May It Please The Court: Weblog of legal news and observations, including a quote of the day and daily updates

Adjust font size: A A+ A++

An Affiliate of the Law.com Network From the Law.com Newswire Sign up to receive Legal Blog Watch by email View a Sample

Search This Site Web Quotes Site

When Grandma Goes To Court

An Apocryphal Tale To Demonstrate Why An Attorney Won't Ask A Question Without First Knowing The Answer

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, an elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?" She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big dissapointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"

She again replied, "Why yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster. too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and in a very quiet voice said, "If either of you idiots ask her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair."

Hat tip to my son, Michel Ayer, who forwarded this joke to me.

Some Things Just Don't Go Together Anymore

There are two phrases that should not be in the same sentence:  donated blood and mass production.  Either phrase by itself is just fine; it's the combination that should have tipped officials off that there was a problem.  Let me explain.

Somewhere in Transylvania, there's an old family recipe for blood sausages. 

See what I mean? 

Now to put the rest of it in context, here we go.  Two airmen in Germany with this ancient family recipe decided they'd give it a go.  Their recipe for traditional Blotwurst sausage called for sausage meat, onions, bacon, spices and breadcrumbs, plus one unique ingredient:  human blood.  According to the UK Telegraph, the recipe cautioned, "Make sure the blood is fresh and the bacon cubes diced finely with a nice proportion of fat to lean. Do not use too many breadcrumbs but if the blood starts to curdle stir in a teaspoon of wine vinegar."

So for their first batch, they got all the normal ingredients and used their own blood.  Without telling others their "secret ingredient," the taste testers loved it.

Buoyed by their apparent success, the two airmen decided to mass produce their blood sausages, but had one problem with producing large quantities.  They were tired all the time.  Ever the brilliant entrepreneurs, they enlisted others -- their fellow servicemen. 

One of the servicemen in the German air force questioned more senior officials, "I have been asked to give blood for sausage-making and I want to know if this is against regulations."

The two airmen were immediately suspended and their interest in "cookery" put to the back burner, so to speak.

How to Get Sued Hits An Amazon Best-seller List, And It's Not Even Out Yet

My new book, How to Get Sued, is available for preorder on Amazon, and it's up on Amazon's best-seller list for judicial system books.  Yes, I know it's not the Best-Seller-List-Of-The-New-York-Times, but I'm excited about it anyway.   We're number 5!  We're number 5!  Wieux hieux.

The most notable part of the list, however, is that How to Get Sued is the only book on the list that hasn't been published yet - it's not due out until June 3, 2008.  The other books, admittedly all four of which are ahead of HTGS, were published last month and back in January.

Buy it early and buy it often, thank you very much.

MIPTC Announces J. Craig Williams's New Book: How To Get Sued

In case you couldn't figure it out on your own and were looking for a roadmap - here it is, just in time for summer.  That's right, Kaplan Publishing starts selling my new book, How to Get Sued, on June 3, 2008.  You can preorder it on Amazon now, or go to major booksellers in June, including Barnes & Noble and Borders. 

In the meantime, please saunter on over and visit the book's website. 

Given today's date, you might be a bit wary, but this announcement is no April Fool's joke; this is the real bananna.  The color almost matches, too.

Among other events, there will be a book signing at Book Expo America on June 1, 2008, at the Los Angeles Convention Center at 11:30 a.m.  Hope to see you there!

Rah, Rah, Sis, Boom, Bah; Cheerleading Is Not A Contact Sport

It took the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to weigh in on this one.  Brittany Noffke is a ninth-grader at Holmen High School where she's a cheerleader.  Kevin Brakke is also on the squad, and he was Brittany's spotter during practice while she was working on a stunt.  Unfortunately, Brittany fell and severely injured her head, which Kevin apparently failed to prevent.  The school did not have mats down during the practice and Brittany landed on a tile floor.

She sued the school and Kevin for her injuries.

The Court was called on to determine whether cheerleading is a contact sport.  The court said that because there were no "opponents" directly involved with contact in the sport of cheerleading, it wasn't considered a contact sport.  Now I'm not admitted to practice law in Wisconsin, so I most assuredly don't understand the law there, but when I've seen cheerleaders - especially male and female cheerleaders working together - it looks like a contact sport to me.

Maybe not as rough as football, but there's definitely contact going on there.  After all, the guys are usually holding up the girls, aren't they? 

The issue of whether it's a contact sport matters because there's a statute in Wisconsin that prevents participants in contact sports for suing one another for injuries resulting, of course, from the contact.

So, when the Court ruled that cheerleading isn't a contact sport, they were allowing Brittany's case to proceed against Kevin.  They didn't, however, allow Brittany to sue the school.  It's apparently immune from liability under another Wisconsin statute.

Don't ask me.  I practice law in California, where practically everything's a contact sport.

That's A Negative Ghostrider, The Pattern Is Full

Maverick twice does a flyby in his Tomcat F-14, in TopGun, one of the Navy's favorite movies.  He first buzzes the conning tower on the USS Enterprise and next the control tower at FighterTown USA, otherwise known as the Naval Air Station Miramar in California.  The stunt apparently has some real-life imitators, one just recently in Seattle.

Most recently, a Cathay Pacific Airways plane swooped down and buzzed a Seattle-area airfield without permission just after the company took delivery of a new, Boeing 777-300ER passenger jet.

There are some subtle differences between the two planes, however.  One is a supersonic, twin-engine, variable geometry wing aircraft that can reach 45,000 feet in one minute.  The other is a lumbering, 350-ton passenger jet that needs an extra-long runway to get off the ground and two engines at going at full blast, and it generally takes 20 minutes to get to top altitude of 35,000 feet. 

One is sixty-two feet long and only thirty-eight feet wide with its wings swept back, weighs about 30 tons fully loaded and costs just $38 million.  The other is 242 feet long, weighs about 350 tons and is listed at $264 million.  In stark contrast to the two-seater F-14, the 777 carries about 500 people and can only hit about 570 mph.  The F-14 can reach speeds in excess of 1,550 mph.  The longer and bigger plane doesn't carry any weapons, either unless you count federal marshals. 

In the movie, Tom Cruise's character, Maverick, got put into hack by his commanding officer, Stinger.  In real life, the Cathy Pacific pilot was fired. 

Boys, boys, boys. 

Verbal Contracts Aren't Worth The Paper They're Written On

Especially when they involve business deals arising out of a personal relationship.  Couple that fact with two more:  our hero is a computer programmer, and our heroine is a performer in the adult entertainment industry.  In fact, she's in film, in addition to her participation in certain on-stage performances.

In nightclubs.  Where she met our computer programmer. 

The plot thickens. 

Based on the allegations flying back and forth between the two, I'm not quite the extent of their relationship before the lawsuit, but it may have involved more than ... shall we say, business.  Just a guess.

The lawsuit isn't particularly revealing either, other than to point out two hints.  Phillip Williams, our hero, created a website for Kira Kener (link may not be appropriate to open at work) and also "loaned" her over $75,000.  The lawsuit was precipitated apparently because she didn't pay him back, despite her recovery of money in what Williams alleges was a "multi-million dollar settlement from certain litigation she had filed."  Despite his demands, she refused to "pay him back."

I put "loaned" and "pay him back" in quotes because the lawsuit contains no allegations of a written contract between the two, despite what else may have been between them.  Indeed, at one point in their relationship, they were talking every day, and Kira had assured Phillip there were "no other guys in her life." 

Oh.  I forgot two other facts.  He lives in New Jersey.  She lives in North Carolina.  The lawsuit was filed in New Jersey.  He claims she maintained sufficient contacts with the State and entered into a series of transactions with the intent of benefitting from New Jersey's stream of commerce. 

You figure it out.

MITPC Book Review: How Many Clients Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?

If you're Giovanni Diviacchi, then it takes 32 pages.  He's written a great, but über-short joke book  of the same name as this headline, obviously someone who's very tired of lawyer jokes.  The subtitle of the book is "A Lawyer Strikes Back," and is just slightly thinner than the MacBook Air. If you haven't read it, then you'll get a kick out his turn of the phrase. 

The book is chock full of lawyer jokes turned on clients. 

My favorite joke in the book, perhaps because my father was a minister, is this one:  "A lawyer asked his long-time attorney to come to his deathbed with a Bible.

'Would you like me to read to you?' asked the lawyer of the client.

The client shook his head weakly and  said, 'No, I want you to find the loopholes.'"

In case you're looking for a few loopholes, you can find the book on Amazon.  You won't stop laughing until the last page. 

BrideZilla And GroomKong Or Legitimate Lawsuit?

We all know the portmanteau BrideZilla, a combination of the two words Bride and Godzilla, shortened up to mean "monster bride."  Once both are involved in the melee, I've invented a new portmanteau of King Kong and the complaining husband-to-be:  "GroomKong."

You get to judge whether the Bride and Groom's complaint in this situation is valid, or whether they're a BrideZilla and GroomKong. 

Take my friend Matthew Heller's identification of Bride Marcy Bassilla and Groom Sans Milbury, who paid more than $18,000 for their September 2007 wedding reception at the Embassy Room in the Granite Rose in Hampstead, New Hampshire.  Kevin's great blog, OnPoint, describes the situation:  "the Milburys claim they suffered lasting trauma after things got 'out of hand' at the other wedding party in the neighboring Treasure Room."

They had been advised by the Granite Rose that another reception would be in the adjacent room, but were assured they wouldn't "even know the other party was there," according to the Milburys. 

Then from the wedding reception next door, "the trouble began with several 'completely intoxicated' female guests -- including the bride - 'vomiting all over the common bathroom' between the two banquet rooms and attacking the Milburys' female guests who were trying to use it."  The Granite Rose, according to the complaining couple, let things get further out of hand, and then at around midnight, closed down both rooms at the same time.

Matthew continues, "A 'general melee' then ensued in the parking lot that, The Eagle Tribune newspaper reported, left 'numerous' people with cuts, bruises and black eyes. It took police from 12 local departments to break the brawl up."  Did you catch the part where twelve local police departments were called out?  It took 22 squad cars full of officers to break up the fight of between 50 and 100 wedding partygoers.  Allegedly, one of the Milburys' female guests was threatened at knifepoint close to the time the brawl finally broke up around 2:50 a.m.

Houston, we have a problem.

Needless to say at this point, Mr. and Mrs. Milbury of Danvers, Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the Granite Rose.  According to the suit, "Marcy Milbury witnessed many of the events, particularly the parking lot melee" and is emotionally distraught.  Worse yet, she has to relive the event again and again as her guests discuss it and exchange wedding photographs. 

Plus, there's the newspaper account and all those police reports. 

She and her husband want the Granite Rose to return the $18,175.09 they paid for their "disastrous wedding reception," according to the lawsuit, "for emotional distress" plus "multiple damages" and attorneys fees. 

Matthew Heller points out in his commentary that New Hampshire, you have to show physical injury first in order to recover for emotional distress, which apparently did not happen to either the bride or the groom.  Although I'm not admitted in the Granite state, I would have also sued the neighboring wedding party.

You be the judge.  Who wins from whom, and how much?

What Do You Mean? We Didn't Know That! How Were We Supposed To Know?

I read.  Maybe I read a lot.  In fact, when asked how bad my eyesight is from all my reading, I've joked that my glasses are so thick, I can't wear contacts because I wouldn't be able to blink my eyes.  Yes, I wear glasses - or in most cases contacts to satisfy my vanity.  I read so much in law school that in just two years, my eyesight went from 20/200 to 20/700.  I'm practically blind without glasses, which means if the text is about six inches or more away from my eyes, I can't read it. 

It's so bad that I now need reading glasses on top of my contacts.  I can't wait until they come out with a functional pair of bifocal contacts.

I read for fun, for education and for my job.  Most of all, I read because I enjoy learning.  One of my favorite reference books is The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.  It's a great book because it provides context to our world when we all use shorthand to describe things.

Take, for example, referring to a pre-teen woman as "Lolita."  Let me give the punch line away first.  "Lolita" is a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov.  In it, the narrator, Humbert Humbert becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Delores Haze.  He was attracted by the sexually promiscuous girl, sometimes referred to as a "nymphette," and the book became a classic.  It was made into a film twice, once in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick starring James Mason as Humbert Humbert, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons.

It's context. 

So, when Woolworth's offered beds for small girls named the "Lolita Midsleeper Combi," you have to wonder whether there was a message or just it was because someone wasn't paying attention.  The "Lolita" bed offered for sale in the UK was advertised as "a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about six," according to this Reuters report.  Reuters continues, "'What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either,' a spokesman told British newspapers."

Right.  Furious parents complained and forced Woolworth's to look up "Lolita" on Wikipedia, where the company learned what the term really meant, and pull the bed from the shelves, so to speak.

I'm betting the folks at Woolworth's don't wear thick glasses. 

How To Speak *LA*

A friend of mine sent this email to me, and I made some slight changes to it:

A new and improved guide for visitors to Los Angeles:

You must first learn to pronounce the city name; it is "L. A.," not "Los Angeles."

The morning work rush hour starts at 5:00 a.m. and ends at noon. The afternoon work rush hour starts at noon and ends at 7:00 p.m. The evening "night club" rush hour starts at 7:00 p.m. and ends at 5:00 a.m.

The weekend rush hour starts on Thursday, just after noon and ends on Monday at 5:00 a.m.; 5:00 a.m. Tuesdays if Monday is a holiday. See above for the rest of the rush hour schedule.

The minimum acceptable speed on most freeways is 85 mph, and 90-95 is preferred. On the 105 or 110, your speed is expected to match the highway number. Anything less and everyone will know you're from out-of-town.

Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. L.A. has its own version of traffic rules. For example, passing on the right is perfectly acceptable. On city streets, cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires go second. In Malibu, however, SUV-driving, cell-phone-talking moms ALWAYS have the right of way.

If you actually stop (or heaven forbid brake or slow down) at either a yellow light or stop sign, then you will be rear-ended, cussed out, and probably shot.

Never honk at anyone. EVER. Seriously. It's another offense that can get you shot.

Road construction is permanent and continuous in all of L.A. and Orange counties. Detour barrels and concrete K-rails are moved around for your entertainment pleasure during the middle of the night to make the next day's driving a bit more exciting. Construction signage has been outlawed altogether.

MapQuest does not work here--none of the roads are where they say they are or go where they say they do, and the freeway off- and on-ramps are moved each night. Freeways are not labeled with directions (N-E-S-W), but instead use the more logical name of a city along the way. We don't care if you're unfamiliar with the city's location. Off-ramps may or may not be numbered; it's fun to guess, don't you think?

If someone actually has their turn signal on, then wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been "accidentally activated."

If you are in the number one lane (the left-most lane for anyone not from L.A., a.k.a. the "fast lane") and only driving 75 mph in a 65 mph zone, then you are considered a road hazard and will be "flipped-off" accordingly. If you return the flip or otherwise look sideways at the other driver, then you will be shot.

Do not try to estimate travel time -- just leave Monday afternoon for Tuesday appointments, by noon Thursday for Friday appointments and right after church on Sunday for anything on Monday morning.

If you're in a "parking lot" (L.A.-ese for freeway) and you see red light flashing ahead and a car flipped over, don't get your hopes up the traffic jam will clear up as soon as you get on the other side of the accident. We have accidents strategically placed in intervals around the city, designed solely to keep you on-time for your next appointment (see "departing times" above).

Why is the L. A. Freeway called the '4-oh-5'? Because no matter where you are going, it takes 4 or 5 hours to get there. In L.A., we don't measure distance in miles. Hours and minutes are the standard form of measurement.

And don't forget your standard-issue vanity plate with a Save-the-whales background on your foreign hybrid car. American cars will be pulled over and cited unless you're driving a Hummer with the chrome package. It's important to understand the exceptions.

Failure to wash your car weekly will likewise result in a citation, and rust spots constitute a felony violation, issued by the fashion police.

Oh yes, the weather. If it's sunny, then put the top down on your car. If it rains, then stay home. Your windshield wipers won't clear the rain because they only get used once a year. If it's raining, then it's snowing in the mountains. Definitely don't go there, either, unless you learned to drive back East. You don't have to worry about buying chains for your car, however. There will be plenty of spare chains laying about the road from those who don't understand how to put them on.

One last thing. If you see a Ford Bronco followed by a string of police cars, you're not required to pull over - it's the only time you can just wave and smile like you know the driver.

With All The Best, From May It Please The Court

To all my Democrat friends:  Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, secular practices of your choice, or non-religious/secular belief system, with respect for the religious/secular or atheistic persuasion and/or traditions of you and/or others, or your and their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.  

I also wish you a fiscally successful but yet socially conscious, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally-accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.  This expression regarding the United States of America is not to imply that America is either necessarily greater than any other country or the only America in the Western Hemisphere, but nonetheless intended as a wish well within the lowest common denominator assumptions of the typically moderate, middle-of-the-road patriotic belief in our country, without endorsing any of the actions of our President or Congress, but rather in a generalized support of the troops.  

Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability or physical shape (size challenged one direction or the other), religious faith, belief system or lack thereof, or sexual preference, bias or lack of sex of the wishee.

On the other hand, to all my Republican friends:  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And finally, to all my Libertarian friends:  Have a great vacation.

_________

With thanks and apologies to Doctor Michael Drake and Entrepreneur Tom Tierney.

Who's Face Is On The Side Of That Milk Carton Billboard?

I keep up with the digital world perhaps a bit more than most of my contemporaries, but in my day, milk cartons were the preferred way of finding people who were lost.  They were mostly lost kids, but every once in a while, a creative milk company would broadcast some of the FBI's top ten wanted list.

Now, the "Most Wanted" are on digital billboards.

They work much better than milk cartons.  Last month, Oscar Finch was allegedly caught on tape robbing a bank.  Mobile, Alabama police uploaded his mug to 12 digital billboards across the city.

Viola' - a day later, Oscar turned himself into authorities. 

His fifteen minutes of fame were up.  Immediately after he turned himself in, the ads came down. 

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me

When you learn to cuss like a sailor, it helps to be a sailor.  Despite the two prior Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the third now out on DVD, there's little about cussing that you can learn from the movie except some very well-written - ahh - curses.  Take, for example, Captain Jack Sparrow's prelude to taking Will Turner into custody:  "Send this pestilent, traitorous, cow-hearted, yeasty codpiece to the brig."

Ouch.  No doubt what's intended there.

So when we get a news story about 33 year-old Dawn Herb cussing out her toilet, something just gets lost in the translation.  The AP reporter compares the Scranton, Pennsylvania woman's blue-streak over her frustration with an overflowing toilet with the vocabulary of a longshoreman.  But having been a sailor myself, it just doesn't quite measure up.

Even before we had longshoreman, we had pirates and their language.  In fact, "I'd like to meet that filthy, mangy, worthless bilge rat Hector Barbossa to recover my beautiful ship, The Black Pearl," in another tribute to an antagonist in an earlier version of the story.  Did I get all those "an's" right?

Apparently as our present-day, wanna-be pirate heroine got upset over her predicament with her toilet, a policeman's daughter walked by her window and heard the cussing.  She reported it to her then off-duty Dad, who promptly called in reinforcements to issue her a citation under Pennsylvania's statute preventing "disorderly conduct for using obscene language or gestures in a way that causes "public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm," according to reporter Michael Rubinkam.

The ACLU has stepped in to defend her right to free speech and cuss a blue streak, and whether she'll be convicted now rests in the hands of a judge who's considering the arguments of counsel and words of the woman.  Not surprisingly, her lawyer advised her not to talk to the media.  No telling what she would have said to the journeyman reporter.

Oh yes.  One more thing.  Did I mention Pennsylvania's landlocked? 

Where did she learn this stuff?

Not from this pirate.

Wife's Sweet Email Whisperings To Lover End Up In Husband's Hands

The award for the most creative use of the Freedom of Information Act goes to ... drum roll please .... a jilted husband.

Huh?

Let me clear that one up.  Wife was having an affair with a Kentucky state employee.  Catch that?  A state employee.  Once you involve the state, you see, you trigger that state's Freedom of Information Act.

And because the employee worked for the state - yep, you guessed it - his emails, including those with the wife, became a matter of public record.  Husband suspects that the emails will provide details of his wife's affair and he wants to see them.

Why, I don't know.  He's in left field or third base, depending on your perspective.  But that's not the point. 

The wife and now former state employee apparently forgot their emails would become a matter of public record.  Initially, the state refused to release the employee's emails, most likely because they were salacious and allegedly private.  A Kentucky judge overruled the state, however, and ordered the emails released to the husband.

A word to the wise here:  Don't use electronic documents to carry on an affair or, for that matter, waste time as an employee.  Especially if you're a public employee.  You never know where your emails are going to end up.