker/Dishwasher $5.40/hr. Must be reliable
Can’t cite or quote this verbatim, it was in Vincent Bugliosi’s on the Manson family, “Helter Skelter”
Charles Manson’s 1st lawyer, Irving Kanarek was a notorious staller.
In one of his earlier trials, he was alleged to have objected to a defense witness being asked their name on the grounds it was hearsay…having thus heard it from his parents.
And one of those Reader Digest All in a Days Work stories that has stuck with me for probably 15 years: A lawyer dealing with a rookie cop on behalf of his defendant who was a DWI. All paraphrased. And remember campers, this is before breath analizers were around.
Lawyer :How long have you been a cop?
Rookie: Just over six months.
Lawyer: And in that six months that has made you an expert on drunken behavior?
Rookie: No sir. But working as a bartender for the past 15 sure helped.
Q. What you have in front of you is what has been marked as Exhibit A to your answers to interrogatories, and this is a list of, by my count, close to 300 different jobsites. I think we have got 296 different jobsites. Have you seen this list before?
A. Yes, I’ve seen something that looks kind of like it. I didn’t read it through, or whatever.
Little Nemo, I love Musmanno’s dissents! No judge has ever written as colorfully.
For more examples of interesting writing form Pennsylvania courts, check out the opinions of Justice Michael Eakin. When he was on the Pennsylvania Superior Court, he wrote several opinions in rhyming verse. Probably the finest example of his verse can be found here, in a case where a poodle was literally sent flying by an oncoming car. “The car was coming much too close, something inside told her./ The next thing Mrs. Zangrando knew, a poodle flew over her shoulder.” And so on, for the entire opinion.
Perhaps a little tangential… this one I’ve seen attributed to J. Edgar Hoover (as far as I’m concerned, it’s too good to check):
“I regret to inform you that we of the FBI are powerless to intervene in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.”
