Raising the bar
6 July 2004, 10:32 PM
It's been a couple weeks since I did an assorted-items sweep, and I've got lots of tidbits piled up waiting to be posted. However, an item passed along by Will deserves an entry of its own: a column (?) from the July 2004 issue of Orange County Lawyer magazine, written by Justice William W. Bedsworth, titled "Planes, Trains and . . . Cows." Excerpt:
My dream was less Homeric than Hemingway’s. I figured with my talent, I needed to set the bar lower. Setting it on the ground seemed appropriate, but I was afraid if the bar were lying in the dirt, others might have difficulty recognizing it as a bar and trip over it, exposing me and the state to civil liability. So I set it about ankle high.
He proceeds to discuss a recent Ohio opinion concerning cows and motor vehicles that is truly a masterpiece of legal decisionmaking. He's a funny writer, too. Go read it.
Comments
This is just the latest installment of a monthly column (entitled "A Criminal Waste of Space") which Bedsworth has been writing since 1981. (A collection is available in book form.) They're all good, says Kelly. I just discovered Bedsworth myself a few weeks ago through one of Howard Bashman's excellent 20 Questions for an Appellate Judge columns.
Posted by: Will | July 7, 2004 5:46 PM
That was quite funny. Thank you.
Posted by: Twig (mail) | July 11, 2004 5:59 AM
Thanks, that was really really funny. I shared it with Robert, Sonya, and Kat in the car on Friday, and Sonya predicted the "outcome" of the decision (that a cow is not a vehicle because it has no wheels) before I got there. The law is weird.
Posted by: Kathleen | July 12, 2004 12:33 PM