Lowering the Bar

Burglar Says He Was Trapped In Home By "Supernatural Figure"

A Malaysian newspaper reported last weekend that a couple had returned from a trip to find an exhausted, dehydrated and terrified burglar inside their home.  The man, who the couple reportedly found "clasping his hands in an apologetic gesture for his wrongdoing," said he had been trapped inside the building for three days by a ghost.

The burglar said he had come in through the back door after the couple left but was "blinded" once he got inside and "felt like he was in a cave."  He told police, "Each time I wanted to flee, I felt a supernatural figure shoving me to the ground."

Sounds to me like somebody got himself stuck in a coat closet and panicked.  "Aiieee!   A supernatural figure, or several, have fallen upon me in this small cave!  I am blinded and frightened!  Even though it is surprisingly warm and cozy under here."  The burglar said he had called for help repeatedly over the next 72 hours, but to no avail.  The owners called an ambulance, and then the police.

The man, who told police that it was his "first time experiencing such trauma during a break-in," thus admitting there had been other break-ins, was said to be in stable condition.

Link: Malaysia Star
Link: Legal Juice

 

Woman Arrested for Cybermurder

A 43-year-old woman in Tokyo has been arrested for killing her husband, although they weren't legally married, she didn't really kill him, and he isn't really dead.

The two had only met online, as part of a popular interactive game called "Maple Story" in which cartoon-like "avatars" fight monsters, interact, and, apparently, get married.  They also get divorced, or at least these two did.  It would probably be more accurate to say that she got cyberdumped: "I was suddenly divorced," the woman said, "without a word of warning.  That made me so angry."  So angry that she used his login information -- which he had foolishly given her back when they were "happily married" -- to access his account and delete his avatar.  He called the cops.  They, apparently having no crimes at all to prosecute in their own area, traveled 600 miles to arrest the woman and bring her to the jurisdiction where the brutal deletion took place.

The woman is not actually charged with murder, but rather was arrested for illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data.  She might also be charged with destruction of property, since avatars and the "things" they own arguably represent a major investment of time (and money in terms of online fees).  The report did not say what value the electro-husband put on his account, but it could easily have been thousands of dollars, given the amount that online items can sometimes trade for.  (I don't know this personally, of course, but the guys in my Dungeons and Dragons group were talking about it the other day at the food court.)

The woman had not been formally charged as of October 23, but if convicted of the illegal-access charges she could be fined up to $5,000 or given up to five years in jail.

Link: Chicago Tribune

Case Against God Dismissed; Plaintiff Considering Appeal

Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers suffered a setback this week in his lawsuit against God, when a Douglas County judge dismissed the case.  Judge Marlon Polk said Chambers had produced no evidence that he had been able to accomplish service of process on the deity.

As you may recall, Chambers sued God in Nebraska state court back in 2007, seeking (among other things) injunctive relief to prevent future events such as earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., etc.  He claimed that his goal was to focus attention on efforts to limit frivolous lawsuits, efforts that Chambers opposes because he says they would unfairly restrict access to the courts.  "My point," Chambers said, "is that anyone can sue anyone else, even God."  Of course, you could argue, as I did, that suing God is not a great way to suggest to a legislature that it doesn't need to do anything about frivolous lawsuits.

Chambers appeared in court in August to oppose a motion to dismiss based on lack of service.  He argued then that Judge Polk should take "judicial notice" of God's existence, and that worrying about proper service and/or whether God had fair notice of the lawsuit was unnecessary because God is everywhere and knows everything.  "If God is omnipresent," Chambers argued, "then he is here in Douglas County."  Seems hard to argue with that.

Judge Polk still ruled that service was required but had not been accomplished, and he dismissed the case with prejudice.  He said the dismissal meant that the motion asking him to take judicial notice of God was moot, and he declined to rule on it.  Chambers told reporters that he has not decided whether he will appeal, but I sure hope he does.  I want to see where the case finally ends up.

Link: Omaha World-Herald

Millionaire Claims Ghosts Caused Him to Flee His Mortgage, I Mean Mansion

I wrote that post yesterday about Stambovsky forgetting that I also had this one in the pipeline.  I was sort of kidding about that case coming in handy for those who might need a reason to bail out of a deal or abandon a piece of property, but here we go.

The BBC reported that Anwar Rashid, a multi-millionaire who bought an English estate for 3.6 million pounds last year, moved out of it eight months later because of ghosts.  "I fell for its beauty," Rashid said of Clifton Hall, "but behind the facade it is haunted."  Rashid claimed he and his family had been terrorized by "mysterious figures," ghostly tapping and disembodied voices.  Their foyer would sometimes seem to lower and "stretch," as if it were a giant elevator, and they would then be led down a series of corridors past frightening portraits and scenes of a seance or ballroom, and later pestered by hitchhiking ghosts . . . oh, sorry, I'm thinking of the Haunted Mansion.  I guess I was just really bored by this guy's lame-ass story and my mind started to wander.

Anyway, Rashid said that he wanted to stay in the house, pointing to the fact that he went to the trouble of hiring "paranormal investigators" in hopes of solving the problem.  But it was just no use.  "The ghosts didn't want us to be there," he said, "and we could not fight them because we couldn't see them."  I wanted to find out more about how he fights ghosts he can see, but he provided no details.  Ultimately, "[w]hen we found red blood spots [do they come in another color?] on the baby's quilt, that was the day my wife said she'd had enough."  They fled, but only as a last resort did he stop paying the mortgage.

As a result, this week the Yorkshire Bank became the proud owner of an elderly Nottinghamshire mansion with some really boring ghosts in it.  Personally, I would expect these sorts of cases to multiply as the crisis deepens, and with any luck, future deadbeats will be a lot more creative than this guy.

Link: BBC News

Case Law Hall of Fame: "As a Matter of Law, the House is Haunted"

Here's a worthwhile addition to the Hall of Fame that may just come in handy these days as well.  In Stambovsky v. Ackley, New York's Appellate Division held in 1991 that a homebuyer could try to get out of a $650,000 sale contract based on his argument that he learned only after signing that the house was haunted by poltergeists.

The court agreed that the plaintiff could not sue the realtor and seller for fraud, because they had no legal duty to disclose the "phantasmal reputation of the premises."  But, applying its equity powers, it ruled that he should at least be able to seek recission on the grounds that the omitted fact was one that could have affected the property's value.  Exactly what effect a haunting might have on a house value was something that a jury would have to figure out later, the court said, but it ruled that the recission claim could go forward.

Arguably, this haunting might actually have increased the value, or at least you might conclude that from the fact that the owner had previously advertised the spirits' presence, getting the home included in a walking tour and also covered in a story by the crack journalists at Reader's Digest.  But if the owner profited from those efforts, she paid for it later, since the court ruled that having reported the spirits' presence so widely, she was now "estopped to deny their existence and [so], as a matter of law, the house is haunted."  (Note: previous sentence carefully drafted to avoid use of the phrase, "came back to haunt her.")

A dissenting judge said that in New York, the rule in real-estate transactions was still caveat emptor, "let the buyer beware."  (That was in 1991 -- whether it is or is not the rule now, I have no idea.)  He suggested that, since the owner had shared her belief in poltergeists with the public at large for at least twelve years, there was no reason give the buyer here the benefit of the doubt.  "[I]f the doctrine of caveat emptor is to be discarded," the court said, "it should be for a reason more substantive than a poltergeist. The existence of a poltergeist is no more binding upon the defendants than it is upon this court."

It would be nice to think that homebuyers in trouble would get some mileage out of precedent like this, but you know it will end up benefiting somebody on Wall Street.  "Come to find out, Lehman Brothers was built right on top of an ancient Indian burial ground.  We had no idea."

Link (PDF): Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. 1991).

Witch Pardoned

The government of Glarus, a canton in eastern Switzerland, has officially exonerated Anna Goeldi, who had the bad luck to be the last person executed in Europe after being charged with witchcraft.  This was in 1782, almost one hundred years after the fun had ended even in places like Salem, Massachusetts.

Goeldi was accused of causing a girl, apparently her employer's daughter, to "spit pins and convulse."  Showing a complete lack of appreciation for all the free pins he was getting, Goeldi's employer denounced her as a witch.  She was also accused of making needles appear in a glass of milk and a loaf of bread, and as any expert can tell you, only witchcraft can get needles into things like that.  When put on trial, Goeldi insisted she was innocent, but a little torture helped the truth come out, as torture always does.  It seems that the needles had been given to her by Satan, who appeared to her in the form of a black dog.

The alternative explanation, that she had an affair with her employer and had threatened to expose him as an adulterer, was apparently rejected as too implausible.

A book published last year told Goeldi's story and argued that her execution was a "judicial murder" intended to protect her employer.  Both the canton's government and the local council of the Protestant Church rejected the book's call to exonerate Goeldi, the government saying that it saw no need to make a "celebratory apology" for something that happened 225 years ago.  By this year, however, they had changed their minds.  "[T]hey tortured an innocent person," said a government spokesperson, "although it was known to them that the alleged crime was neither doable nor possible and that there was no legal basis for their verdict."  An enlightened country should not do those kinds of things, he said, and officially cleared Goeldi's name.

The government did not take any legal responsiblity for her death, or any other "past wrongdoings," but it did say it would pay about 90,000 euros to sponsor a play about her as an "additional sign" of rehabilitation.

In 2006, the governor of Virginia officially pardoned the "Witch of Pungo," but hard-hearted Connecticut refused earlier this year to clear the names of its ex-witches.  In a follow-up post to the latter story, we learned that in Salem itself, the number of guilty verdicts handed out by tourists serving as jurors in mock witch trials reportedly increased after 9/11.

Link: AP via SFGate.com
Link: BBC News (Sept. 2007)

UPDATE: Cloned-Dog Owner Wanted in Tennessee

Authorities in Tennessee said last week that Joyce McKinney, the former beauty queen who stalked, kidnapped and assaulted a Mormon missionary, jumped bail by disguising herself as a member of a deaf-mute theater troupe, and then surfaced three decades later in South Korea surrounded by the world's first cloned pit-bull puppies, was also wanted in their state for conspiring to steal money she needed in order to buy an artificial limb for a three-legged horse.

Sooner or later, this story is going to get really weird.

Link: Daily Telegraph

Mother Reported to Authorities After Psychic Claims Abuse

As we learned last week when a court vacated the grounding of a 12-year-old, Canadians are awfully protective of children's rights.  In this case, they leapt to the defense of an autistic girl after a psychic declared that the girl was being abused.

"I'm in shock," said the girl's mother.  "They reported me to Children's Aid because of a psychic.  Can you imagine?"  I can imagine it happening here, but in sensible Canada?

The 11-year-old girl is in a special education class that is supervised by a teacher and four educational assistants (EAs).  Her mother said that on May 30, when she got home after picking up her daughter from school, she got a call from the girl's teacher telling her it was "urgent" that she come back to meet with the teacher, principal and vice-principal.  They had disturbing news.  "We have to tell you something," said the teacher.  "Victoria's EA went to see a psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the initial V.  When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

The spirits are often quite specific, but they do have trouble guessing a human's age.  You know how it is.

The officials said that in their opinion, Victoria had also exhibited unusual behavior that was consistent with what the psychic had told them.  The mother then pointed out that the behavior they mentioned was also consistent with having autism.  "I challenged them and asked if the other children in the class with autism exhibited these behaviours," she said.  (She said it with the extra 'u' so that's how I'm writing it.)  "They said, 'Oh yes, all the time.'  But they [did not report that] because they didn't have the psychic's tip."

To its credit, the government agency involved immediately closed the file after meeting with the mother, and apologized to her, which school officials apparently still have not done.  The superintendent did venture to say that "historical and current and future practice from the board's position is that psychic readings are not regarded as evidence."  So that's good to know.

The girl's mother said she is still considering her legal options, but is hopeful that the agency action will end the matter as far as the school is concerned.  On the other hand, "[t]hey might want to take out a Ouija board or hold a seance, I'm not sure."

Link: National Post

"The Secret": Your Path to Happiness, Love, Litigation

Some of you may be familiar with "The Secret," an enormous bestseller that encourages people to follow the "law of attraction," which I thought was something that made people hang out near playgrounds but which turns out to be "an ancient principle that holds that the universe will make your wishes come true if only you really, truly believe in them."

I agree there is an ancient principle at work here, but it's one I refer to as "bullshit."

The Secret was discovered, or rediscovered, or whatever, by Rhonda Byrne, who has made millions from the book and DVD versions.  Byrne's website, which is not secret, does not state exactly what the Secret is, although you can "Own the Secret" on DVD for just $19.95, or in book form for just $16.95.  (Here's another secret -- you can get it on Amazon.com for $14.37.  But don't.)

Now there is at least some evidence that the Law of Attraction does not always deliver on its promise of unlimited happiness and prosperity, namely a federal lawsuit.  On April 25, James Heriot, the director of the movie version of "The Secret," sued Byrne and her production company in the Northern District of Illinois, alleging that Byrne is not sharing the profits generated by the ancient principle as she had promised to do.  He is claiming up to half of the "Secret" profits, which he estimates at about $300 million.

Heriot wants to make clear, however, that just because the main purveyors of "The Secret" are now at each other's throats does not mean that "The Secret" isn't "The Secret" to unlimited happiness as they have been saying:

To all who have been inspired by "The Secret," [Heriot said in a statement issued through his law firm,] please know that I am not suing the universal principles of "The Secret." Rather, I am suing the corporate principals behind "The Secret," who promised at the outset that profits would be shared, and who have not kept faith with "The Secret"'s tenets of gratitude and integrity."

Got it -- universal principles not being sued, integrity of Secret unquestioned.

In fact, it seems hard to say whether this does call the validity of "The Secret" into question.  On one hand, it seems unlikely that Byrne's wishes included attracting a federal lawsuit.  On the other, isn't Heriot just following her advice by hoping that his wishes for $150 million will come true if only he really, truly believes in them and prevails in a copyright lawsuit?  Does "The Secret" describe how the ancient principle applies when two people wish for the same thing with all their hearts in federal court?  I hope the universe will provide the answers to these questions, or at least will deliver more comical "Secret"-generated lawsuit stories.

Byrne told the New York Times last year that "The Secret" was never about profit; she simply wanted to give her knowledge to the world, so that others could discover what they were intended to do with their lives as she had.  "One of the big things in discovering the secret," she said, "was discovering me."  And there is more discovery of her coming in the near future.  Byrne's deposition in a second case related to Secret profits is set for May 6, in Los Angeles.

Link: New York Times

UPDATE: Transcript of Witchcraft Resolution Hearings Posted

Here's a followup to last week's post on the witch-exoneration resolution that was not passed again this year by the Connecticut legislature.  Testimony on that resolution was heard on March 20, and the transcript has just been posted.  The committee heard testimony from descendants of Mary Sanford and Lydia Gilbert, two women who were executed for alleged witchcraft.

I think the transcript tends to support my suggestion last week that the lawmakers are not taking the issue all that seriously.  For example, here's Judiciary Committee chairman Lawlor, after one of the witnesses estimated that at least eleven people, and possibly many more, were wrongly executed in Connecticut:

REP. LAWLOR:  And apparently, Connecticut was the first state to do this [wrongly execute people for witchcraft].

DEBRA AVERY:  This preceded Salem by about 30 years.  Salem was the 1690s.

REP. LAWLOR: But they really got carried away a bit in Salem, once they got started, right?

DEBRA AVERY:  Yes.

Yeah, you guys stopped at a reasonable eleven executions or so, but they totally got carried away with it in Massachusetts.  That was completely uncalled for.  The Lawlor Comedy Hour continued:

REP. LAWLOR: You know . . . this morning, I remembered this great scene from Monty Python, where they grabbed the witch. And if you Google it, if you Google "Monty Python witch trial," you get to see that scene. There's--

DEBRA AVERY: Yes, about the wood and how wood floats, and, yeah, I'm very familiar with that [suggesting she has heard this one before].

REP. LAWLOR: But as funny as it is, it gives you a sense of, you know, looking back, how outrageous it really was because, it's something.

It sure is.  Funny now, though.

A senator then weighed in with his witch-trial knowledge, which he seems to have gained entirely from watching reenactments during family excursions to Salem:

SEN. KISSEL: . . . And they have trials there . . . and for a small fee you can go in there and you see it all acted out in front of you.  And at the end of the presentation . . . you all take a vote.  Is she a witch or isn't she?

According to Sen. Kissel, the accused is almost always exonerated in these votes by today's enlightened citizens, with a couple of notable recent exceptions:

And you're exactly correct . . . that sometimes, you know, the feelings of the public change.  After having done this with my family [visited Salem, presumably] for a number of years, I will tell you, there were a couple of years, after the Trade Tower bombings in 2001, where the crowds actually found her to be a witch.  They weren't in a really good mood, I guess, around that time, and so they were not cutting anybody any slack, even reenactments of ancient history.

On the one hand, given that John Yoo was writing the torture memo right about that same time, it seems like these kind of slight overreactions are unfortunately not "ancient history."  On the other hand, the Salem tourists did not actually hang any actors in retaliation for 9/11, as far as I can tell, so maybe we have made at least some progress.

Link: Judiciary Committee Hearing of March 20, 2008