Lowering the Bar

Dolphins Blamed For Woman's Slip And Fall

Allecyn Edwards, possibly wanting to prove she could be as creative as her parents were with her first name, alleged in a complaint filed August 18 that the Brookfield Zoo and its dolphins are responsible for injuries she suffered last year.

Edwards alleges that the zoo "recklessly and willfully trained and encouraged" its dolphins to "throw water at the spectators . . . making the floor wet and slippery."  The zoo and/or its dolphin accomplices are therefore blamed for the creation of said dangerous condition, by which "the plaintiff was caused to fall to the ground while walking upon or along the said area."  Edwards demands $50,000.

A few observations.  First, based on my extensive Discovery Channel research, most dolphins live in water, either a pool of it or, in some extreme cases, an entire ocean.  It appears to be not uncommon for surfaces near these bodies of water to become wet and slippery.  One walking on such surfaces should, therefore, watch out.  Second, the closer a surface is to a body of water, the more likely said surface is to be wet and slippery.  Third, dolphins, so far as I can tell, do not have arms and so are not likely to be able to "throw" water any distance, as plaintiff alleged.  I infer from these facts that plaintiff was in fact walking relatively close to the pool and so would have had ample reason to be careful.

Certainly, dolphins are guilty of all sorts of wrongdoing, like . . . well, they are probably getting away with something.  You can't prove they aren't.  But I'm just saying they probably aren't responsible in this particular case.

Link: Chicago Bar-tender

Man Who Posed As Lawyer "Seemed To Know What He Was Talking About," Say Colleagues

Howard Kieffer practiced law for years in at least ten different states, specializing in federal criminal defense.  That seems like an impressive number of states until you learn that he did not all get bogged down in taking the bar exam in any of them.

Kieffer was convicted in April on charges of mail fraud and making false statements (i.e., not-mail fraud) after a North Dakota jury found he had lied on his application to practice in federal court as well as to numerous clients.  Kieffer had defended a number of clients on charges as serious as attempted murder despite not actually being a lawyer.  (One such client, who was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill her husband, is now appealing on this basis.)  On Friday, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison.

According to the report, Kieffer's colleagues (if that's the right word) said they were surprised that he did not have a license to practice law because he "seemed to know about" federal prison and sentencing issues.  They said Kieffer had been "quoted in publications as an expert" and that they had seen him at CLE seminars, at some of which he was a presenter.  Most of Kieffer's business allegedly came from referrals by legitimate attorneys based on these credentials, according to authorities.

Kieffer, in fact, may actually have known what he was talking about on these topics, but if so it was at least partly because he had actually been in federal prison, having served at least three years for tax fraud from 1989-92.  So, let this be a lesson about people who "seem to know" what they are talking about: it is often a good idea to find out how they know it.

Why didn't Kieffer just take the bar exam if he knew what he was doing?  The answer is likely that the prior tax fraud convictions probably would have kept him from getting a license, since there is, you may be surprised to learn, a background check of some sort that one must pass before one practices law.  That doesn't mean everybody with a license should have one, but it was probably enough to scare Kieffer off from actually applying.  Why ruin a perfectly good business by going out and trying to get a license for it?

In other posing-as-a-lawyer news, on Monday a Southern California man got two years in prison for violating his parole, after he also committed fraud by falsely posing as a lawyer.  Bonus points: he was on parole from a seven-year term for doing the same thing.  A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office said that Harold Goldstein had again started claiming to be a lawyer just days after his release in May.

Link:  AP via NPR (Kieffer)
Link:  FindLaw.com (Goldstein)

Next On "Dancing With The Stars": Tom DeLay

Former GOP leader Tom DeLay, who retired from Congress in 2006 after being indicted on still-pending money-laundering charges, is back.

He will be appearing on the next season of "Dancing with the Stars."

Yes, it is sometimes impossible to tell the difference between real news and what one might find on The Onion, and this is one of those times.  But this does appear to be real.  ABC stated on August 17 that DeLay would be one of the contestants on the next season of the popular show, joining a celebrity cast that will therefore "include[] an Osmond, a cowboy and a former House majority leader."

"I love dancing," DeLay said on Good Morning America, adding, "You've got to love dancing if you're from Texas."  Well, maybe certain approved kinds of dancing, like the two-step, to which DeLay specifically referred on his new website, "Dancing with DeLay."

DeLay, who was nicknamed "The Hammer" because of his forceful and uncompromising style in Congress, now invites website visitors to "two-step with tom."  One can also "Tweet with Tom" or "Join Tom on Facebook," if one is so inclined.  Tom's most recent tweet as of Tuesday morning:

headed to the studio for my first rehearsal and to meet my partner.  Hoping it's not Nancy Pelosi.  :)

"This is going to be so fun and so crazy," said DeLay, uttering words he probably has not said since just before the House vote to impeach President Clinton.  DeLay's wife was quoted as saying that DeLay is a "really good dancer" who knows the two-step, polka, waltz, country swing, and less believably, "disco." (As far as I know, "disco" is not an actual dance, but maybe we will learn differently this season.)

Others were less impressed by DeLay's alleged ballroom skills, such as Andrew Wheat, a member of Texans for Public Justice, a group that helped spark DeLay's prosecution.  "It would be [more] interesting to see if Mr. DeLay can do the Perp Walk," Wheat said.  "Does he know that step?"

Link: ABC News (Aug. 18)
Link: Tweet With Tom

Church Sued For "Enabling" Addicts By Feeding Them

Ah, the pro se plaintiff . . . the gift that keeps on giving.

Justin Collins v. Glide Memorial Methodist Church, No. CGC-09-491480 (San Francisco Super. Ct., filed Aug. 14, 2009)

Negligence action. The defendant enables drug addicts by feeding them food in a known high drug volume area with bad smells and a dirty street. $388,000.

So . . . the church is enabling these people by helping them stay alive?  Or, maybe the argument is that the church is encouraging the addicts to remain in a high-drug-volume area by feeding them food there (where they live).  There might be a difference in stupidity between those two arguments, but it's not statistically significant.

Glide Memorial serves hundreds of thousands of meals every year to the poor and homeless of San Francisco, some of whom are indeed addicts, and yes, it is located in the Tenderloin neighborhood, and yes, that is an accurate description of most of the Tenderloin.  But where are they supposed to find these people, the Four Seasons?

Oh, but wait -- maybe Justin Collins is just a nut.

Justin Collins v. Neptune Society, No. CGC-09-491470 (San Francisco Super. Ct., filed Aug. 14, 2009)

Negligence action. Prescription medications from dead bodies that were disposed in the ocean and atmosphere have caused harm. $14 million.

Yep, that appears to be it.

Link: Donate to Glide Memorial (Warren Buffett does)

Russian Court Says Band Needs License to Play Its Own Songs

On June 15, a court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don (not to be confused with the other Rostov, which is not on Don), fined the English band Deep Purple after finding that the band had illegally performed copyrighted songs at a concert there in October 2008.  The fact that the copyrighted songs were Deep Purple's own songs, to which Deep Purple holds the copyright, does not seem to have affected the outcome of the case.  The court's decision was fantastic in its idiocy.

"Bloggers have already called the decision 'fantastic in its idiocy,'" said the English-language site Russia Today, and I am no exception, but it may actually be the underlying law that is idiotic, or the level of corruption that is fantastic.  Apparently, under Russian law all visiting foreign performers must register with something called the "Russian Authors' Society," because the Society represents the rights of foreign performers in Russia - whether they have asked it to or not.  But it all works out, you see, because the fine is paid by the infringing party (in this case, Deep Purple) to the victim of the infringement (also Deep Purple), minus a small commission, coincidentally payable to the Russian Authors' Society.

At least one blogger is calling this "extortion."

Deep Purple, which remarkably is still touring almost 40 years after its first album was released, had been to Russia earlier in 2008, when it actually played at the Kremlin.  Dimitri Medvedev, who was about to be installed (I mean elected) as Russia's next president, had mentioned that Deep Purple was his favorite band, and the band was duly flown in to perform at the State Kremlin Palace.  That show totally rocked:

As [Deep Purple] belted out some of their 1960s and 1970s classics, including their signature hit "Smoke on the Water", the audience of mostly middle-aged men sat impassively in suits and ties, with only the odd shake of the head to indicate they were listening.

Attempts by the five-man band's front man Ian Gillan to encourage audience participation led to the kind of slow, steady handclap which used to reverberate around the wood-paneled hall during Soviet Communist Party congresses.

Awesome.

Vladimir Putin, then still the president, left after the Russian banjo quartet and did not stay around for any imperialist heavy metal.  Putin now is technically only prime minister, but is believed to still wield a great deal of power.  The editors of Russia Today are clearly still big Putin fans, given the number of Putin-related stories there and their generally worshipful tone. The top story when I checked it out was "Putin plunges into 'plankton soup,'" which sounded like it might be something from Putin's blooper reel but turned out to be about him allegedly exploring Lake Baikal.  "It takes just a few minutes for Vladimir Putin to dive nearly 1400 meters (4,600 feet) and become the first Russian politician to reach the bottom of the world's deepest freshwater lake."  Turns out he was riding in a submarine, but it still sounds pretty impressive.

Link: Techdirt
Link: Russia Today
Link: NewsRU.com (translated via Google)

Murder Convicted Of Murder

In a not-shocking development in this now-seven-year-old drama, rapper Corey Miller has been convicted for a second time of the 2002 murder of a fan at a nightclub in Harvey, Louisiana.  Miller was originally convicted in September 2003, but a new trial was later granted because prosecutors had allegedly withheld information about some of their witnesses.  He was again convicted earlier this week.

As in the first trial, the task of defending Miller against the murder charges was probably not made easier by the fact that the rapper's stage name is "C-Murder."

I wrote about this case a few years ago after I learned that, while awaiting retrial for murder, C-Murder had started using the name "C-Miller."  See "Murder to Be Tried for Murder," Lowering the Bar (Mar. 6, 2006).  Because I am a genius who sees the future with absolute crystal clarity, I predicted that this would not help his image or his defense very much, and it appears that I was right.

He has been going by "C-Murder" since at least the 1990s, during which he also had two top-ten albums.  Later albums were not as successful, possibly because of (or maybe despite) the fact that by the time of his fourth album he had been indicted for two attempted murders and one actual murder.  Although criminal records seem to be a plus for certain rappers, the fact that Murder actually murdered one of his fans might have made his other fans less likely to think this was a positive thing.

At least after he was charged with murder, Murder contended that he called himself "C-Murder" only because he had in fact "seen murder."  In 2005, C-Murder said that "People hear the name C-Murder and they don't realize that the name simply means that I have seen many murders in my native Calliope projects neighborhood."  Well, maybe his publicist actually said that, but presumably he got it from C-Murder.  Who was saying this on the occasion of changing his name to "C-Miller," I guess because he had also seen many Millers in his native Calliope projects neighborhood.

Ultimately, C-Miller seems to have agreed that the name change was not going to do much good, based on the fact that he used C-Murder in 2008 on what would appear to be his final studio album, Screamin' 4 Vengeance.  He also appeared by that name on Ludacris's Release Therapy album, performing on a song more appropriately entitled "Do Your Time."

Link: MSNBC.com
Link: USA Today (on the 2005 name-change)

Fall of the Republic, #137

True or false: this person was once elected governor of a major American state.
 

 

Is the "Jailhouse Rock" joke too obvious?  Oh, well:  Blagojevich, who has steadfastly refused to lay low while awaiting trial on corruption charges, should probably start practicing "Jailhouse Rock" instead of this song.  Although now that I think about it, it is pretty comical to think of him performing "Treat Me Nice" in prison.

Link: YouTube
Link: TMZ.com

Oprah Stole My Poetry, Man Claims In $1 Trillion Lawsuit

In July, Damon Goffe sued Oprah Winfrey, alleging that Winfrey had infringed his copyright in a series of poems.  Goffe demanded 1.2 trillion dollars ($1,200,000,000,000) in damages for what were, presumably, the greatest poems in the universe, poems so good that Jesus had them printed on a T-shirt that he now wears around while telling everybody that Damon Goffe is his new best friend.

Goffe alleged in his complaint that he had published "A Tome of Poetry" (which seems a little like calling a movie "Snakes on a Plane") on the Internet, and that Winfrey had seized the tome and republished parts of it on the Internet under the title "Pieces of My Soul" (which, frankly, is not that much better).  Goffe claimed that Winfrey and Harpo, Inc., had sold over 650 million copies of the work, for $20 per copy, "which calculates to 1.2 Trillion dollars."  It actually calculates to 1.3 trillion dollars, but what's an extra $100 billion when you're best friends with Jesus?  [CORRECTION: it actually calculates to 13 billion dollars, as a reader has since pointed out to me.  My math skills have clearly atrophied more than I thought.]

There may be some reason to think that these figures are exaggerated.  I can think of at least two.

First, had 650 million copies of "Pieces of My Soul" actually been sold, someone would probably know about it because that would make it one of the most widely distributed works of all time.  A puny 100 million "Harry Potter" books have been sold, for example.  In fact, 650 million would make it the best-selling copyrighted work of all time, according to data from the Guinness Book of World Records.  (The actual best-selling copyrighted work of all time, again according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is the Guinness Book of World Records.  Guinness appears to want to distinguish itself from the author of better-selling public-domain works like the Bible and the Koran.)

Second, nobody would pay $20 for poetry.

Winfrey, who probably really does have a trillion dollars in her secret underground cash and stolen-poetry vault, opposed Goffe's suit on the grounds that Goffe did not allege he had complied with the registration requirement.  And she won.  As the court noted, copyright exists as soon as you create a work, but an action cannot be brought to enforce the copyright unless the claim has been registered.  17 U.S.C. 411(a).

You know, some of the words in Oprah's brief look a lot like words I have used recently.  Hm.

Anyway, this is neither the first Goffe v. Winfrey case, nor the first one Goffe has lost.  Last year, he sued Winfrey in the Southern District of New York, alleging there only that Oprah had "infringe[d] upon his property."  Goffe v. Winfrey, 2008 WL 4787515 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 31, 2008).  In that case, he didn't say what property had allegedly been infringed, so he does seem to be improving somewhat with experience.  He has still not learned to allege registration of copyright, though.

Link: MSN Money
Link: Goffe v. Winfrey, No. 1:09-cv-01438-UNA (Goffe's complaint, filed July 10 and 31, 2009).

Woman Claims Display Was So Distracting, She Fell Over It

I haven't read the complaint, but at first glance this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense:

Lindsay Ross v. Dollar Tree Stores Inc., No. SCV245445 (Santa Clara Super. Ct. July 10, 2009).

Slip and fall. The plaintiff was distracted by advertising displays negligently placed in the defendant's store aisle, and was severely injured when she fell over them.

Hm.  Normally one trips over something one has not noticed.  I suppose it is possible that an advertising display could be so mesmerizing that one could plow right into it, but you wouldn't really expect to find one of those at a Dollar Tree Store.

Maybe this is why I am constantly crashing through plate glass windows at Victoria's Secret.  It had never occurred to me that this might be the company's fault.

Driver Who Was Texting And Talking While Driving Ends Up Swimming

At this point, unfortunately, charges based on texting while driving are not especially newsworthy.

Charges based on texting while driving while also talking on a second phone at the same time while driving a tow truck are a different story, however.

The incident of which the end result is pictured above happened on July 30 in Buffalo.  A 25-year-old gentleman admitted he had been juggling two cell phones behind the wheel when he hit another car, left the road, sideswiped this house, and ended up in the pool.  Because he was towing a car on his flatbed at the time, he managed to damage three vehicles and a house and require a pool cleaning all in the same accident.  Luckily, no one was seriously injured.

The sheriff in the dark uniform, who you may remember from such films as "Smokey and the Bandit II" and "Cannonball Run," likely delivered a quip such as "Who's the U-boat commander?" only to be reminded by his deputy that it was a line from "Risky Business."  He then removed his hat and swatted the deputy with it.

Link: Associated Press