Priceless, from Comedy Central.
My old friend David Chesnoff‘s law partner — Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman — has been lobbying Major League Baseball owners at the Winter Meetings in Anaheim to allow for the move of the Florida Marlins to Las Vegas. Argus Hamilton comments that such a move could resolve MLB’s public relations problem relating to its players’ steroid use:
“The Florida Marlins met with Nevada officials Tuesday about moving to Las Vegas. It could save the game. Expose entire baseball teams to round-the-clock strip bars and escort services and in no time they will make Barry Bonds look like Bishop Tutu.”
The Onion hits home with an insight about public transportation that Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has been taking advantage of for years.
Argus Hamilton is a funny fellow, as reflected by this entry from his daily observations from November 30:
Annika Sorenstam competed with the men in the Skins Game Saturday. Last year at the Colonial she broke the barrier and became the first woman to play in a PGA tournament. Somehow you knew the Jackie Robinson of golf would be a Swedish blonde.
My wife has spent a fair amount of time in school car lines over the years, and she passes along the result of this serious breach of car line etiquette reported by the Chronicle:
A spat that started almost a year ago, in the line to pick up children after classes at the Village School, will move into a Houston municipal court today as a 40-year-old mother faces a misdemeanor assault charge.
Sandra Chiang denies reaching into Shannon Rechter’s sport utility vehicle and slapping her in the face afterRechter cut in line while other parents were waiting and chatting outside the school. Chiang could be fined up to $500 if convicted.
The incident ignited a yearlong feud that has included the assault charge, a counterclaim of vandalism, allegations of harassment and the removal of Rechter’s two children from the school.
The two stay-at-home mothers had never met before Dec. 13, 2003, when Chiang left her car idling as the carpool line moved forward, and Rechter, 38, wedged into the space ahead of her.
“She immediately began yelling at me for cutting in line, and the more I tried to explain the madder she became,” Rech-ter said.
“At that point, she reached in, struck me across the face and quickly ran back to her car as if nothing happened.”
Chiang contends that her SUV was “keyed” by Rechter several weeks later. The hood and a door were scraped, causing an estimated $1,600 in damage, she says.
For some reason, the case is not high on the radar screen of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office:
Rechter says school officials and law enforcement authorities didn’t take her seriously when she first reported the incident.
It took numerous calls to police and the city prosecutor’s office to get the case scheduled for trial, she says.
My wife’s question: If I was defending this case, would I try to strike for cause anyone on the jury panel who regularly has to sit in a car line?
My answer: Only if they don’t cut in line. ;^)
This New York Law Journal article reports on the wrongful death case against Benihana that grew out of a customer’s reaction to a chef’s playful toss of a shrimp:
A piece of grilled shrimp flung playfully by a Japanese hibachi chef toward a tableside diner is being blamed for causing the man’s death.
Making a proximate-cause argument, the lawyer for the deceased man’s estate has alleged that the man’s reflexive response — to duck away from the flying food — caused a neck injury that required surgery.
Complications from that first operation necessitated a second procedure. Five months later, [the customer] was dead of an illness that his family claims was proximately caused by the injury.
What a way to go.