Lowering the Bar

East Texas Ninjas

Also known as Alamo v. Howard, this case was reported in East Texas Trial Reports in October.  The report is definitely worth a read but here's a quick summary.

The underlying facts involved some ninja training that Joshua Christian Alamo (a suspiciously Texan name) and Daniel Howard were conducting at the home of Howard's grandmother, Betty French.  (Grandma's house is the best place to train your ninjas, since it's the last place the enemy would think you'd be training them).  Alamo and Howard, both in their early 20s, "claimed to be serious ninjas and experts in the field of marshall [sic] arts and had plans some day to open a school for ninja training. One of their exercises involved throwing a tire up on the roof of the house and catching the tire when it rolled down," a crucial ninja skill if your enemy is known to strike by rolling tires down on you after warning you they're coming.  The training tire got stuck and Alamo went up to get it.  Then, he claimed, "Defendant got into some kind of a rage" and started shooting at him with a dart gun.

Plaintiff claimed he was injured when he fell or jumped from the roof to avoid the darting and broke his ankle.  He initially claimed the roof was defective (evidently it should have been designed to support ninja training) but later dropped that claim.

Defendant disputed that he had any role in the injury and said he did not have a dart gun at all, but was rather "role playing" with a BB gun that was broken anyway.  His theory at trial, according to the report, was that both Plaintiff and Defendant were "a couple of knuckleheads out playing around and essentially got what they deserved."

Ultimately, the jury "placed 80% negligence on the Plaintiff ninja and 20% on the Defendant ninja," but awarded $0 damages.  The verdict was unanimous but the jury did have to deliberate for about an hour, which I assume means they were eating lunch.  Plaintiff thus did not recover his $53,000 in medical expenses or the $17,000 in wages lost from his job as a security guard at a topless bar.  The report mentioned photographs used at trial but unfortunately not reproduced in the report, which showed the parties "dressed in the ninja garb"; one picture allegedly showed Plaintiff leaping from the roof the day before the incident.

Claims against Defendant ninja's grandmother were dismissed prior to trial.

Link: Alamo v. Howard, No. 366-01036-05 (Collin County, TX, Oct. 2, 2006)
Link: East Texas Trial Reports

UPDATE: Charges Against Accused Serial Meower Are Dismissed

Back in August, I reported on the dramatic story of the criminal harassment charges filed against a Pennsylvania teenager, accused of repeatedly meowing at his neighbor, 78-year-old Alexandra Carasia. Today, those charges were dismissed.

The meowing allegedly began after the boy's family felt obligated to get rid of their cat after Carasia informed police that said cat was using her flower garden as a litter box. The parties disputed the extent of the meowing. The boy admitted meowing, but only twice; Carasia testified it was "every time he saw her." (Maybe he only saw her twice.) The judge heard the case in August but said he would wait 90 days before ruling to see how the parties were getting along.

On Monday, December 11, the judge dismissed the charges, although he "reprimanded" the boy, saying he was immature and should have used better judgment.  Carasia, who was immature and should have used better judgment, said she was satisfied with the reprimand. "He used to be a good boy," she said, but claimed his recent conduct "has done emotional harm" to her. "I was the one who was tortured," she continued, the latest in a string of embarrassments for the word "torture," which has now lost all sense of purpose and just sits on the curb drinking, remembering when it used to really mean something.

Link: AP via Yahoo! News

Borat Defeats Frat-Guy Defamation Lawsuit

Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman ruled today that he would not enjoin the movie "Borat" in a lawsuit by two South Carolina fraternity brothers who were shown in embarrassing circumstances.  The two claimed they were duped into appearing in the movie after the producers got them drunk and falsely promised that the "documentary" would not be shown in the United States.

Since the movie itself will not be in theaters too much longer, the arguments as to injunctive relief focused on harm that might occur from the future DVD release, which will allow viewers to repeatedly watch the two men say (among other things) that it's too bad slavery was abolished.  Judge Biderman denied the motion for an injunction despite the plaintiffs' argument that the movie had cost one of them "a job at a major corporation" and another "a prestigious internship."  Apparently Judge Biderman found those claims unlikely.

Link: Reuters.com

Texas Bill Would Assist Blind Hunters

A bill introduced this week would help end long-standing discrimination against a group that until now has been unable to hunt effectively -- blind Texans.

I personally had not known that there were a significant number of blind hunters out there, thinking that although certainly each of us has a God-given right to shoot at things, the ability to see those things was an important factor in exercising one's right to hit them with a bullet. And a complete inability to see does seem to be a disqualifier, but this bill would at least make it possible for those hunters who are only legally blind to participate.

It would do so by authorizing the use of laser sights by the legally blind during regular hunting hours, so long as the blind person carries written proof of blindness and is assisted by a person who is not legally blind. The bill would amend existing Parks and Wildlife Code section 62.005, which currently prohibits the use of any artificial light, including headlights, to illuminate a game animal or bird that you are about to shoot.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Edmund Kuempel, said that the legislation would simply add approval for laser sighting devices to Texas hunting laws, which already allow the visually impaired to hunt with the aid of the not visually impaired. Or at least they do according to Rep. Kuempel, who did not cite the law that allows this activity, but says he has seen it on TV.  "I've seen this on TV before," he said, "when they're taking target practice.  When they [the blind hunters] aim the gun, the guide tells them, aim two inches higher or two inches lower and you're on the target, and you're off and running." Extending this from target practice to actual hunting was the next logical step.

If the bill passes, the state would have until 2008 to come up with a definition of "legally blind," which apparently it does not currently have on the books.

Link: Yahoo! News
Link: Texas House Bill No. 308

Employees May Not Be Fired for Insulting Boss, Says Court

Before you all erupt in either glee or rage (depending on your position), please be aware there are two conditions for applying this rule: (1) you must be in Malaysia, and (2) the insulting must be done behind your supervisor's back.

Probably, condition #1 will be the obstacle for most of you.

Malaysia's Industrial Court, which handles workplace grievances, ruled on December 8 that a secretary at the National Insurance Board was not guilty of misconduct for sending emails from her office computer to friends, even though the emails contained "derogatory, insolent and impertinent" words about her supervisors.  The emails allegedly came to light only as a result of an unrelated investigation into the leak of a confidential report, but the secretary was fired for "misconduct" based on the emails.

The secretary, Ratnawati Mohamed Nawawi, who has a name that at first seems difficult but is actually fun to say if you march around the office chanting it, appealed her termination to the Industrial Court.  Court chairman Syed Ahmad Radzi Syed Omar, whose name is so long that his parents forgot they had already named him "Syed" once, agreed with Ratnawati that her words were not "misconduct" because they were not meant to undermine her superiors, but rather were merely gossip between friends. The report did not quote the emails Ratnawati sent, but the court's rationale makes the content of the emails irrelevant:

The court agrees that if those derogatory, insolent and impertinent [words] are used toward the superior officers directly it would construe a serious misconduct on the part of Ratnawati. But if those words or language are only used behind their backs and only between a few friends it would not be a misconduct. Those words are not meant to be heard by the senior officers.

They certainly aren't. The court also noted that boss-griping is an entirely natural phenomenon:

It is quite common and natural for staff to gossip about their superior officers. It can happen anywhere and anytime . . . it could be over coffee or tea or a meal [, or outside during a break, or while huddling under your desk, or between people in adjoining bathroom stalls, or while jointly peering out of an air duct you've crawled into that overlooks the boss's desk, or in a homemade fallout shelter that doesn't have room for the rest of the staff so you might as well stop pounding on the door, and so on].

It just happened to be on email in this case. The court awarded Ratnawati back wages and compensation totaling 66,850 ringgit, which as you know is about 18,570 U.S. dollars. It did say that the company did not have to give Ratnawati her job back, since "the trust between her and her employer was broken."

Link: AP via Yahoo! News

Colorado Judge Rules "Hacky-Sack" Is Not Juggling

Just last week (or the week before), we got some clarity in the ongoing debate over whether a burrito is a sandwich (it isn't). This week, a ruling on whether playing "hacky-sack" is juggling. As you might expect, this story came in from the Boulder office.

Here's some background. Technically, "Hacky Sack" is a brand name for a particular brand of "footbag," which is the generic term for a small bean-filled bag that is kicked from player to player in a circle of "hackers." It is one of that (to me) mystifying category of foreign games in which you can't use your hands. (What did those things allegedly evolve for, anyway?) At least, it was originally foreign.  According to the Internet, which is never wrong, it allegedly originated in "China, Thailand, Native America, and nearly every country," although that is way too many places for something to originate. But the non-native American version was invented in 1972 by "two athlete dudes" from Oregon, who later sold the rights to Wham-O. The official and generic term for the sport is apparently "footbag," at least according to the International Footbag Association, but the Boulder Daily Camera calls it "Hacky Sacking," which is a verb I'm not going to use anytime soon.

Apparently, Kallen Ford, a senior at Boulder High, was ticketed in October for -- oh, okay -- Hacky-Sacking on the Pearl Street pedestrian mall in Boulder with a friend. The ticket charged Ford with "releasing projectiles on the mall," a post-9/11 charge if I've ever heard one, and one that carries a $250 fine. The friend apparently was not charged.

Because I know you're curious, I will tell you that the definitional issue arose because of the following Boulder city ordinance:

Section 5-6-9 (Projectiles on Mall):

(a) No person shall cast, throw, or propel any projectile on the mall. This prohibition includes, without limitation, throwing balls, boomerangs, bottles, darts, frisbees and other like devices, model airplanes, rocks, snowballs, and sticks.

(b) This section does not apply to a juggler if the juggler does not cast, throw, or propel a knife, including, without limitation, a knife with a blade three and one-half inches in length or less, or burning projectile or if the juggler is acting within the terms of a special entertainment permit . . . .

Thus, there is a total ban on using projectiles in any manner except to juggle them, unless the objects to be juggled are knives and/or on fire, and even then the city may issue a permit for said juggling. First, I think it is a little odd to have an ordinance that lets you have any number of extremely dangerous projectiles on the mall as long as they aren't (1) knives or (2) on fire, so long as you are juggling them. I have this vision of Osama bin Laden strolling down the Boulder mall juggling hand grenades, with the cops following along just waiting for him to drop one. But setting that aside, no definition of "juggling" is provided. And the dictionary definition does not rule out juggling single items:

To toss and catch several objects continuously, keeping at least one of them in the air while handling the others. Also, to toss an object, etc., from hand to hand with dexterity; (of two or more persons) to toss an object, etc., back and forth between them.

Oxford English Dictionary (1997) (emphasis added). Construing "juggling" to include Hacky-Sacking is also consistent with the purpose of the statute, which is drafted so as to broadly permit the tossing of non-dangerous items within a defined and relatively finite space. Yet Judge Jeff Cain sided with the city, although the fine was reduced to $40 or seven hours of community service. The rationale for the judge's decision was not given.

Kallen, who acted as his own attorney, commented after the hearing on the imponderabilities of our legal system and the outcome of his particular dispute. "It sucks," he opined. He alluded to the possibility of another test case, which he would generate by juggling (by hand) some Hacky Sacks on the mall. It is through the cumulative action of modest patriots like these that our freedom is perpetually renewed.

Link: Boulder Daily Camera
Link: About.com: Hacky Sack
Link: Boulder Revised Code (1981)

Accused Serial Pig-Tosser Fined

Recently I read that the governor of Mississippi had initiated a campaign to improve the state's image, pointing out that Mississippi actually ranks higher than people believe in areas such as charitable giving and education.

This won't help.

Kevin Pugh, of Cedar Bluff, Mississippi, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a charge of disturbing the peace, which he had done in November by tossing a pig over the counter at a Holiday Inn Express in the city of West Point. (I'm not sure I improved on the original headline, "Man Fined for Tossing Pig at Hotel," but I didn't want to steal it.) Police said that Pugh did not appear to have any grievance with the hotel, did not know any of the employees, and (for once in these stories) alcohol did not appear to be a factor. "He said it was a prank," said Lt. Danny McCaskill. "It must be some redneck thing, because I haven't ever heard of anything like it."

He's heard of it since then, though. He told the Associated Press that there have been three other animal-tossing incidents in West Point, all involving local businesses and all happening between 2 and 4 a.m. Of the four incidents, two involved pigs, two involved opossums, and two involved Kevin Pugh. Pugh will appear in court on December 19th to defend against a second animal-throwing charge, this one involving an unidentified animal thrown at a Hardee's restaurant. Pugh has pleaded innocent to that charge, and I look forward to hearing his defense. Maybe that pig wanted revenge against Hardee's for serving bacon, and police just rounded up the usual suspect.

McCaskill said that neither the pig nor any of the Holiday Inn employees were injured in the November assault. Casualty figures for the other incidents are not yet available.

Link: AP via SFGate.com

Californian Wins Right to Use Exclamation Point in His Name

Darren Lloyd Bean of San Diego has won his struggle to change his name legally to "Darren QX Bean!"

The "QX" is pronounced "Lloyd."

I know this because according to the court's opinion, Bean (the change hasn't taken effect yet) actually petitioned to change his name to "Darren QX [pronounced 'Lloyd'] Bean!," with the brackets and quotation marks included in the proposed name. After the trial judge told him that punctuation was typically not permitted in names, let alone internal brackets and exclamation points, Bean said he would drop his request for the bracketed material but insisted on keeping the exclamation point.  He claimed that his friends typically greet him as "Bean!", "raising the pitch and volume of their voices above their usual spoken tone," so that the exclamation point was intended to convey how his name would be pronounced in the same way that an accent mark does in other names.

The trial judge refused to grant the petition, but the Fourth District reversed. Apparently, at least in California, under the common law you can change your personal name to whatever you want (unless you are a minor, an inmate, or a sex offender), and the statutory requirement of a petition is primarily intended to ensure there is a record of the change. The statute does allow a petition to be denied if someone can show "good reason," but as that suggests the burden is really on whoever is challenging the name to demonstrate good reason. Bean's petition was unopposed.

The majority said it could find only three California cases where a name-change petition was denied:  one for the Roman numeral "III," one for "Peter Lorie" (too close to the then-famous actor "Peter Lorre), and one for "a recognized, publicly condemned racial epithet unprotected by the First Amendment."  It also pointed to other cases that had approved requests to change a name to "GoVeg.com," "Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com" and "Ringling Beats Animals.com" (obviously, this has been a recent animal-rights strategy) and did not see any problem with the use of a punctuation mark. The majority pointed out that many common names, for example, "O'Rourke," contain a punctuation mark that does not even aid in pronunciation like Bean's would. It found no good reason to deny the change.

The dissenting judge, who coincidentally is named "O'Rourke," was not amused. He thought that using an exclamation point would be ambiguous, because it is meant to express a strong feeling but that feeling could be "pleasure, disgust, horror, or consternation -- to name but a few." Judge O'Rourke distinguished the use of apostrophes in names, saying that was not ambiguous because the apostrophe always stands for "omitted letters." He did not say which ones it always stands for.

Bean will become Bean! early next year, once the case is returned to the trial court.

Link: Bean v. Superior Court, Case No. D048645 (Cal. App. Nov. 28, 2006).

New York City Now Enforcing Ban on Mystery Meat

Those of you in the New York area may be happy to know that the state's Division of Food Safety and Inspection has recently begun enforcing laws against selling a variety of foods from, shall we say, unregulated sources.

You may be less happy to know that this is a "recent" effort.

To be fair, inspectors have been enforcing these laws but have "stepped up" their efforts this year, confiscating 65 percent more food so far than they did all last year. Specifically, through September the state had seized 1.6 million pounds of unregulated food, up from only 976,076 pounds last year.

Among the seizures described in the article:

• 50 pounds of unapproved chicken
• 15 pounds of iguana meat
• 12 beefy armadillos
• 200 pounds of cow lungs
• a large tub of bullfrogs
• "singed chicken" that "appears cooked"
• questionable turtles
• smoked rodent meat!
• some chimpanzees
• go-ri-lla
• mysterious fish paste
• and some unidentified red meat.

You could probably tell at least by the time you got to "go-ri-lla" that I was doing my best to shoehorn that into "The 12 Days of Christmas."  I'll keep working on it.

According to the AP, the seizures "cast a spotlight on the eating habits of this ethnically diverse city," which has a "widespread appetite" for "savory favorites relished in their native lands" that may turn out to be "potentially dangerous food."  I'm sure there is a French newspaper saying the same thing about American hot dogs, but this story was about New York. The AP picked on a couple of shop owners who surprisingly claimed not to know anything about any illegal items and that they did not speak English, and so did not understand, for example, the phrase "smoked rodent" on an inspection report.  "I don't know what that is," said one, apparently in English.  "I don't sell that here."

City health commissioners said they were hard at work and would "either clean them up or close them down."

Link: AP via Yahoo! News

UPDATE: Ex-Mayor Pleads Guilty to Buying Votes With Pork Rinds

In another update of a past story, the AP reports that the former mayor of Appalachia, Virginia, pleaded guilty yesterday to a number of felonies relating to an election-rigging scheme in the 2004 election.  Ben Cooper and his co-conspirators were alleged to have intercepted and forged absentee ballots, and to have attempted to buy votes with cigarettes, beer and pork rinds, in order to be put in charge of Appalachia, a town of 2,000. Once elected, the gang allegedly appointed a police chief who stole from residents so that they could all share in the profits.

Actually, these aren't just allegations now because Cooper has pleaded guilty, as I said, to a number of felonies. That number: 243. And the judge made Cooper plead guilty individually to each of the 243 charges. By the time she got to number 11, Cooper was saying "guilty" before the judge had even finished reading the charge.

"You're getting ahead of me," said Judge McElyea. Cooper apologized, and presumably waited for her to finish reading each of the next 232 felony charges.

Seven others have been convicted already.  Cooper will be sentenced January 9 and could get up to 21 months in prison under state guidelines, which apparently impose a sentence of 2.6 days per felony.

Link: AP via FindLaw.com