Antiboycott Compliance: “The antiboycott laws were adopted to encourage, and in specified cases, require U.S. firms to refuse to participate in foreign boycotts that the United States does not sanction. They have the effect of preventing U.S. firms from being used to implement foreign policies of other nations which run counter to U.S. policy.”
This is crazy! Who knew we had such laws?
My plan to buy a barrister’s wig is in serious trouble.
My mother sent me a link to this list of unusual deaths and I was particularly piqued by the death of Clement Vallandigham:
After the Civil War, controversial Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham became a highly successful lawyer who rarely lost a case.
In 1871, he defended Thomas McGehan who was accused of shooting one Tom Myers during a barroom brawl. Vallandigham’s defense was that Myers had accidentally shot himself while drawing his pistol from a kneeling position.
To convince the jury, Vallandigham decided to demonstrate his theory. Unfortunately, he grabbed a loaded gun by mistake and ended up shooting himself!
By dying, Vallandigham succeeded in demonstrating the plausibility of the accidental shooting and got his client acquitted.
What taking the bar exam did to my living environment (and I’m usually such a clean person):
This video was taken after day two of the bar exam.
(Published under Troeltsch’s login, but actually Lorelei.)
For extremely boring work-related reasons, I needed to check a fact about Nissan cars today. So I typed nissan.com into my web browser and discovered that the site is actually owned by Nissan Computer Corp., a small computer sales and repair business in North Carolina. Perhaps not surprisingly, a major feature on the company’s front page is a big fat banner about their ongoing lawsuit with Nissan Motor Corp. USA. Being bored by cars and interested in lawsuits, I clicked the link.
Turns out that Nissan Computer Corp. is owned by a guy whose last name is actually Nissan (via Jerusalem, not Tokyo — same word as the month on the Jewish calendar). He figured out that nissan.com would be useful before the automaker did. Inevitably, the automaker sued him in 1999 for cybersquatting, copyright infringement and trademark dilution. Many details are here (though in a somewhat selective way), but this thing has been to the Ninth Circuit and narrowly avoided cert. If you are interested, a magazine article on the subject is here and a law journal paper is here. In the end, Nissan Computer got to keep its site but spent a lot of money, and it took nine years.
Even beyond the case itself, there were several things that I thought would interest RD about this case:
1. Before Nissan Computer, Mr. Nissan had an auto repair company called Nissan Foreign Car — and he got sued over the computer company!
2. Mr. Nissan’s first name is Uzi. Good thing he didn’t piss THAT company off.
3. On Mr. Nissan’s site, which is updated more frequently than it might appear, we learn that Nissan is partly owned by Renault and Renault is partly owned by the French government. Thus, Nissan Motors is part French. I believe this information is supposed to be damning. Perhaps he’s concerned about the French head-butting the American small business to death.
My final confirmation email:
Dear [DoorFrame],
This email confirms you have successfully uploaded your answer file for the July 2008 California Bar Examination. ExamSoft has received the following exam from you:
Institution: State Bar of California
Application #: XXXXX
Exam File: CalBar_XXXXXXX.XXX
Answer File: XXXX-CalBar_XXXXXXXXX.XXX
Upload Date: 7/31/2008
Confirmation ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Exam Download/Upload Confirmation: Click on this link or copy and paste into your browser to review how to confirm your exam files were downloaded and your answer files were uploaded successfully: http://www.examsoft.com/confirmations
Sincerely,
ExamSoft Support
barsupport@examsoft.com
8:30am – 5:30pm ET
A fellow bar taker today pointed out that during his post-study TV watching, he found himself laughing like a giddy child a jokes he probably wouldn’t normally enjoy quite so ebulliently. I notice myself doing the same thing, so I warn that my sense of humor may be totally off at this point. In addition, this video is about the law, so who the hell knows if it’s even the least bit entertaining.
Oh, by the way, that had some NSFW language. Sorry about that.
Anybody else going through the bar preparation process want to share how messy and note-laden their room has become?
I like the cut of this girl’s jib:
I took the five-week, three-hour-a-day [Bar] prep course, paid for the computer software, booked a hotel room near the testing site and even stayed one night there. But, at 2 a.m. before the first day of the test, I decided that I wasn’t prepared enough to take it. So I didn’t. I was angry at myself, but I felt more relieved than anything else.
Then I did the exact same thing all over again — in February [2008]. It’s now summer and, once again, I’m registered to take the exam.
I’m thinking of bailing out of one or two bar exams. Anyone want to join me?
The town I grew up in was swindled (via the vagaries of bankruptcy law) out of one $322,000 firetruck. And they’re not happy:
from Irvington Village News <———@———-.com>
reply-to ———@———-.com
date Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 1:13 PM
subject Trustee Pat Ryan resigns from Village BoardAt a meeting of Irvington Board of Trustees held July 21, 2008, Trustee Pat Ryan resigned from the Board. Mayor Erin Malloy thanked Trustee Ryan for her service to the Village and for being a “terrific colleague and terrific running mate.” Trustee Ryan was first elected as Trustee in 2006 and in her second term after winning re-election in March 2008.
In announcing her resignation, Ms. Ryan cited that “there is a decision before the Board that is very complicated and very difficult — It is a decision that I believe I cannot support.” Ms. Ryan was concerned that the Board’s decision to seek recovery of the lost fire truck funds from a fidelity bond held by the Village on behalf of former Clerk/Treasurer Edward Ritter could have personal financial impacts on Mr. Ritter.
Mayor Malloy, it’s worth noting, was the coin-toss loser of the exciting mayoral election of 2005 that ended in an exact tie. She actually had one more vote, but after a lengthy court battle a sealed ballot cast by one of her supporters was thrown out. She won in 2007.
My home town’s politics are fantastic!
After a surprisingly long period of research, I’ve found what appears to be the only option for purchasing an authentic barrister’s wig: the very Harry Potter-esque Ede and Ravenscroft of Chancery Lane. The lowest tier wig (above) costs £495.00 and is all sorts of awesome.
I’m going to buy one and wear it around my house while I watch TV and eat Cheetos.
The frizz-top wig is better, but it costs £1775.00 and my budget for humorous wig purchases doesn’t stretch QUITE that far.
If I had the time, the money, and/or the technical know-how, I would create a dictionary that lists the current definition of a word, as well all the previous definitions of that word, organized by year, from most recent to most ancient. Wouldn’t it be great too be able to look up a word, and then see how that word’s definition has mutated over time? Haven’t you ever wondered what the word “haberdashery” meant in 1850, but had no easy method of researching it? This would make Justice Scalia’s day!
Realistically, the best way too go about doing this would be to partner with a pre-existing, well established and long-published dictionary. The OED, for example, has been publishing since the 19th Century and would make a perfect source work. You’d type in a word, get their current definition, as well as every definition they’ve published in the last 150 years.
You could even do a fair amount of this work without permission. Works published prior to 1923 in the US are in the public domain and can be freely republished. Someone should start with the OED’s first edition, and digitize every version through 1923. While the OED only goes back to the mid 19th Century, other dictionaries go back even farther, and they could be added to run back as far as English words have been defined (since 1604).
Am I the only person who thinks this would be interesting and useful? Is there already a way to do this that I’m unaware of?
A fantastic story: A fashion designer who dislikes Obama because he think’s Obama is a Muslim sells a t-shirt that reads “Obama is my slave” to a grad student who thinks it’s a good idea to wear this t-shirt out and about in New York City. The grad student is, unsurprisingly, assaulted by a group of angry New York denizens, then sues the fashion designer.
I can’t figure out who I like least in this story, the xenophobic fashion designer, the foolishly short-sighted and litigious grad student, or the violent street people?
I wish I were British:
Save the Wig! “Various types have been threatening to abolish barristers’ wigs for decades. But to my dismay, I learned last night that the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has resolved to abolish wigs in all civil courts in England and Wales. Voice your opposition.”
Perhaps those in opposition to wig abolishment want to ensure they continue to be recognized as barristers rather than solicitors, for reasons set forth by the next group.
“Barristers are better than solicitors in every conceivable way” group. “On the one hand you have barristers- dashing, glamorous, obscenely intelligent and effortlessly classy. Daily they stride forth, fearless and proud, to fight tirelessly for justice, freedom and the underdog, while nobly robed in wig and gown, which may be archaic, yet remain oddly alluring. The pitiful masses can only gaze in admiration as counsel hoist aloft their verbal lances, and engage in their rhetorical joust, intent only on victory (and on getting the £50 fee for some shitty bail application).
And on the other side you have solicitors- squinty eyed, sallow skinned desk monkeys. Clothed in their cheap, sensible suits, boasting less charisma than a volume of the white book, and more often than not impotent. Essentially glorified secretaries, these bastards still for reasons unbeknown to any reasonable man receive sickeningly generous training contracts, before starting work on a salary which would give the average pupil a wet dream. But this is clearly only a comfort blanket, a pathetic attempt to numb the awe and envy we know they all feel for their glorious legal brethren at the Bar.”
Thanks Lorelei.
CrazyMonk points to a great article about “how black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds.”
In the previous year, nearly twenty defendants in other Baltimore cases had begun adopting what lawyers in the federal courthouse came to call “the flesh-and-blood defense.” The defense, such as it is, boils down to this: As officers of the court, all defense lawyers are really on the government’s side, having sworn an oath to uphold a vast, century-old conspiracy to conceal the fact that most aspects of the federal government are illegitimate, including the courts, which have no constitutional authority to bring people to trial. The defendants also believed that a legal distinction could be drawn between their name as written on their indictment and their true identity as a “flesh and blood man.”
It’s long, but good.
Last year it was Copyright Infringement High, now it’s Copyright Infringement Elementary:
How do you think E. B. White feels about this?
Nothings beats some good Third Amendment jurisprudence. Nobody much talks about the Third Amendment’s guarantee that “[n]o Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” It’s really the forgotten Amendment in the Bill of Rights; people still fight over the other amendments (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) but nobody ever fights over the third.
Well, wait, two people did. The first is about the flying of military aircraft over a landowner’s property:
Custer County Action Ass’n v. Garvey, 256 F.3d 1024 (10th Cir. 2001)
Judicial interpretation of the Third Amendment is nearly nonexistent. The crux of any such claim, however, is whether the nature of the asserted property interest falls “within the ambit of the Third Amendment’s proscription against quartering troops ‘in any house, without the consent of the Owner.’” Citing Engblom v. Carey, Petitioners argue that “because a private party has rights to the airspace above his or her property … the United States military may not appropriate such property interests during peacetime without the property owners’ consent.” This argument borders on frivolous.
D’oh! Frivolous! I guess that was to be expected, but surprisingly they’re not all frivolous. Check out the one other case on the topic dealing with a prison guard strike:
Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2nd Cir. 1982)
In this action, brought [] by two correction officers at the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility (”Mid-Orange”) in Warwick, New York, against the Governor and various officials of the State of New York, plaintiffs-appellants contend that their due process and Third Amendment rights were violated during a statewide strike of correction officers in April and May of 1979 when they were evicted from their facility-residences without notice or hearing and their residences were used to house members of the National Guard without their consent. For the first time a federal court is asked to invalidate as violative of the Third Amendment the peacetime quartering of troops “in any house, without the consent of the Owner.” District Judge Robert W. Sweet granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint on the ground that appellants did not have a sufficient possessory interest in their facility-residences to entitle them to protection under the Third Amendment and the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We affirm the dismissal of the due process claim on the ground that adequate post-deprivation procedures were afforded to protect appellants’ rights. We reverse the dismissal of the Third Amendment claim on the ground that issues as to material facts rendered summary judgment inappropriate.
Aside from the lower court’s opinion in this case, there are no reported opinions involving the literal application of the Third Amendment. Several far-fetched, metaphorical applications have been urged and summarily rejected.
…
Some time before April 25 a decision was made by Mid-Orange to clear the rooms that had been leased to the striking officers so that the rooms could be used to house National Guardsmen, who until then had been housed in the school and administration buildings. On April 25 officer-tenants were permitted to enter and remove and store their belongings in a locked storage area in the building, and appellants did so. Their rooms had been ransacked and personal property was found to be missing or destroyed. Beginning at the same time Guardsmen were housed in these rooms and remained until the end of the strike on May 5. It is undisputed that Palmer’s room was so used. While Snow’s affidavit states that Engblom’s room was never occupied by Guardsmen, this was disputed by Engblom’s affidavit.
Wow… sounds pretty dead on, doesn’t it? Like, a real Third Amendment claim? Well, the dissent didn’t think so:
The majority holds that Judge Robert W. Sweet improperly granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the claim of Marianne E. Engblom and Charles E. Palmer, state correction officers, that their Third Amendment rights were violated by the quartering of New York State National Guardsmen in their residences at the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick, New York, during a statewide strike of correction officers. Supporting this theoretical and impracticable position, which acknowledges a farfetched Third Amendment “quartering” claim based on a constitutional provision rarely, if ever, utilized, the majority conjures phantom “genuine issues of material fact.” Moreover, my brethren adopt a fanciful interpretation of the meaning of “house” protected under the Third Amendment, and fail to pay sufficient heed to the special circumstances and exigencies of prison administration. I cannot agree. A careful and practical analysis, responsive to the full range of interests at stake, leads me to the conclusion that Engblom and Palmer did not have a property interest which would give them the right under the Third Amendment to exclude from their prison quarters National Guardsmen sent to the prison during the crisis conditions caused by the strike. Accordingly, in light of the patently frivolous nature of appellants’ claim, I dissent from this aspect of the Court’s decision…
The majority’s willingness seriously to entertain a “quartering of troops” claim holds us up to derision
D’oh! Frivolous again! And this time, it was “patently frivolous.” That was unexpected… and sad. Oh well.
