October 7 2006 Legal Blog Roundup

The comment in question came from a two line post over at Overlawyered. More of a link than a post, really, pointing to an MSNBC article titled "10 Wacky Airline Lawsuits."

Now, as a rule of thumb, I don't normally expect any articles starting with "10," "50" or "100" to be very substantive; the second word is too likely to be "Greatest" or "Lamest" and generally we're looking at the kind of thing you read at a party when you really can't face your ex over by the bar and have drunkenly decided to annoy the hell out of the rest of the attendees by camping out in the bathroom. Or something. The addition of the word "wacky" only strengthens this idea by adding a note of "Reader's Digest" or possibly "I Love Lucy."


But instead of letting the article go by with an ungraceful gigglesnort, someone had to bring up tort reform and its use of goofy poster-child cases. And use three sets of unnecessary quotation marks in the first sentence. And we're off, with a series of snarky vocabulary-ridden comments slagging off on that first commentor, to the point where they begin casting aspersions on each other's funding.

I think my favorite line, for sheer wordy understatement, is "I think we may disagree about the strength of each other's various legal analyses."

In salad news - as the FDA continues its search for the source of what BBC News describes as "the rogue spinach," which caused one E.coli-related death and 146 illnesses, the legal community has begun girding its loins for spinach-y class action.

Prominent, of course, is the family of the woman who died; the case is being handled by Marler Clark , the Seattle law firm which makes rather a specialty of E.coli cases - more than a thousand since 1993. The firm's also handling the cases of a couple suing Dole, and a mother and young son going after Natural Selection Foods.

But the suits aren't limited to personal injury, as Plantiff's Lawyer Blog observes: a restaurant in Illinois is also suing Natural Selection for the spinach it was obliged to throw out, alleging that the "Defendant's conduct was so outrageous as to constitute ill will, bad motive and reckless indifference to the interests of the purchases of spinach."

I could make a Popeye joke here, but I'm not quite that desperate for humor. I'll just observe that the words "reckless" and "purchases of spinach" probably have never been used together before outside of a cartoon format. That and "rogue spinach" warmed my dark, incongruity-loving little heart today. Just wanted to share.

The San Francisco Chronicle published two articles this week on the subject of same-sex marriage: "Divorcing gay couples create new legal issues" and "Same-sex marriage foes say divorces prove their point". The first is an interesting look at the current contradictions in the policies regarding breakups for those states that legally recognize same-sex couples. The second...well, even if you oppose same-sex partnerships you've got to wonder how anyone managed to say this with a straight face:

"The separation of Julie and Hillary Goodridge is tragic not only for their daughter," the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition said in a statement released the day after the couple confirmed the separation. "But ... they have clearly shown just how little they value the institution of marriage and provide a chilling look into what our nation faces if homosexual marriage is legalized elsewhere."

I'm sure young Miss Goodridge appreciates Rev. Sheldon's sympathy.

Anyway, I'm reminded of a discussion over at Alas, a Blog last month on the whole notion of whether there is, in fact, any kind of gay agenda aimed at deconstructing traditional notions of family, and if so, whether that might even be a defensible position.

I'm also reminded of a recent Onion article, but perhaps that's just me.

And, on a final, seedy note, Justin Scheck over at Legal Pad observes:

"For those who keep track of drug laws, it turns out to be a bad idea to manufacture pot snacks, even for sale at medical marijuana co-ops. Oh, and also, you shouldn't be giving bong hits to your toddler."

It seems the Ninth Circuit recently had to uphold the conviction of Jessica Durham, a woman who had her 1 1/2 year old take bong hits to improve her appetite and mellow her mood. Well...yeah.

Also, it seems a gentleman named Kenneth Affolter pled guilty Tuesday to conspiring to manufacture and distribute "Pot Tarts," "Munchy Way," and "Trippy Peanut Butter." One of the main objections on the law's part, apparently, was that aside from that whole "illegal drug" thing, the names sounded aimed at younger users. This rings some kind of bell for me...

Anyway, one has to be impressed with the deductive skills of the friend who turned Durham in:

"Based on her extensive experience as a marijuana smoker for over 20 years, she recognized the substance which Ms. Durham scraped from the inside of the water pipe as marijuana residue - that is, the burnt residue left on or in a pipe after smoking marijuana."

Wow. No kidding.

And that's it for this week. Join me next week, when I'll see if I can progress to even greater heights of dodginess. I'm thinking I'll start with previews for the Supreme Court term and end up with kitten huffing. See you then!