From the “Poetic Justice” department, comes this stunning piece of judicial artistry. Seventh circuit judge Frank Easterbrook, in Federal Trade Commission v. QT, Inc., in regards to the marketing of the expensive bit of snake oil known as the “Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet,” ripped defense council and their client half a dozen new biological waste apertures with some of the most eloquent yet scathing verbosity I’ve seen in a good long while. This is real prime-time stuff. You can read his decision in full here (PDF).
One of the juicier bits:
Nothing in the Federal Trade Commission Act, the foundation of this litigation, requires placebo-controlled, double-blind studies. The Act forbids false and misleading statements, and a statement that is plausible but has not been tested in the most reliable way cannot be condemned out of hand. The burden is on the Commission to prove that the statements are false. (This is one way in which the Federal Trade Commission Act differs from the Food and Drug Act.) Think about the seller of an adhesive bandage treated with a disinfectant such as iodine. The seller does not need to conduct tests before asserting that this product reduces the risk of infection from cuts. The bandage keeps foreign materials out of the cuts and kills some bacteria. It may be debatable how much the risk of infection falls, but the direction of the effect would be known, and the claim could not be condemned as false. Placebo-controlled, double-blind testing is not a legal requirement for consumer products.
But how could this conclusion assist defendants? In our example the therapeutic claim is based on scientific principles. For the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet, by contrast, all statements about how the product works—Q-Rays, ionization, enhancing the flow of bio-energy, and the like—are blather. Defendants might as well have said: “Beneficent creatures from the 17th Dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief, and whisk them off to their homeworld every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science.”
Coolest. Judge. Ever.
Mindfield:
Coolest. Judge. Ever.
It is a very nice turn of phrase, but then it’s Easterbrook. He’s got a ways to go to out-cool Posner.
My favorite opinion ever is Mackensworth v. American Trading Transportation Co. , a real-life opinion from the US District court (E.D.PA). The whole thing is written in (roughly) iambic tetrameter.
Quartz
January 4, 2008, 8:18am
4
Now that’s sheer brilliance! I hope he got a round of applause after delivering that in court.
Lots of good ones here . More here . I’ll contribute the shortest opinion ever:
“The appellant has attempted to distinguish the factual situation in this case from that in Renfroe v. Higgins Rack Coating and Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1969), 17 Mich App 259. He didn’t. We couldn’t.
This is the opinion in its entirety.
That is a thing of beauty.
The second link in the OP seems to be broken, so I can’t read the decision.
MHaye
January 6, 2008, 1:49am
8
If you can’t wait, you can get to the decision by following the OPs first link, which links to the decision in the first paragraph. (The second link in the paragraph is the one you want.)
Is this Alex Chiu’s guys?