I don't collect stamps, Hummel figurines or Star Trek memorabilia, but I do hoard a stockpile of something equally nerdy: unusual judicial opinions. Below are a few favorites.1
Lawyers (and Judges and Litigants) Behaving Badly
Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001). In the category of sarcastic judicial scoldings, Judge Samuel Kent's2 opinion in Bradshaw is the granddaddy of them all. Each year, 1Ls around the country shudder in horror at the prospect of being publicly humiliated as the attorneys were in this case:
"Defendant begins the descent into Alice's Wonderland by submitting a Motion that relies upon only one legal authority. The Motion cites a Fifth Circuit case which stands for the whopping proposition that a federal court sitting in Texas applies the Texas statutes of limitations to certain state and federal law claims -[.] That is all well and good - the Court is quite fond of the Erie doctrine; indeed there is talk of little else around both the Canal and this Court's water cooler."
Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., No. 02-C-647-C, Order at 1 (W.D. Wis. July 1, 2003).3 This short, unpublished order calls attorneys to task for nitpicking Microsoft for filing a summary judgment motion four minutes and 27 seconds late:
"Microsoft's insouciance so flustered Hyperphrase that nine of its attorneys - promptly filed a motion to strike the summary judgment motion as untimely. Counsel used bolded italics to make their point, a clear sign of grievous iniquity by one's foe."
Washington v. Alamo, 934 F. Supp. 1395 (S.D. Ga. 1996). The court imposed filing restrictions on a pro se inmate who submitted multiple frivolous motions, including a Motion for Psychoanalysis, Motion for Catered Food Service and Motion to Kiss my Ass (requesting "all Americans at large and [the judge] to kiss my got [sic] damn ass"). Comparing the plaintiff to the boy who cried wolf too many times, the court noted that it would "not turn a deaf ear to Plaintiff's future cries. However, it will require Plaintiff to structure his pleas for help in a more sincere manner so that the energies of the villagers are not wasted on the repeated runs up the grassy hill atop which the mischievous boy sits laughing."
Intellectual Property
Hormel Foods Corp. v. Jim Henson Productions, Inc., 73 F.3d 497 (2d Cir. 1996). Hormel, manufacturer of SPAMTM luncheon meat, sued the Muppets' creator over a movie character named Spa'am, the high priest of a tribe of wild boars who worship Miss Piggy. The district court had concluded that Spa'am, though "untidy" and not "classically handsome," was a positive character whose name was unlikely to make consumers view SPAM's "processed, gelatinous block" in a bad light.
Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc., 296 F.3d 894 (9th Cir. 2002). Mattel, creator of the Barbie doll, sued a producer over Danish band Aqua's annoyingly upbeat song "I'm a Barbie Girl." Although the bulk of the opinion is a straightforward examination of Mattel's intellectual property claims, the court's introduction and conclusion are worth a read.
After noting that Mattel transformed Barbie over the years so that she no longer resembles a "German street walker," the court teased MCA for filing a defamation claim when Mattel used words like "bank robber" and "heist" in the press:
"But all of these are variants of the invective most often hurled at accused infringers, namely 'piracy.' No one hearing this accusation understands intellectual property owners to be saying that infringers are nautical cutthroats with eyepatches and peg legs who board galleons to plunder cargo. In context, all these terms are nonactionable 'rhetorical hyperbole[.'] The parties are advised to chill."
The Budding Playwright
United States v. Ramirez-Lopez, 315 F.3d 1143 (9th Cir. 2003) (Kozinski, J., dissenting) (opinion withdrawn, March 20, 2003). Judge Kozinski's dissent in this case, framed as an imaginary dialogue in which the defense attorney tries to explain the majority's flawed reasoning to his client, was so powerful that the government dismissed the case and released the defendant from prison after the opinion was published.4
Glazner v. Glazner, 347 F.3d 1212 (11th Cir. 2003) (Carnes, J., concurring). Judge Carnes uses dialogue to mock a dissenting judge's suggestion that spouses might have chosen to live in the Eleventh Circuit specifically because they could wiretap their own phones without risking liability under federal law:
Jim: Honey, I've been thinking, we ought to move to Alabama.
Liz: But Sweetheart, I thought you liked living in Colorado.
Jim: I do, Sugar, but there's a problem -. Colorado is in the Tenth Circuit, and its federal appeals court has held that if I wiretap your private conversations without your knowledge and consent, I may have to pay you damages if you find out and sue me in federal court. But if we move to Alabama, which is in the Eleventh Circuit, its Simpson decision will allow me to invade your privacy electronically without having to worry about your having a civil claim against me in federal court.
Hell, Heaven and Their Inhabitants
U.S. ex rel. Mayo v. Satan and his Staff, 54 F.R.D. 282 (W.D. Pa. 1971). The court denies leave for a pro se plaintiff to file a civil rights claim against the defendants, citing problems with jurisdiction and service of process. Accord Jones v. God, Jesus, Others, 1991 WL 42399 (E.D. Pa. March 25, 1991).
Green v. County Commissioners, 450 F. Supp. 2d 1273 (E.D. Okla. 2006). Considering a challenge to a Ten Commandments monument, the judge organized his opinion into cantos that parallel portions of Dante's Inferno.
Poetry
Zangrando v. Sipula, 756 A.2d 73 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2000). The owner of miniature poodles Angel and Autumn sued to recover for veterinary bills when the dogs were hit by a car. The trial court's damages award was affirmed in verse:
The car was coming much too close, something inside told her;
the next thing Mrs. Zangrando knew, a poodle flew over her shoulder.
To appellee this was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster;
the wingless Angel'd taken flight and ascended quickly past her.
In re Love, 61 B.R. 558 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1986). Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven provided inspiration for this bankruptcy opinion, which begins:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary
Over many quaint and curious files of chapter seven lore
While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door,
"Tis some debtor" I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this and nothing more."
Even Westlaw's editors got into the game, drafting the case's headnote in rhyme:
51k2264(1) k. In General.
Sua sponte dismissal would be error,
Though authority in Code is there,
To eschew abuse of consumer debt,
As presumption for debtor must be met.
Bankr.Code, 11 U.S.C.A. ยค 707(b).
The DaVinci Codes
People v. Arno, 90 Cal. App. 3d 505, 514 n.2 (Ct. App. 1979). In response to the dissent, the majority dropped a footnote in which the first letter of each sentence spells out the word "SCHMUCK."
United States v. Syufy Enterprises, 903 F.2d 659 (9th Cir. 1990). More than 200 movie titles are hidden throughout this decision on an antitrust claim involving movie theaters. E.g., "Syufy's entry into the Las Vegas market caused a stir, precipitating a titanic bidding war. Soon, theatres in Las Vegas were paying some of the highest license fees in the nation, while distributors sat back and watched the easy money roll in." (Emphasis added.) n
Sarah Kaltsounis teaches legal research and writing at the University of Washington School of Law.
1 A much larger collection can be found at LawHaHa's Strange Judicial Opinions, compiled by Prof. Andrew J. McClurg. Available at http://www.lawhaha.com/strange.asp.
2 Other Judge Kent zingers include Labor Force, Inc. v. Jacintoport Corp., 144 F. Supp. 2d 740; 2001 WL 640675 (S.D. Tex. June 8, 2001) (subsequently withdrawn from bound volume, but available at http://www.greenbag.org/kent_scanned.pdf ) ("[A]ny person with even a correspondence-course level understanding of federal practice and procedure would recognize that Defendant's Motion is patently insipid, ludicrous and utterly unequivocally without any merit whatsoever."); Republic of Bolivia v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc., 39 F. Supp. 2d 1008, 1009 (S.D. Texas 1999) (transferring a case sua sponte to the District of Columbia: "[T]he Court can hardly imagine why the Republic of Bolivia elected to file suit in the veritable hinterlands of Brazoria County, Texas. The Court seriously doubts whether Brazoria County has ever seen a live Bolivian ... even on the Discovery Channel."); Smith v. Colonial Penn Insurance Co., 943 F. Supp. 782, 785 n.2 (S.D. Tex. 1996) (denying motion to transfer venue: "Defendant will again be pleased to know that regular limousine service is available from Hobby Airport, even to the steps of this humble courthouse, which has got lights, indoor plummin', 'lectric doors, and all sorts of new stuff, almost like them big courthouses back East.").
3 Available at http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/microsoft/hyperms70103ord.pdf.
4 See Gregory S. Fisher, The Greatest Dissent?, The Federal Lawyer 30 (Oct. 2003).
