A Year of Lowering the Bar

A YEAR OF
LOWERING THE BAR
2010-2011
Kevin Underhill† NOVEMBER 2010
Nov. 2: Voters in Denver reject a ballot initiative that would have
created an “Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission” charged with
creating a “common-sense” strategy for dealing with alien visitors.
The sponsor had pitched the initiative in part as a jobs-creation
measure.
Nov. 4: The Daily Telegraph reports that a woman has drawn an
extended analogy between her employment case and The Lord of
the Rings. Her employer, she writes, is like “the Dark Lord Sauron,
the eye at the top of the tower, . . . missing nothing and directing
everything. . . . I see myself in all this as a female version of the
hobbit Frodo Baggins carrying the ring, these precious claims of
mine, to this tribunal of Mount Doom. I hope that by submitting
my claims to the tribunal, in the same way as the ring was submitted to the molten lava of Mount Doom, that the eye of Lord Sauron
will dissolve and justice will prevail.”
Nov. 8: According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger, about 3,500 people
with outstanding arrest warrants turned themselves in at a “Safe
Surrender” amnesty program for nonviolent offenders. Police had
to turn away another 550 people because, as far as the police could
tell, they hadn’t done anything wrong.
Nov. 13: The U.S. Marshals Service holds an auction of Bernie
Madoff’s belongings, hoping to raise money to benefit his victims.
Among the items being sold are two 56-bottle wine chillers, a 200†
Kevin Underhill is a partner with Shook, Hardy and Bacon LLP. His legal-humor
blog Lowering the Bar, from which this is adapted, was recently named to the ABA
Journal’s “Blawg 100” for the second year in a row, and his writing has also appeared at Forbes.com and in the Green Bag, among other places. The blog can be
found at www.loweringthebar.net.
54 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
year-old magazine rack, a bronze armadillo, a pair of shark-tooth
cufflinks, 15 watches, 20 leather and suede jackets, 67 belts, at least
224 pairs of shoes (including 88 pairs of the “Mr. Casual Belgium”
brand and ten pairs of orange leather shoes), the board game “Sorry,” and one presumably non-functional crystal ball.
Nov. 16: Two Kentucky men plead guilty to charges stemming
from an incident in which they forced a neighbor to eat part of his
own beard. The incident began as an argument over a lawn mower
and then escalated. “One thing led to another,” the victim said,
“and before I knowed it, there was knives, and guns, [and] everything just went haywire.” After the two men got the upper hand,
he said, “[t]hey cut my beard . . . and forced me to eat it.” The
beard cutters received several years of probation.
Nov. 17: U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson rules in favor of
Catwoman, Wolverine, Batman (original), and Batman (Dark
Knight version), granting them a preliminary injunction against
being harassed by Los Angeles police. The four “superheroes” are
costumed performers who pose for tourists on Hollywood Boulevard. “[A]lthough costumed performance may not be a traditional
form of speech,” Pregerson writes, “it is without doubt a protected
one.”
Nov. 22: An Ontario judge grants a mistrial in a criminal case after
the jury expresses concerns about a man in the gallery. “We find
him very distracting,” the jury’s note read. “He is making strange
faces all the time.” The man turns out to be the prosecutor from a
previous trial in that case, which had ended in a hung jury. Jurors
reported that many of his strange faces and “scrutinizing stares”
were delivered while peeking over a jacket held in front of his face
“like a cartoonish villain.”
Nov. 23: The Utah Supreme Court reinstates Chad Hudgens’
claims alleging “questionable management practices.” Specifically,
he alleged that when an employee did not meet performance
goals, a supervisor would (among other things) draw a mustache
on the employee using permanent marker. Hudgens also alleged
he had been waterboarded. A lower court had held that he did not
allege the necessary intent, finding that the purpose of the waterboarding had been “to motivate team members, not to injure Mr.
Hudgens.”
Nov. 24: Former Speaker of the House Tom DeLay is convicted of
conspiracy and money-laundering charges. DeLay’s most recent
public appearance prior to the courtroom was on Dancing With the
Stars, in which he also did not prevail.
Nov. 26: A 49-year-old Spanish woman announces that she owns
55 GREEN BAG ALMANAC & READER 2012
the Sun and that anyone who wants to keep using it will have to
pay a fee. Angeles Duran says she was the first to realize that international treaties precluding ownership of such objects do not
apply to individuals, noting that she then promptly registered her
claim with a local notary public. “[A]nyone could have done it,”
she notes. “It simply occurred to me first.”
Nov. 29: A judge in Tennessee is reprimanded by the state’s Court
of the Judiciary for failing to follow a rule requiring judges to dispose of all matters “promptly.” The judge had taken the matter in
question under advisement in 1999, almost 11 years before.
Nov. 29: A Canadian family-law judge, Joseph Quinn, resolves a
bitter divorce with an order mocking both parties. “The parties
repeatedly have shown they are immune to reason,” he writes.
“Consequently . . . I have tried ridicule as a last resort.” Quinn
notes that the wife once tried to run her husband over with a van
(“always a telltale sign that a husband and wife are drifting
apart”), and that the husband often displayed his middle finger
(“worth a thousand words, and therefore [] particularly useful
should one have a vocabulary of less than a thousand”). The judge
also states that he is “prepared to certify a class action for the return of all wedding gifts.”
Nov. 30: According to the Providence Journal, officials in Cranston,
Rhode Island, have admitted that they do not know who put up
almost 700 of the town’s 2,600 stop signs. Local judges had dismissed a number of traffic citations after it came to light that certain signs were not official. After a six-month investigation, the
mayor announces that some signs may have been put up by the
state department of transportation, but that at least 462 of the signs
remain a total mystery.
DECEMBER 2010
Dec. 9: At the suggestion of Gov. Charlie Crist, the Florida Clemency Board unanimously votes to pardon Jim Morrison, former
lead singer of The Doors, for an indecent-exposure conviction in
1969. Morrison died in 1971, which is apparently what prompted
Crist to say that the truth is now “in God’s hands, not ours.”
Dec. 10: The Orange County Register reports that “longtime county
inmate” Malcolm King has successfully argued that he was entitled to special meals for religious reasons, citing his belief in “Festivus,” the alternative holiday tradition portrayed in a famous
Seinfeld episode. King’s attorney claimed that he suggested “Festivus” after the judge said he “needed a religion to put down on
the order to make it stick.”
56 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
Dec. 15: “Google Pays Boring Family $1,” reads a headline announcing that Aaron and Christine Boring have been awarded $1
for their claim that Google trespassed by taking a picture of the
Boring home for its Street View service.
Dec. 21: The New York Court of Appeals holds that a golfer hit by
an errant shot cannot sue his co-golfer for negligence because one
who chooses to golf has assumed the risk of being hit.
Dec. 21: The Transportation Safety Administration shuts down a
Louisiana airport after an employee notices a “suspicious package” during screening that seems to contain a mysterious bulky
object with wires attached. The package proves to contain a headmounted mining light and a frozen chicken stuffed with crawfish,
items that the TSA’s scanning technology is apparently unable to
distinguish from a chicken-shaped bomb.
Dec. 28: The Eleventh Circuit affirms a $387,000 sanctions award
against attorneys who pursued a case despite significant questions
about their client’s story, questions highlighted by the 63-page “errata sheet” they submitted after her deposition. “[A]nyone can
make an innocent misstatement or two,” the majority writes. “Or
maybe even three or four. But not 868 of them.”
Dec. 29: A federal judge dismisses Lee Paige’s case against his
former employer, the DEA, for allegedly leaking a video that
showed him shooting himself in the leg during a gun-safety
demonstration. Paige shot himself approximately three seconds
after making the statement, “I am the only one in the room professional enough to carry this Glock 40.” Remarkably, Paige tried to
go on with the demonstration, but the audience wisely departed
after an assistant handed him a second gun.
JANUARY 2011
Jan. 1: A new law takes effect in Romania that classifies witchcraft
as a “profession,” in an effort to cut down on witch tax evasion.
The law also adds astrologers, embalmers, valets, and driving instructors to the taxable category.
Jan. 2: “Nobody ever voted for that,” says Justice Antonin Scalia in
a newly published interview, referring to the idea that women are
entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Scalia also
states that the answers to questions about the “most controversial”
topics, including the death penalty and abortion, are easy ones,
saying “I don’t even have to read the briefs, for Pete’s sake.”
Jan. 6: A California court rules in favor of two women who sued
Dr. Phil McGraw over an incident during the filming of an episode
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of The Dr. Phil House, finding they had alleged sufficient facts to
continue. According to Plaintiffs, they were told they would have
a “special dinner guest,” who turned out to be a naked man. Plaintiffs also alleged that the food they were given “included items
they had identified in questionnaires as being their least favorite
foods.”
Jan. 12: NPR reports that Romanian witches are protesting new tax
laws in a number of witchy ways, including throwing mandrake
root into the Danube, and have threatened to escalate to “a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement” if their demands
are not met. “My curses always work!” says one well-known
witch, although they don’t.
Jan. 24: Clarence Thomas admits in letters to the Committee on
Financial Disclosure that for years he has routinely failed to disclose information about his wife’s employment, as he is required
to do by federal law. Thomas, who is one of the nine justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States, states that the information
“was inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”
Jan. 26: A Canadian couple says that officials at Gatwick Airport
confiscated a firearm found in their luggage and required them to
ship it home separately, which they thought was unusual since it
was a three-inch-long plastic rifle wielded by a toy soldier they
bought at a museum. “It’s probably just as well we didn’t sell her a
toy tank,” said a museum spokesman.
Jan. 30: UK officials confirm that a former immigration officer has
confessed that he rid himself of his wife by putting her name on a
“no-fly” list while she was overseas. This came to light when he
later applied for a promotion, which required a background check,
which revealed that he was married to someone on a terrorist
watch list (because he had put her there). Rather than be linked to
a terrorist, he admitted the tampering. The woman was grounded
for about three years.
FEBRUARY 2011
Feb. 10: A Missouri judge declines to dismiss a suit against the
Kansas City Royals by a man who alleges that the Royals’ mascot,
a seven-foot-tall lion named Sluggerrr, hit him in the eye with a
hot dog. The team asserted the assumption-of-risk defense, arguing that “[i]t is simply undeniable that the Hotdog Toss is an activity so intimately intertwined with Royals baseball that one who
attends a Royals game assumes the risk associated with [it].”
58 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
Feb. 10: The Kansas City Star reports that a Wichita man’s strategy
for avoiding seat-belt tickets has failed. An officer who asked him
to get out of the car during a traffic stop noticed that he was wearing a seat-belt belt around his waist. Kansas law requires occupants of a moving car to “have a safety belt properly fastened
about such person’s body,” but, the man argued, does not require
the belt to be attached to the car.
Feb. 11: A Pennsylvania judge rules that a slice of pizza is a “solid
object” for purposes of a law that forbids throwing such objects
from an overpass. In a lengthy (and tongue-in-cheek) footnote, he
describes a series of experiments he conducted on pizza he bought
for lunch, relying primarily on the fact that even when bitten “the
slice of pizza retained its basic shape, although it did droop a bit at
the end,” and therefore did not behave like a gas or liquid.
Feb. 21: Police in Latvia announce they have arrested a man suspected of shooting another moviegoer for eating popcorn too loudly during a screening of Black Swan, a movie about someone who
snaps under pressure.
MARCH 2011
Mar. 8: State Senator Jim Norman of Florida introduces a bill that
would make it a first-degree felony — a more serious crime than
manslaughter — to take a picture of a farm without permission.
The goal is reportedly to stop animal-rights activists from documenting activities to which they object (or as the New York Times
puts it, to stop “croparazzi”), but the bill is so broad it would criminalize taking a picture from the street with no ulterior motive.
Mar. 9: A 21-year-old student sues the TSA for detaining him and
having him charged with disorderly conduct for taking his shirt
off to reveal that he had written part of the Fourth Amendment on
his chest. Aaron Tobey alleges he was handcuffed, interrogated,
and asked if he was affiliated with any terrorist organizations before being released, and that TSA officials then contacted police at
his university to suggest they report him to the dean.
Mar. 16: Reuters reports that a passenger on a Delta flight was detained after being overheard falsely identifying himself as a federal
air marshal. His problem was mainly that he was overheard by a
real air marshal, who knows (because he is one) that real air marshals don’t tell passengers they are air marshals because that
would defeat the purpose of having air marshals.
Mar. 18: “I let love get in the way,” says Richard Barton, Jr., explaining why he got married again without divorcing his first
59 GREEN BAG ALMANAC & READER 2012
wife. Barton allegedly told the new wife that he was divorced, but
his first wife called police after coming across new wedding pictures he unwisely posted on Facebook.
Mar. 21: An armed standoff in San Antonio is sparked by a dispute
over the price of burritos at a local Taco Bell, when a man becomes
irate after learning his seven Beefy Crunch Burritos will cost $3.50
more than he had expected. A three-hour standoff is ended by tear
gas. “They did use [sic] to be 99 cents,” a manager says later. “But
that was just a promotion.”
Mar. 22: In a lawsuit against Adidas, an Illinois woman alleges she
was injured because her new shoes were made with materials that
“had a tendency to stick together when they came in contact with
each other,” causing her to fall. According to Adidas’s website, the
shoe in question has a “full grain leather upper” and a “grippy
rubber outsole,” as do many others.
Mar. 30: President Barack Obama receives an award from the organizers of the Freedom of Information Day Conference, presented
at the White House by advocates of government transparency. The
media is not invited to the event, which is not listed on the President’s calendar, takes place behind closed doors, and is not transcribed. “The irony is,” one participant says, “that everything the
President said [about transparency] was spot-on. I wish people
had heard what he had to say.”
APRIL 2011
Apr. 1: A Montana state legislator objects to the state’s DUI laws
on the grounds that they are hurting small businesses because they
make it too difficult for patrons to travel to and (especially) from
bars. “These laws are destroying a way of life that has been in [sic]
Montana for years and years,” said Alan Hale, who coincidentally
owns a bar.
Apr. 5: A New Hampshire man is arraigned on charges of “unlawfully intercepting an oral communication” after using his cell
phone during a traffic stop. Police argue that this was a crime because the driver left a message during the call and the officer’s
voice was allegedly recorded by the voice-mail service without his
consent.
Apr. 7: From a report of cases filed in San Francisco on this date:
“Bernadette M_____ v. Northern Trust, et al., No. CGC 11-510013.
Employment complaint for sex, age and race discrimination. The
plaintiff, an Irish citizen, suffered through a Mr. Potato Head contest organized by defendant . . . in which potatoes were decorated
to resemble drunken Irishmen.”
60 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
Apr. 7: From a report of cases filed in New Orleans on this date:
“John B____ v. Bethala, et al., No. 2011-12066. Negligence action.
While the plaintiff was staying on the third floor of the defendants’
hotel, a wasp flew into his room. While the plaintiff was attempting to kill the wasp, he fell out of the window.”
Apr. 13: Several sources report on a study that examined 1,112 parole hearings in Israeli prisons over a 10-month period, finding
that the rate at which paroles were granted started at about 65% in
the morning and then gradually declined, rising again to 65% after
the lunch break. The researchers speculated that the results may
show a tendency to select a “default option” — here, denying parole — when a judge gets tired.
Apr. 25: The BBC reports that a Welsh police force has begun posting its responses to Freedom of Information Act requests, showing
that over the past few years citizens have reported seeing 36 “big
cats” or suspected big cats, 26 ghosts, 20 UFOs, 11 witches, two
vampires and a zombie. (There were actually two zombie reports,
but one turned out to be somebody shooting a horror movie.) The
department has also been asked to report the amount of money it
has spent on psychics (zero) and “secret shoppers” (also zero).
Apr. 26: Police in Buffalo say they are looking for a man who escaped from the Central District station earlier that day. The suspect is described as tall and muscular, wearing black clothing, and
likely still carrying the chair to which they had handcuffed him.
“Police think he still has the chair with him because it is missing
from the station,” the report says.
MAY 2011
May 4: The Florida legislature passes SB 228, a bill that imposes
certain restrictions in the wearing of excessively baggy pants in the
state’s schools. The sponsor refers to it as the “Pull Your Pants Up
Legislation” but it is appears to be commonly known as the
“Droopy Drawers Bill.”
May 9: Police in Sonoma, California, say that they have no leads in
the case of the unauthorized enema. A man who had recently undergone intestinal surgery told them a woman showed up at his
home, said she was there to perform the procedure, did so, and
then promptly left. The man later became suspicious, and inquiries
revealed that no enema had been prescribed, ordered or approved.
The incident remains unexplained.
May 12: The Illinois legislature passes HB 3178, a bill that would
allow the taking of what is commonly referred to as “roadkill”
provided that the person taking it has all appropriate permits and
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the animal is “in season.” The bill was introduced by Representative Norine Hammond, who says it will not only benefit “hunters”
but will “help clean up our state at no extra cost.”
May 13: Joshua Monson, facing trial in Washington on drug
charges, pokes his court-appointed lawyer in the neck with a pencil. The lawyer was Monson’s second, the first having withdrawn
the week before after Monson poked him in the neck with a pencil.
Monson will later try to poke his third lawyer in the neck with a
pen, after which he will complain about being strapped to a chair
for the remainder of the proceedings.
May 16: Donald Trump announces he will not run for president.
He does promise, however, to “continue to voice my opinions
loudly.”
May 17: Rick Santorum, who is running for president, accuses
Senator John McCain of not understanding “how enhanced interrogation works,” although McCain was enhancedly interrogated
numerous times while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
May 19: The Texas legislature passes, and the governor later signs,
a bill legalizing handfishing. As the committee report states,
“[h]andfishing, also known as noodling, is the practice and sport
of fishing for catfish using one’s bare hands. The method involves
locating an underwater catfish hole and using an angler’s fingers
and hand as bait.”
May 27: The Wall Street Journal, reporting on Rod Blagojevich’s
retrial: “Blagojevich was allowed a lot of rope on Thursday. He
talked about his ‘man crush’ on Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury; his devotion to combing his fluffy mane of
hair; and his aspirations of becoming a professional baseball player. He said that, while he was in office, he was the only governor
who could spin a basketball on his finger, and noted that he ran
his first marathon in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 30 seconds.” Despite
these accomplishments, Blagojevich is later convicted.
May 31: Manal al-Sherif is released after spending ten days in a
Saudi jail for the crime of driving while female. Saudi Arabia does
not allow women to drive, or do other dangerous things like vote.
JUNE 2011
June 2: The Daily Telegraph reports that British MI6 agents hacked
a website affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and
replaced a set of bomb-making instructions with recipes for “The
Best Cupcakes in America,” as seen on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
The recipes included the “Rocky Road Cupcake” and a mojito62 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
flavored treat “made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream,” neither of which explodes.
June 3: A Florida TV station reports that, after Bank of America
wrongly foreclosed on their home and then failed to pay an award
of legal fees, two homeowners showed up at a local branch with
sheriff’s deputies, saying they were there to seize the bank’s assets.
The bank manager cut a check for the fees after a standoff that
lasted about an hour.
June 6: The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) files a trademark-dilution suit in Kansas City against the International House
of Prayer (IHOP), alleging that “[s]everal persons have either been
confused by House of Prayer’s use of ‘IHOP’ or felt the need to
clarify” the reference.
June 9: Rejecting expert testimony on the subject of lap dances, a
New York judge holds that a strip club is liable for $125,000 in unpaid taxes. The expert, described as a “cultural anthropologist who
has conducted extensive research in the field of exotic dance,” testifies that in her opinon, the “presentations” offered at “Nite
Moves” are “unequivocally live dramatic choreographic performances,” and therefore not taxable.
June 14: “It’s shocking that people are just so stupid,” says Lt. John
Walker, referring to the Philadelphia woman who posted an ad for
a hit man on Facebook and the man who responded to the ad, also
on Facebook, posting a picture of himself holding a gun. Both were
arrested.
June 20: A lawyer now working for the American Enterprise Institute harshly criticizes President Obama — also a lawyer — for taking the position that the U.S. is not engaged in “hostilities” in Libya, which it was then bombing. The argument is not merely “aggressive,” he says, it is “utterly farcical” and undermines the rule
of law. The lawyer, John Yoo, previously took the position that
waterboarding is not “torture.”
June 22: Counsel for the Dallas Mavericks basketball team moves
to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a shareholder who alleges that the
current owner has “mismanaged” the team. The primary argument in the motion is that ten days earlier, the Mavericks had defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA championship.
June 24: The House of Representatives fails to pass a resolution
that would have authorized the use of force in Libya for up to one
year but prohibited the use of ground troops except in emergencies. That is, the House took up, but could not pass, a resolution
that would have given the President general authority to do some63 GREEN BAG ALMANAC & READER 2012
thing he had already been doing for three months, and specific
authority to do something that everybody agrees he could do
without asking.
June 28: The Second Circuit affirms the dismissal of a lawsuit
claiming that Adam Sandler and others responsible for the film
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan stole the idea for that movie. This
means that the answer to the question “how many people are willing to claim the idea of a crime-fighting hairdresser who uses a
blow-dryer as a weapon” is “at least two.”
JULY 2011
July 5: According to the New York Post, a new lawsuit demands
that the state stop using the word “inmate,” or that it at least stop
referring to the plaintiff’s brother that way. Plaintiff alleges her
brother has suffered extreme mental anguish because, she says, the
word “inmate” implies that he has been “locked up for the purpose of mating with other men.” Plaintiff hopes to protect her
brother’s reputation from this “disgraceful” implication. In a related story, her brother is a convicted murderer.
July 12: Senator Mitch McConnell proposes a “resolution of disapproval” of any increase in the debt limit, a resolution he believes
the President would veto. Since Congress likely would not override the veto, the net result would be an increase in the debt limit,
for which Congress could then blame the President. In other
words, Congress would approve a resolution of disapproval in
order to force the President to disapprove that disapproval, which
would turn it into an approval, one that Congress would be unable
to re-disapprove, thus effectively raising the debt limit without
requiring either branch to vote in favor of anything.
July 12: The City Council of Gould, Arkansas, passes an ordinance
prohibiting the mayor or any councilmember from meeting with
any organization, and prohibiting the formation of any new organizations in the city, without prior Council approval. To his credit,
the city attorney had tried to explain that the ordinance plainly
violates the First Amendment, resulting in attempts by councilmembers to have him fired.
July 14: Herman Cain, then running for president, takes a stand
against the construction of a controversial mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The mosque should not be built, he says, because it
would be “an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion.”
July 18: The California Court of Appeal holds in State Farm v. Frake
that an insurance policy covering injuries caused by “accidents”
64 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
does not cover injuries resulting from a punch to the groin. The
insured puncher had argued that although the act was intentional,
the injury was not, citing the fact that the puncher and punchee
were longtime friends who had a “tradition” of groin-related
horseplay, which the insured referred to as “testicular tagging.”
July 22: A judge in Ohio rejects a defendant’s motion to dismiss in
which the defendant had argued he had a First Amendment right
to bark at a police dog. In response, the prosecution had argued
that even if the barking could be construed as “speech,” it should
be considered “fighting words” that are not entitled to protection.
July 29: Joining three other circuits, the Sixth Circuit holds that an
ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim based on unconsciousness
will fail so long as the lawyer was awake for a “substantial portion” of the trial. The court finds that the evidence showed defendant’s lawyer “must have only been asleep for a brief period,” even
if that did occur during the prosecutor’s cross-examination of his
client.
AUGUST 2011
Aug. 4: “The Bronx civil jury is the greatest tool of wealth redistribution since the Red Army,” says defense lawyer Ron Kuby in response to news that a civil case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn
may be filed there. “As a purported socialist,” Kuby says, “DSK
should applaud the venue.”
Aug. 5: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn vetoes the bill that would
have legalized the taking of roadkill, saying he is worried about
the safety of drivers or others who might be encouraged by the
law to stop along the road and pick up flattened mammals.
Aug. 10: The California Court of Appeals holds in Corrales v. Corrales that a partnership must consist of more than one person.
“Having carefully studied the idea of a one-partner partnership in
light of the Revised Uniform Partnership Act, we conclude that no
such animal exists.”
Aug. 15: A 23-year-old Australian man is fined $500 as a result of
being caught driving drunk, after a delay due to the need to research whether a motorized beer cooler is a “motor vehicle.” Finding that it is, the magistrate imposes the minimum penalty, a decision foreshadowed by the fact that his only question for the defendant at the arraignment was “How much beer can it hold?”
Aug. 15: In a lawsuit seeking $77.55 million in damages, a former
law-firm associate explains that he did “superlative legal work”
for his former firm and that, as he said in an email sent before his
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departure, he has “as much experience and ability as an associate
many years my senior, as much skill [in] writing, and a superior
mind to [that of] most I have met.” He expresses surprise at having
found himself unemployed within a month of sending the email.
Aug. 18: The Associated Press reports that Roy Lester’s agediscrimination suit has been reinstated. Lester, a 61-year-old bankruptcy attorney, alleges he was fired from his part-time job as a
lifeguard for refusing to wear Speedo-style swim trunks. He says
the requirement is discriminatory because it is intended to get rid
of older lifeguards. “I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s,” he
told reporters, “but come on. There should be a law prohibiting
anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo.”
Aug. 25: Arguably showing that its body scanners are good for
something, the TSA discovers that a passenger at Miami International Airport has seven snakes and three tortoises in his pants.
Aug. 31: Germany’s Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien
(“Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons”) announces that after ten years, it has removed the video game
“DOOM” from its index of games that cannot be sold to minors.
The German index is based on research suggesting that violent
videogames cause anti-social behavior, although how World Wars
I and II factor into that research is not entirely clear.
SEPTEMBER 2011
Sept. 1: WikiLeaks announces that it has “commenced prelitigation action” against The Guardian and a German citizen for
negligently disclosing decryption passwords WikiLeaks gave The
Guardian. In other words, Wikileaks is planning to sue somebody
for leaking secret information.
Sept. 11: In two separate incidents, F-16s are scrambled to escort
(and possibly shoot down) airliners on which a passenger reportedly made “too many” trips to the bathroom or stayed in the bathroom “too long.” In both incidents, the flight crew told the TSA
that it did not feel threatened, but the TSA said it scrambled fighter planes anyway “out of an abundance of caution.”
Sept. 13: The Wall Street Journal reports on a new federal law that
expands the number of medical-insurance classification codes
from 18,000 to about 140,000. This will allow for greater specificity,
which is evidently why there are thirteen different codes for injuries involving spacecraft, nine for turtle-related injuries (including
the mystifying “struck by turtle,”), and at least three for injuries
caused by walking into a lamppost.
66 UNDERHILL, LOWERING THE BAR 2010–2011
Sept. 14: According to the BBC, a Dutch woman has been charged
with stalking for calling her alleged victim 65,000 times over the
past year, an average of 178 times a day. The woman was granted
bail after agreeing not to contact the man again, a promise she kept
for nearly two hours.
Sept. 14: The journal Nature reports that six Italian seismologists
face manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to provide accurate
risk information prior to a deadly 2009 earthquake. Prosecutors
claim that if such information had been provided, citizens might
have decided to evacuate. As thousands of scientists subsequently
point out in a letter that prosecutors ignore, no one is currently
able to provide accurate risk information about earthquakes.
Sept. 15: Speaking to law students in San Francisco, Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg discusses a trip to India in which she and Justice
Scalia rode together on the back of an elephant. “It was quite a
magnificent, very elegant elephant,” Ginsburg says. “My feminist
friends, when they see the photograph of Ginsburg and Scalia on
this elephant, say, ‘Ruth, why are you sitting in the back?’”
Sept. 20: Representing himself for the second time, Morgan Armstrong is convicted for the second time of robbing a convenience
store. As Armstrong was cross-examining the store clerk, Falguni
Patel, this happened: “Patel, who said Armstrong held a knife to
her throat, was so rattled by the trial she fainted on the witness
stand. Family member and business partner Meena Patel removed
her sneaker and held it to Falguni Patel’s nose, attempting to revive her with the odor.”
Sept. 21: MSNBC reports that the TSA has searched a woman’s
“Afro”-style hairdo for explosives, most likely out of an abundance of caution.
Sept. 27: A Utah man who tells police that he is “invisible” and
“unstoppable” turns out to be neither.
Sept. 28: Clyde Gardner is convicted in Maine of plotting to kill his
ex-girlfriend. His plan, revealed by an acquaintance Gardner tried
to recruit, was to make it look like a bear did it. Gardner planned
to hunt down a bear on the acquaintance’s property, skin it and
wear the pelt, using the front paws as weapons and the rear paws
to insure “there would be only bear tracks.” This otherwise foolproof plan hit a snag, however, when the acquaintance said “he
only had three acres to hunt on, and no bears.”
Sept. 30: Seeking to bring Saudi Arabia fully into the 18th century,
King Abdullah pardons Shaima Jastaina of defying the (unwritten)
ban on female driving, sparing her a sentence of ten lashes. In
67 GREEN BAG ALMANAC & READER 2012
2007, Abdullah pardoned a woman who had been sentenced to six
months in prison and 200 lashes for the crime of “being alone in a
car with a man not related to her.”
OCTOBER 2011
Oct. 10: In Danvers, Massachusetts, a couple makes a panicked call
to 911 to report they are lost inside a corn maze, which had
“closed” about an hour earlier, at sunset. Police send a K-9 unit to
locate the couple, an operation lasting approximately two minutes
since the couple was marooned 25 feet from the exit.
Oct. 18: Police in Dallas say they are still looking for the man who
allegedly threw a frozen armadillo at a woman on September 29.
The assault was apparently sparked by a dispute over the price of
the armadillo, which the woman planned to eat. Research reveals
there is, surprisingly, no new insurance code for “struck by armadillo,” although such codes do exist for dog, horse, cow, “other
hoof stock,” pig, raccoon, dolphin, sea lion, and orca.
Oct. 24: The California Court of Appeal holds in Robey v. Superior
Court that California does not recognize an “in plain smell” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Prosecutors
had argued that this exception justified the opening of a box seized
from a Federal Express office on the grounds that the box “reeked”
of marijuana.
Oct. 26: The Illinois House of Representatives votes to override
Governor Quinn’s veto of the roadkill bill, 87-28. The Senate will
later do the same (unanimously), thus legalizing the taking of
roadkill in Illinois, effective November 10, 2011.
Oct. 27: The Washington Supreme Court rules that the statute under which Helen Immelt had been prosecuted was overbroad, and
overturns her conviction on First Amendment grounds. Immelt
had been convicted in 2009 of honking at her neighbor and a police
officer after a dispute over the chickens she kept in her front yard.
The majority did not reach the question of whether Immelt’s use of
her car horn was, under the circumstances, protected speech.
  
I do not like dogs that assume
you’re guilty until you prove you’re
innocent. I like democratic dogs.
Rex Stout,
In the Best Families, ch. 3 (1950)
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