Think law’s dreary? Apparently, so do some judges. Here are two rulings that rewrite classic poetry into great court decisions.
(1) In Re Love
This is a rewriting of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. (The judge was denying his own motion to dismiss a case under section 707(b) of the Bankruptcy Code).
In Re Love (61 BR 558):
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary
Over many quaint and curious files of chapter seven lore
While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door,
“Tis some debtor” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door –
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah distinctly I recall, it was in the early fall
And the file still was small
The Code provided I could use it
If someone tried to substantially abuse it
No party asked that it be heard.
“Sua sponte” whispered a small black bird.
The bird himself, my only maven, strongly looked to be a raven.
Upon the words the bird had uttered
I gazed at all the files cluttered
“Sua sponte,” I recall, had no meaning; none at all.
And the cluttered files sprawl, drove a thought into my brain.
Eagerly I wished the morrow—vainly I had sought to borrow
From BAFJA, surcease of sorrow—and an order quick and plain
That this case would not remain as a source of further pain.
The procedure, it seemed plain.
As the case grew older, I perceived I must be bolder.
And must sua sponte act, to determine every fact,
If primarily consumer debts, are faced,
Perhaps this case is wrongly placed.
This is a thought that I must face, perhaps I should dismiss this case.
I moved sua sponte to dismiss it for I knew I would not miss it
The Code said I could, I knew it.
But not exactly how to do it, or perhaps some day I’d rue it.
I leaped up and struck my gavel.
For the mystery to unravel
Could I? Should I? Sua sponte, grant my motion to dismiss?
While it seemed the thing to do, suddenly I thought of this.
Looking, looking towards the future and to what there was to see
If my motion, it was granted and an appeal came to be,
Who would be the appellee?
Surely, it would not be me.
Who would file, but pray tell me, a learned brief for the appellee
The District Judge would not do so
At least this much I do know.
Tell me raven, how to go.
As I with the ruling wrestled
In the statute I saw nestled
A presumption with a flavor clearly in the debtor’s favor.
No evidence had I taken
Sua sponte appeared foresaken.
Now my motion caused me terror
A dismissal would be error.
Upon consideration of § 707(b), in anguish, loud I cried
The court’s sua sponte motion to dismiss under § 707(b) is denied.
(2) Fisher v Lowe
Fisher v Lowe (333 NW 2d 67) was about an owner seeking compensation for his oak tree, which was hit because of the defendant’s careless driving. The plaintiff lost the case, and the judge at the appeal court delivered his judgement in verse, in a parody of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”.
J. H. GILLIS, Judge.
We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest,
Upon a mangled tree’s behest;
A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy’s crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;
A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must affirm the court’s decree.
Affirmed.
The best part about this decision is that the Headnotes are also in poetry (!):
A wayward Chevy struck a tree
Whose owner sued defendants three.
He sued car’s owner, driver, too,
And insurer for what was due
For his oak tree that now may bear
A lasting need for tender care.
The Oakland County Circuit Court,
John N. O’Brian, J., set forth
The judgment that defendants sought,
And quickly an appeal was brought.
Court of Appeals, J. H. Gillis, J.,
Gave thought and then had this to say:
1) There is no liability,
Since No-Fault grants immunity,
2) No jurisdiction can be found
Where process service is unsound;
And thus the judgment, as it’s termed
Is due to be, and is
Affirmed.
[1] AUTOMOBILES k251.13
Defendant’s Chevy struck a tree,
There was no liability.
The No-Fault Act comes into play,
As owner and the driver say.
Barred by the act’s immunity,
No suit in tort will aid the tree.
Although the oak’s in disarray,
No court can make defendants pay.
[2] PROCESS k4
No jurisdiction could be found,
Where process service is unsound.
In personam jurisdiction
Was not even legal fiction
Where plaintiff failed to well comply
With rules of court that did apply.
