I’m curious to hear your reaction to the Texas Supreme Court’s decision to return the children seized by the Texas Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) from the FLDS’ Yearning for Zion Ranch. I’ve read the court’s decision and a few news reports. Admittedly, my reading has not gone much beyond this surface level. So if you have insight that I lack, have at it…
Notwithstanding my serious misgivings about the sect and the lives children are apparently forced to lead there (expressed in this thread), I think the court’s approach strikes an appropriate balance between keeping kids with their families by applying the statutory standard to which state agencies must adhere when dealing with cases like this.
Continue reading ‘Reaction to FLDS decision’
This is from our Torts reading for tonight. Make sure you test the floor of the Port-O-John next time…
The case for the plaintiffs was that they were tenants of the defendant, which controlled the house wherein they lived and also the adjoining house, and provided a detached privy for the use of both houses; that Mrs. Rush having occasion to use this privy, went into it and fell through the floor, or through some sort of trap door therein, descended about nine feet into the accumulation at the bottom, and had to be extricated by use of a ladder. The defendant denied that there was any pit at all, and claimed the floor was only about nine inches above solid ground.
Rush v. Commercial Realty Co., 145 A. 476 (1929 (emphasis added).
Update: to quote Dr. Bombay who was asked last night to brief this case, “This might possibly be the most disturbing line in a case I’ve read.”
A close friend of mine was recently bitten by her beloved dachshund. (Mercifully, she’s alright.) I’m also told that her husband was able to stay his murderous wrath and not punt the dog, which makes him a better man than me. Like everything these days, it got me wondering what the legal ramifications of being bitten by a dog were, for the owner and the victim. Especially if it was by a wiener dog, which I’ve never thought of being deadly to anything but badgers. Continue reading ‘Attack of the Wiener Dogs.’
Yesterday, I had what I’m convinced is a universal law school experience.
Last night, a classmate walked into the atrium outside our Torts class carrying a King Cake. That day at work, one of his clients (from New Orleans) had sent it to him as a thanks for his hard work. Some of us (including me) weren’t sure what a King Cake was, but quickly learned that it “is a ring of twisted bread similar to that used in brioche, topped with icing or sugar, usually coloured purple, green, and gold (the traditional Carnival colors) with food colouring.” The cake contains a trinket, most commonly (since 1950, at least) a small plastic baby. Whoever gets the trinket in his or her piece of cake, gets the privilege of being king of the party or has to bring the cake next year (or any number of traditions depending on context).
Anyway, you see where I’m going. One by one our classmates, when they heard the backstory of the King Cake, asked, “what if you bite into it and break your tooth.” To this, the owner of the King Cake proudly pointed out, “That’s why they printed this disclaimer on the packaging.” Clearly, he had thought of it too and checked it out.
Later that night, I explained to another classmate about the cake, what it was, why the guy brought it. He said, “What if someone breaks a tooth?”
Welcome to a new way of thinking where the first question is not “what does it taste like?” but “can the baker get sued for sticking a plastic baby in it?”
