For anyone who thinks law school is boring.

[ycleption]

Many people think law school is dry and boring. This case was from my textbook, and I think shows otherwise. (I edited it down a bit). I think the judge who wrote it harbored a secret desire to be on the Layonara writing team, although he didn't know it.


This case presents the ordinary man-that problem child of the law-in a most bizarre setting. As a lowly chauffeur in defendant's employ he became in a trice the protagonist in a breach-bating drama with a denouement almost tragic. It appears that a man, whose identity it would be indelicate to divulge was feloniously relieved of his portable goods by two nondescript highwaymen in an alley near 26th Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan; they induced him to relinquish his possessions by a strong argument ad hominem couched in the convincing cant of the criminal and pressed at the point of a most persuasive pistol. Laden with their loot, but not thereby impeded, they took an abrupt departure and he, shuffling off the coil of that discretion which enmeshed him in the alley, quickly gave chase through 26th Street toward 2d Avenue, whither they were resorting 'with expedition swift as thought’ for most obvious reasons. Somewhere on that thoroughfare of escape they indulged the stratagem of separation ostensibly to disconcert their pursuer and allay the ardor of his pursuit. He then centered on for capture the man with the pistol whom he saw board defendant's taxicab, which quickly veered south toward 25th Street on 2d Avenue where he saw the chauffeur jump out while the cab, still in motion, continued toward 24th Street; after the chauffeur relieved himself of the cumbersome burden of his fare the latter also is said to have similarly departed from the cab before it reached 24th Street.

The chauffeur's story is substantially the same except that he states that his uninvited guest boarded the cab at 25th Street while it was at a standstill waiting for a less colorful fare; that his 'passenger’ immediately advised him 'to stand not upon the order of his going but to go at once’ and added finality to his command by an appropriate gesture with a pistol addressed to his sacroiliac. The chauffeur in reluctant acquiescence proceeded about fifteen feet, when his hair, like unto the quills of the fretful porcupine, was made to stand on end by the hue and cry of the man despoiled accompanied by a clamourous concourse of the law-abiding which paced him as he ran; the concatenation of 'stop thief’, to which the patter of persistent feet did maddingly beat time, rang in his ears as the pursuing posse all the while gained on the receding cab with its quarry therein contained. The hold-up man sensing his insecurity suggested to the chauffeur that in the event there was the slightest lapse in obedience to his curt command that he, the chauffeur, would suffer the loss of his brains, a prospect as horrible to an humble chauffeur as it undoubtedly would be to one of the intelligentsia.

***

The chauffeur apprehensive of certain dissolution from either Scylla, the pursuers, or Charybdis, the pursued, quickly threw his car out of first speed in which he was proceeding, pulled on the emergency, jammed on his brakes and, although he thinks the motor was still running, swung open the door to his left and jumped out of his car. The plaintiff-mother and her two infant children were there injured by the cab which, at the time, appeared to be also minus its passenger who, it appears, was apprehended in the cellar of a local hospital where he was pointed out to a police officer by a remnant of the posse, hereinbefore mentioned. He did not appear at the trial.

***

Returning to our chauffeur. If the philosophic Horatio and the martial companions of his watch were 'distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear’ when they beheld 'in the dead vast and middle of the night’ the disembodied spirit of Hamlet's father stalk majestically by 'with a countenance more in sorrow than in anger’ was not the chauffeur, though unacquainted with the example of these eminent men-at-arms, more amply justified in his fearsome reactions when he was more palpably confronted by a thing of flesh and blood bearing in its hand an engine of destruction which depended for its lethal purpose upon the quiver of a hair? When Macbeth was cross-examined by Macduff as to any reason he could advance for his sudden despatch of Duncan's grooms he said in plausible answer 'Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man’. Macbeth did not by a 'tricksy word’ thereby stand justified as he criminally created the emergency from which he sought escape by indulgence in added felonies to divert suspicion to the innocent.

***

The chauffeur-the ordinary man in this case-acted in a split second in a most harrowing experience. To call him negligent would be to brand him coward; the court does not do so in spite of what those swaggering heroes, 'whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard’, may bluster to the contrary. The court is loathe to see the plaintiffs go without recovery even though their damages were slight, but cannot hold the defendant liable upon the facts adduced at the trial. Motions, upon which decision was reserved, to dismiss the complaint are granted with exceptions to plaintiffs. Judgment for defendant against plaintiffs dismissing their complaint upon the merits. Ten days' stay and thirty days to make a case.

[Masterjack]

.....I need a dictionary..or some edumacation

[LynnJuniper]

Awww Come on! Being a lawyer is easy! Everyone who'se played Phoenix Wright for the DS knows that!

*runs and hides from any lawyers that happened to have heard her*

[Pseudonym]

Yes, I think this post proves studying law is anything but dry and boring. Quite conclusively. *bluff check*

[Acacea]

"...when his hair, like unto the quills of the fretful porcupine, was made to stand on end by the hue and cry of the man despoiled..." Haha!

[scifibarbie]

ummmm...wow...

[Carillon]

Ahem ... *attempts to translate to common*

This is a story about a man who got into some trouble with the law. See, it all started when this NPC got mugged by a couple of chaotic rogues wearing belts of acquisition. They must have been evil, or neutral at best, cause they didn't even roll a pick pocket check! They just pulled out some storied loot weapon +17 and rolled a nat 20 plus a hefty modifier on an intimidate check and the poor NPC just handed all his quest loot over. That's what comes of not using safe deposit chests!

Anyway, the rogues took off, but just then the NPC finally made a decent will save against the intimidate check, and he took off hollering after him. The rogues naturally used their expeditious retreat on the belts. The NPC must have just taken a potion of speed, though, or maybe he had some monk levels, because boy did he ever chase after them! They split up, and the one carrying the weapon with the plus something impressive enhancement flagged down our guy, who happened to be riding by in a wagon just then, and just in time too, because Mr. NPC was still in hot pursuit with a posse of do-gooder PCs looking to score some quest XP!

The rogue told the wagon driver to make the horse giddyup, and fast, and the wagon driver was just about to when he made a listen check and heard the NPC yelling "Stop thief!" The wagon driver thought about stopping, but that rogue must have put all his skill points into intimidate or something because he made another intimidate check just then and waved his fancy weapon at the wagon driver.

Well, the wagon driver must have made an abominable will save, or maybe he was running low on soul strands (pfft, what other reason is there to not embrace death with open arms?) because he rolled a wisdom check and decided it was high time he got out of there. He pulled on the horse's reins and yelled "Whoa!" and made a successful tumble check off the side of the wagon, but just then the rogue, who of course had a ton of points in dex, jumped out of the wagon too and went running off!

Well, the gods must have been busy bickering among themselves right then, or maybe the DM was just feeling cruel, because the wagon went barreling into this little female NPC and her two little kids. Boy, was there a to-do about it! The lady NPC dragged that wagon driver off to the Court of Rofirein, and tried to make him pay for the healer she had to hire to patch up the injuries from the wagon accident. The Judge at the trial heard the case, and prayed to the Gold for guidance, and eventually decided that while it wasn't fair that the woman had been hurt and had had to pay for the healer, the wagon driver had done what any sensible NPC had done, and therefore couldn't really be punished.

Don't worry, though ... that rogue got what was coming to him! He sauntered down to the local healer to get a few wounds fixed up, and just then some of those do-gooder PCs who had seen the whole thing caught up to him. He failed a hide check, and they turned him over to a paladin of Toran, who made sure he got what he deserved.

[Lydyn]

... hahahaha. xD

-Lydyn