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.”
We here at Fight The Hypo are on the cutting edge of legal reform, committed as we are to justice, freedom, and the rule of law. Here’s an example of our innovative and forward-looking thinking for dealing with the critical challenges facing our legal system.
Replace the obscure, outdated Latin phrase “res ipsa loquitur” with the more modern English phrase “it is what it is.”
Granted, I have just learned what “res ipsa loquitur” means. So, while I may have less experience than more seasoned attorneys, what I’m asking for here is a vote for change we can all believe in. And while the common law’s currency is experience, in this case, experience is merely a millstone dragging the law into the depths of confusion.
If I had been there when they chose the phrase, I would have voted differently. In fact, I was always against granting judges the blanket authority to invent Latin phrases. I could have told them it was a losing cause and a dying language. But we have to look forward, not back. So, here’s my case for why centuries of common law parlance must yield to new realities we face.
Continue reading ‘The Case For A New Res Ipsa Loquitur: “It Is What It Is”’
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?”
