Kabuki theatre dupes us yet again

LexisNexis, that bastion of legal research and sworn enemy of Westlaw, has released a rather interesting list of the most cited cases. Of the ones laymen think might be on there, only Roe v. Wade really makes the list. There’s no Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education, Dred Scott v. Sandford, or Bush v. Gore.

Going by what cases were drilled into my skull during my first year of law school, I’m a little disappointed there’s no Vosburg v. Putney, any of the 500 anti-railroad torts cases, Scott v. Shepherd (this case isn’t really all that important, but I love it because it liberally makes use of the word “squib”), Rylands v. Fletcher, Pennoyer v. Neff, International Shoe v. Washington (no, it has nothing to do with Khurshchev), Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court, Mas v. Perry, Erie (it doesn’t even need more of the actual case name), Chevron, Skidmore, the Benzene case, or any other handle of random procedural or administrative cases that we spent far too many class sessions discussing.

Amazingly, I do know some of the cases. We covered Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly in Civ Pro, I believe in reference to failure to state a claim. We also covered Celotex Corp. v. Catrett in Civ Pro, as a summary judgment issue. And finally, we did Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, again as a summary judgment issue in Civ Pro. Hm. I’m starting to see a trend here.

James St. James spent his childhood in Missouri

Apparently, a county courthouse in Missouri (or Missourah, as I like to call it) has had overflowing toilets on the second floor for years, and it was only recently that they decided to take apart the pipes to see what the problem was. So, what was causing all those plumbing issues? Sippy cups.

Though the reason why there were Sippy cups in there to begin with is probably something innocuous, I do like the “maybe people were trying to throw drugs up and over the roof” theory because it made me think of ’80s-era club kids, who probably DID transport drugs in Sippy cups.

Kudos to the ABA Journal, by the way, which ran this story with the fantastic headline, “Sippy Cups Caused Exploding Court Toilets.”

Red, purple, teal, and green berries

Let’s face it: legal reading can be mind-numbingly dull. I remember the first time I cracked open my Civil Procedure book, it took me about 15 minutes just to get through two pages. As “simple” and “straightforward” as legal writing is made out to be, it’s still stupidly convoluted, especially for the uninitiated. To deal with the dryness of most of the material, I started finding humor in certain cases–like the now-infamous “What is chicken?” case.

So, imagine my delight when the ABA Journal Twittered that a judge had dismissed a suit against Cap’n Crunch. Apparently, some woman had decided to sue PepsiCo (the owner of whoever makes Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries cereal) on false advertising claims; according to her, the cereal had misled her into believing that crunchberries are fruit and have nutritional value. You can’t make this up. The fact that Judge England, who decided to dismiss the claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) (ah, I know ye well), actually wrote a 14-page decision (which you can download at the link) explaining why he dismissed the whole thing makes me, on the one hand, slightly perturbed by the waste of time, but on the other hand, absolutely thrilled that it gave the world such gems as:

“The Crunchberries are pieces of cereal in bright fruit colors, shaped to resemble berries. While close inspection reveals that the Crunchberries on the PDP are not really berries, Plaintiff contends that the colorful Crunchberries, combined with use of the word “berry” in the Product name, convey the message that Cap’n Crunch is not all sugar and starch, but contains redeeming fruit.” 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43127, 2.

“In actuality, the Product contains no berries of any kind.” Id.

“This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a ‘crunchberry.’” Id. at 8.

“Defendant chose the moniker “Crunchberries” for its brightly colored cereal balls. As far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.” Id. at 12.

“The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense. The Court has no intention of allowing that to happen.” Id. at 14.

Here’s the best part: the plaintiff was represented by lawyers who had earlier brought a similar case against Fruit Loops. Would you be surprised if I told you they lost then, too?