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1. Posted by Greg - 6 months, 4 weeks, 11 hours, 27 minutes ago

   From Judge Thomas’ opinion in Fichman v. Media Center:

   “Given these undisputed facts, the district court correctly held that the independent program producers could not be counted as employees within the meaning of the ADA or ADEA. Neither the serious members of the public who provide programming content to Media Center, nor the aspiring Wayne Campbells of northern Nevada, qualify as Media Center employees.”

2. Posted by Paula F. Cardoza - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 12 minutes ago

   In Breeding v. Kye’s Inc., 831 N.E.2d 188 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), bride brought breach of action against special events facility seeking return of deposit she made to reserve facility for wedding reception after facility terminated contract with music company that provided disc jockey services that bride wished to have perform at the reception.  The trial court granted facility’s motion for summary judgment.  A divided Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that disc jockey services were part of the bargain struck by bride and facility, and thus facility breached contract when it prohibited music company from performing.

   The dissenting judge stated:

   I respectfully dissent.  My colleagues apparently want to “Save the Last Dance” for Ms. Breeding.  I, however, believe she received what she bargained and signed the contract for--a reception hall with a disc jockey of Kye’s choice.  Stuck is stuck.  Although the other members of the panel cannot “Stand by Me,” I believe that Kye’s clearly and explicitly reserved the right to select the disc jockey, and Breeding was bound by the clear and unambiguous contract.

   The majority responded in a footnote: 

   In his dissent, our colleague Judge Barnes borrows from the music of his youth (and ours) to illustrate his point that the contract that Breeding signed was for the rental of the hall, not the provision of disc jockey services.  For reasons stated elsewhere in this opinion, we disagree.  We do note, however, that Breeding, having “Heard It Through the Grapevine” that Kye’s had disassociated itself from Sounds Unlimited, and doubtless suffering from the “Wedding Bell Blues” upon finding that she could “Get No Satisfaction” from Kye’s, said to herself (and Kye’s) “It’s My Party.” She decided that it would be “Kind of a Drag,” if she could not have the “Mr. Tambourine Man” of her choice as her disc jockey, and, rather than shedding “96 Tears,” she would be a “Hard Headed Woman” because “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

   It is a shame that the parties were unable to resolve their differences amicably by “Building a Bridge Over Troubled Water” so that they could “Let It Be.” Alas, Breeding was left to go “Downtown” to seek another “Sugar Shack” for her wedding reception before “Leaving on a Jet Plane” for her honeymoon.  (Our apologies to the younger generations who have never heard any of these songs and have no idea what we are talking about.)

   831 N.E.2d at 191 n.1.

3. Posted by James Shaw - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 5 minutes ago

   It’s tough to beat the footnote in In re King, 2006 WL 581256 (W.D. TEx. 2006):

   “Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,” after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

   “Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

   “Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.”

4. Posted by bnr - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 40 minutes ago

   This reference to Blazing Saddles, in an opinion about a Panamanian boxer, is hilarious. Judge Carnes is the best:
   “Like the brute Mongo in Mel Brooks’s 1974 comedy classic Blazing Saddles, Roberto Duran once knocked out a horse with a single punch. 1 That horse, as well as countless human opponents who suffered the same fate in the streets and back alleys of Panama where Duran grew up, are not included in his career total of 104 officially sanctioned boxing wins - 69 of them by knockout - against only 16 losses.

   FOOTNOTES

   1 As Duran told the story in 1998:
   I was 14 or 15 . . . in my mother’s home town of Guarare . . . . There was a fiesta. I had $ 150 in my pocket, which was a lot of money for me, and we were all drinking whiskey. There was a girl sitting next to me, teasing me, and I felt like a big shot. But I was running out of money to buy alcohol when someone said, “You call yourself Manos de Piedra (Hands of Stone), I betcha a bottle of whiskey and $ 50 you can’t knock out that horse.” . . . My uncle, Socrates Garcia was his name, pulled me aside. “I got a secret,” he said. He told me to punch the horse behind the ear and “that horse will go down.” He did. But I ripped my hand open. You could see right through to the bone. But I didn’t feel any pain. I didn’t go to the hospital. I stayed with the girl all night and didn’t get one kiss.
   Michael Katz, Duran is Still Horsing Around, N.Y. Daily News, June 2, 1998, at 75.”

   United States v. Duran Samaniego, 345 F.3d 1280 (11th Cir. 2003).

5. Posted by hfg - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 8 minutes ago

   From Judge Tacha’s opinion in Cardtoons, L.C. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass’n, 95 F.3d 959, 973 (10th Cir. 1996):

   Although no one pays to watch Cormac McCarthy write a novel, many people pay a lot of money to watch Demi Moore “act” and Michael Jordan play basketball.

   And yes, the quotation marks around the word “act” are in the original opinion.

6. Posted by mdd - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes ago

   From Judge McEwen’s decision in Mazaika v. Bank One, NA, PA Superior Court:
   Anyone who is perplexed that banking interests have persuaded the Pennsylvania legislature to approve an interest rate of 18% must surely be appalled to learn that the banking interests have convinced the legislature of Ohio that an interest rate of 25% is neither criminal nor confiscatory. Don Corleone once rasped: “A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”, Mario Puzo, The Godfather p. 51 (Putnam Publishing Group 1969)-one supposes that professional courtesy precluded his allusion to the banker.

7. Posted by Corrine - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 12 hours, 59 minutes ago

   I have to second Mr. Shaw’s citation of In re King.  Fabulous!

8. Posted by JDH - 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes ago

   My vote, Judge Evans who dropped this gem in the first footnote to correct a spelling error:

   The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden’s response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps “You doin’ ho activities with ho tendencies.”

   US v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857 n. 1 (7th Cir. 2005).