Raising the bar

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.

3 Responses to “Raising the bar”

  1. Will

    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.

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  2. Twig

    That was quite funny. Thank you.

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  3. Kathleen

    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.

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