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Of Communists, speeders, smoker and Scalitos…
Since there was no story that particularly tickled my legal funny bone this tiring Monday a.m., let’s do some quick hits.
My favorite quote of the week comes from Fort Lauderdale’s Mayor Naugle, who is incensed at the notion that he’s “supposed to subsidize some schlock sitting on the sofa and drinking a beer, who won’t work more than 40 hours a week.” This was in response to a proposed law which would provide for affordable housing by requiring residential developers to give up a percentage of their fees for the greater good of the community. The Mayor and these developers believe the proposal to be communistic - “[t]he concept of this ordinance is from each according to his ability, to each according to need, which is the Communist Manifesto.”
Meanwhile, an Oregon man who claimed to be running late for a meeting wound up in the clink after getting clocked doing 146 miles per hour in his Beamer. He thought he was simply risking a hefty speeding ticket, not knowing that Oregon law treats folks who go more than double the limit with a trip to jail and the loss of their car. And he didn’t even set the state’s ticketed speeding record, which belongs to a man who got pegged in 1993 going 159 miles per hour.
Poor Big Tobacco. When they are fighting against the wrongful death lawsuits brought by smokers, they like to rely on the popular “personal choice defense,” which says that it’s not their fault because smokers should know better. The Massachusetts Supreme Court has now ruled that they’re not entitled to this defense, as it only applies where a reasonably safe product has been used in an unreasonable way. Since cigarettes simply aren’t safe, the Court reasoned, there is no such thing as a “nonunreasonable” use of them.
And finally - it appears that, back in the day, oral advocates would often mistakenly refer to Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg by the other’s name, despite the fact that the Justices bore no physical resemblance to each other aside from being the only two women on the bench. Well it now appears, with Justice Ginsburg the only presiding female Justice, that the honor of misnomers is falling to Justices Scalia and Alito. Again, while there is no physical resemblance, nervous oral advocates are mixing up the two due their names’ similar sounds:
Both “Scalia” and “Alito” consist of three syllables. The second syllable of each surname sounds identical. The third syllable of Scalia sounds identical to the first syllable of Alito. And the first syllable of Scalia has the same vowel sound as the first syllable of Alito.
