Category: Law

Law Friday

Talking the Talk - What is a tort anyway?
This is the most frequently asked question posed after I tell people what classes a 1L takes. Unfortunately, it’s not a class about the legal implications of delicious thin-crust pastries. That class would be called Tarts. Rather, a tort is a kick in the face, a breath mint made of cat food, everything you don’t want happening to you. In two words, a tort is any wrong, and the legal system tries to make it right. (Note, these wrongs are distinct from criminal cases, in which the government tries to make right.)

One of the most infamous torts occurred in the McDonald’s coffee case. While many people see this as just another example of a legal system that rewards frivolous lawsuits with big bucks, consider the facts…

A 79-year-old woman visits the McDonald’s drive through and spills a freshly purchased cup of joe on herself. The coffee was so incredibly hot that she suffered third-degree burns (that means that the burn extended to the tissue under the skin) on more than six percent of her body (including some of her - ahem - sensitive parts). She was hospitalized for eight days and had to endure skin grafting. Yuck!

Okay, so she was hurt pretty badly, but why did this woman have a case? Well, between 1982 and 1992, some 700 coffee-burn tort claims had been filed against McDonald’s. Yet despite this fact, McDonald’s routinely served its coffee excessively hot. Hence, the jury awarded the woman $200,000 in compensatory damages (paid to compensate the victim for medical bills and other costs of the injury) and $2.7 million in punitive damages (equal to about two days of McDonald’s coffee sales). In the end, the jury reduced the compensatory award to $160,000, since they figured the woman was 20 percent at fault, and the punitive damages to $480,000 (hardly a day’s worth of McDonald’s coffee sales).

Hearsay
Last year Slate published a top 10 list of Bush’s worst civil-liberties violations. This week, they’ve published Bush’s top 10 legal fictions. My personal favorites are number 8, which is Cheney’s retarded claim that his office isn’t part of the executive branch, and number 4, celebrating nine U.S. attorneys who were “fired by nobody, but for good reason.”

Not strictly law related, but interesting nonetheless - the Society of Jesus is meeting in Rome this week for the first time in 25 years to elect a new Superior General. (As you may know, Seattle University School of Law is a Jesuit institution.) The Jesuit General is elected for life, so the forthcoming General Congregation, the 35th in the Society’s 468-year history, will first have to accept Fr Kolvenbach’s resignation before choosing a successor.

You be the Judge - It’s all fun and games until someone gets kicked in the shin
Sticking with the torts theme, here’s the first case we read last semester.

While sitting in class, Timmy leans over and kicks Kenny in the shin. What Timmy doesn’t realize is that Kenny has a hideous shin condition. Timmy’s kick aggravates said shin condition, and Kenny ends up having his lower leg amputated. Kenny sues Timmy for assault and battery. Should Timmy have to pay up?

Law Friday

Sometime about two-thirds of the way through last semester, the law school diaries petered off. I struggled to find interesting (i.e. not whiny) things to write about and decided to let it go as finals approached.

I haven’t let the impulse to share lawyerly stuff on this blog go, though. I’m just working on an entertaining way to include it so you’ll actually want to read it. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to ask my parents if they’d read the latest and hear my mother say: “Oh we would have read your blog honey but you father was busy dying his hair red, and I was weaving belly button lint.”

So here goes - a trial run of Legal Friday.

First up is a quick educational piece called Talking the Talk. Nick accuses me of using 50-cent words now, when 2-cent words would do. Here I’ll attempt to share a bit of legalese to help you make an impression at the next cocktail party. Skip the spinach dip and lay down some Latin. Word.

Executrix. Remember the last time you were playing Scrabble and got stuck with both Xs at the end of the game and didn’t know what to do? (Wait, that probably never happened. There’s only one X.) But if you happen to stumble on a blank, you might be able to lay this one on the board. No, it’s not what you think. Get your mind out of the gutter already. An executrix is simply a female executor of a will.

Next is a quick round up of interesting and/or funny legal news called Hearsay. I never realized it before, but an amazing amount of news has legal implications. And before you ask, I’m not getting all my news these days from Nina Totenberg on NPR.

• Officials probe killing by tiger: “The San Francisco Police Department opened a criminal investigation Wednesday into how a Siberian tiger escaped from the city zoo, and then mauled a teenager to death and seriously injured two other people. The Christmas Day attack occurred at closing time, when the tiger somehow got out of its enclosure—one that included a surrounding moat and a 20-foot-high wall. Zoo officials said they had no idea how the tiger could have overcome the barriers, which meet all national standards for a safe tiger display.”
  This is very sad, but am I the only one who owns cats that isn’t surprised by this?
• NYC clubs argue ladies’ nights are not unfair to men: I’m interested in how class action suits get started, so this one caught my eye. Plaintiff, Roy Den Hollander, sued several NYC nightclubs, saying he was discriminated against by ladies’ nights, which offer women free or discounted admission and drinks. He said he wanted to represent all men over age 21 who had entered one of the nightclubs since June 21, 2004, and been subjected to policies that provide discounts to women of the same age.
  Hmmm...This guy is either gay or stupid, or he REALLY struck out breaking through the barrier put up by office gals out for a night on the town.
• Utah inmate sues for Norse god worship: It doesn’t get much better than this in the heart of Morman-country. Michael Polk, who is serving time for aggravated assault and robbery, filed a lawsuit against corrections officials in federal court, accusing them of denying him several religious items that he claims are necessary to practice the Asatru religion including: a Thor’s Hammer, a prayer cloth, a Mead Horn used for drinking Wassail, a drum made of wood and boar skin, a rune staff and a sword.

Finally, I offer a game called You Be the Judge. Real cases from my case books, abbreviated by yours truly, and offered for you to render a verdict on. Leave a comment and tell us what you think. The following case comes from my Criminal Law class. Fittingly, it was the first case assigned.

Is That a Boy or a Drumstick?

Two men and a boy are lost at sea on a small boat. After 11 days, they run out of food. After 13 days, they run out of water. The other two men kill the boy and eat him in order to save themselves. Four days later, a passing boat rescues the two men. Are the men guilty of murder?

Buone Feste!

Happy no-more-finals-day and buone feste (yes I wish I was in Italy right now, instead in my kitchen working on my legal writing memo).

Speaking of Italy, Nick sent me some interesting news yesterday afternoon: Ducati’s head designer Pierre Terblanche has left the company effective immediately. News reports say he left under good terms to pursue other projects. What other projects we’re not sure, but as Nick points out “he is a very hot commodity right now, with the popular acclaim of bikes like the Multistrada, 1098, and of course the Hypermotard."

A little present for myself

Two finals down, two to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I bought a small incentive today - a laptop “tattoo” - to keep me motivated. Not only will it help me distinguish my standard-issue Dell laptop from the 80 other standard-issue Dell laptops across the classroom, but it will also help me tell my mates, “I do WAY cooler stuff than brief cases on my computer!”

If you’d like one of your own, visit the Splendid Vinyl etsy shop. The artist has several designs available in 14 different colors. 

Wisdom from Judge Learned Hand

A little inspirational quote from Judge Learned Hand, whose opinions we studied this semester in Contracts:

“Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don’t believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely.”
~Judge Learned Hand, in P. Hamburger, The Great Judge, 1946

Of course, then there’s Professor Contracts’ commentary: “I’m always amazed. A baby is born. What do you name him? Learned. Can you believe that?”