I was making some revisions and updating links recently when I made a shocking discovery.

For many years, the following entry appeared on the Comical Case Names page:

Death v. Graves, CGC-06-451316 (San Francisco Super. Ct. filed Apr. 17, 2006) (complaint alleging that the defendants’ vehicle crashed into plaintiff Alan Death’s motorcycle; Death lived).

I found a link to a copy of the complaint and learned, to my horror, that there was no such case. Well, the case was real, but one of the names was a typo—which, sadly, ruins the joke. So what I meant was, there was no such joke.

Therein lies the horror.

As I recall, I saw this a long time ago on a list of cases recently filed in San Francisco courts. At the time, there was a job-related reason for reading those lists, but I don’t remember what it was and to be honest I mostly read it looking for stupid cases. That would occasionally pay off, such as when I was almost certainly the first legal-humor writer in the nation to notice that an adult woman was alleging she was misled by “Crunch Berries” marketing. See, e.g., “Reasonable Consumer Would Know ‘Crunchberries’ Are Not Real, Judge Rules” (June 2, 2009) (reporting on the prompt dismissal). I am pretty confident I saw Death v. Graves on a similar list. So I didn’t read the complaint itself at the time, only the name and the short description provided, which is how I knew it was an accident case.

Of course, part of my brain recognized how unlikely it was that a person saddled with the surname “Death” would keep using it instead of running straight to the Name Change Office (or whatever) to get in line behind the Hitler family. But then the other brain parts ganged up on it, saying, shut up, nerd, the case is called Death v. Graves and also the guy’s first name is Alan? There might be someone named “Alan Death” and you want to ruin it? What’s wrong with you? Well, the first brain part was right. Compounding the horror, this means a typo has been lurking on this site for many years now. (No, there are no others.)

In my defense, this typo wasn’t really my fault. No! As the complaint shows (see below), it was the fault of the Dearth family’s lawyers, who wrote a complaint with the name “Alan Death” in the caption and identified their clients as “Alan and Mimi Death” in the first paragraph.

You’re probably assuming they fixed this in the first amended complaint. But … well, this time your assumption is correct. The docket shows the court sent a “Notice to Plaintiff” on the day of filing, and the first amended complaint quickly followed. The notice isn’t available online, but I’d guess it was a short note suggesting that “Alan Death” and “Mimi Death” were probably typos and they might want to fix that.

I am sad to learn these facts because I thought Death v. Graves was a pretty comical case name, but because it turns out not to be real, it doesn’t count. Those are the rules. So thanks a lot, truth. You ruined a good joke. And not for the first time.