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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3438 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 26, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Mildly interesting court opinion:

  • In year 1988, a married couple purchases a shopping center and an adjacent vacant lot. The shopping center's "anchor tenant" is a grocery store whose below-market lease of 0.77 $/ft2 was signed in 1962 and can be extended all the way to 2012, but the other tenants pay rent at the market rate.

  • In year 1994 the municipal government declares the two properties blighted. In year 1999 the grocery store terminates its lease. And in year 2018 the municipal government starts condemnation proceedings for the two properties. The couple does not object to the condemnation, but engages in extensive litigation regarding how much money constitutes just compensation for the taking. The couple argues that the proper valuation date is year 1994, and the judge agrees. The parties submit the question of valuation to an arbitrator.

  • The municipal government argues that the grocery store's below-market rent of 0.77 $/ft2 results in valuation of 2.3 M$ for the two properties at issue. The couple argues that the market rent for the grocery store was 8.5 $/ft2 and on that basis the proper valuation of the two properties is 4.8 M$. The arbitrator finds that the grocery store was so "old", "in below average condition", and "grossly substandard in size" that the market rent for the grocery store was 4.0 $/ft2<ins>—but, when its existing below-market rent is taken into account, the rent for valuation purposes is 2.0 $/ft2</ins>, and the valuation for the two properties is 2.9 M$.

  • The couple appeals, arguing that the grocery store's below-market lease was irrelevant and should not have been admitted as evidence. But the appeals panel rejects that argument. The existing lease was "a fact relevant to the determination of what a willing buyer would have paid for the property in 1994".

  • The municipal government also appeals, arguing that the proper valuation date is 2018 rather than 1994. But the appeals panel rejects that argument as well. The law specifically states that the proper valuation date of a condemned property is the earliest of (a) when the condemning government takes possession, (b) when the condemnation proceedings begin, (c) when the condemning government takes action to "substantially affect" the condemnee's use of the property, and (d) when the property is declared blighted. Obviously, item d, which occurred in year 1994, was the earliest of these four events. The municipal government has no one but itself to blame for failing to start the condemnation proceedings until a whopping 24 years after declaring the properties blighted.

Funny excerpt from an otherwise boring court opinion:

Frank and Roseann Carone passed away in August and June 2022, respectively. Jeanie Mayer and Anton Mayer Sr. are their daughter and son-in-law. Plaintiffs Anton Jr. and Francisco are Jeanie's and Anton Sr.'s sons and decedents' grandsons.

On January 31, 2006, decedents executed reciprocal wills in which plaintiffs were named as beneficiaries. With the help of a new attorney, Michael Zimmerman, they drafted several more wills in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017. Plaintiffs were named as beneficiaries in the 2007 and 2011 wills.

In 2015, Anton Jr. became estranged from the family, including his sister, his parents, and the decedents, over a scheduling dispute regarding his wedding and his sister's wedding. As a result, neither his parents nor decedents, were invited to his wedding. Decedents were greatly upset by Anton Jr.'s conduct and Roseann asked Zimmerman whether she and Frank could rescind stocks they had gifted Anton Jr. [Anton Jr. was disinherited in the 2015 and 2017 wills.]

In 2019, Francisco's relationship with his parents and sister deteriorated because of his efforts to reconnect with Anton Jr. Francisco was residing in an apartment owned by Frank, which he vacated without providing notice. Decedents expressed their displeasure regarding Francisco's move and his poor relationship with them on several occasions to a few family friends. On June 10, 2019, they asked Zimmerman to draft new wills disinheriting Francisco [in addition to Anton Jr.]. These wills were not signed by decedents until 2021.

Zimmerman testified about his more than four decades of experience as a tax, wills, trusts, and estates attorney. He first met with decedents to plan their estate in 2007. Zimmerman recounted his longstanding relationship with decedents and the counseling he provided in drafting their various wills between 2007 and 2022. His work included drafting eight wills, living trusts, and health care proxies for Frank and performing tax work for him over the years. Zimmerman testified the number of wills decedents asked him to draft was highly unusual. He explained decedents "would have issues with the family and would change percentages. They would continually just change their minds as to who they wanted to give to."

Crosspost from >>>/k/64289538:

beam "rifle"

fired with one hand

This has really annoyed me ever since I noticed it.

  • The GM's beam spray gun kind of looks like a pistol, so I'm okay with seeing it fired with one hand.

  • The RX-78-2 Gundam's beam rifle looks more like a rifle, and probably should be fired with two hands, but it's not quite big enough to damage my suspension of disbelief.

  • The Zeta Gundam's beam rifle is as tall as the fucking mobile suit! For it to be fired with one hand just looks ridiculous.

  • And then we reach the Ex-S Gundam's beam smart gun, which isn't any longer than the Zeta Gundam's rifle, but has enough extra heft that it finally needs to be fired with two hands even in-universe.

[Yes, I am aware that a pistol can have a rifled barrel and a long arm can be smoothbore.]

Mildly funny excerpt from a lawsuit:

Since Plaintiff’s promotion in January 2018, the [Division] and/or [the Department's Deputy Director] has never provided him with a written description of his job duties and responsibilities. In contrast, Plaintiff’s predecessor, and all of Plaintiff’s subordinates, have written job descriptions as reflected in their annual Performance Assessment Reviews.

Since Plaintiff’s promotion in January 2018, the [Division] and/or [the Deputy Director] has never provided Plaintiff with a Performance Assessment Review (“PAR”).

[The Department] is required by Civil Service Commission regulations in the New Jersey Administrative Code and the [union] contract to provide employees with PARs on an annual basis. Plaintiff performs PARs for all of his subordinate staff on an annual basis, as required by [Department] policies. On occasions when Plaintiff has been late with any part of the PAR process, [the Department]’s Human Resources staff members have been quick to e-mail him reminders.

Not receiving annual PARs has caused Plaintiff to receive a disadvantageous numerical ranking in the Civil Service Commission computer system. According to the Civil Service Commission website, staff with no PAR on file receive a numerical ranking of “1”, while staff members with good or very good PAR ratings receive a numerical ranking of “4”.

This ranking can prevent Plaintiff from receiving automatic step increases in pay, and puts Plaintiff at a disadvantage when competing for other Civil Service titles, thus further suppressing his earning potential and preventing him from advancing in his career. In fact, Plaintiff has applied unsuccessfully for at least 10 civil service positions within the state government since 2018, and believes that not having PARs on file for his current position negatively affected his chances of obtaining any of those positions.

Only recently, on or about January 10, 2023, did [Supervisor] finally begin the PAR process for Plaintiff by sending Plaintiff a PAR form listing his supposed “job expectations” for Plaintiff to review. Upon review of this document, Plaintiff determined that it contained a completely incorrect and inaccurate list of job duties and responsibilities that are not reflective of the actual job functions he performs as Supervisor of the [Unit].

Plaintiff suspects that [Supervisor] mischaracterized his job duties and responsibilities in the PAR purposefully, as retaliation for pursuing his discrimination claims through the Division on Civil Rights, and as part of a calculated attempt by the [Division] to force him to request a Civil Service “desk audit” alleging that he is working “out-of-title”, rather than pursue his equal pay claims.

If Plaintiff were to file a desk audit request, then any resulting directive from the Civil Service Commission to adjust his title and/or compensation would date back only to the date he filed the desk audit request. By filing a desk audit request, Plaintiff would be giving up his right to pursue equal pay claims and seek backpay for the ongoing pay differential dating back to January 2018.

No PDF is provided because the plaintiff is my father. The complaint was filed in May 2023, but discovery has been repeatedly extended from November 2024 to December 2024, September 2025, and January 2026, so no end is in sight. I am not particularly close to my father (I stumbled across this lawsuit purely on accident by looking up my last name in my state's database of cases), so I have no personal knowledge of the merits of the case. But, as the kids say nowadays, big if true.

To clarify the importance of these missing PARs: The union contract specifies (p. 38) that every employee must be rated on a three-point scale (unsatisfactory, commendable, or exceptional) on an annual basis. Generally, if your rating is at least two, then you get an automatic "step" pay increase of around 4 percent within the "range" assigned to your job (p. 170), on top of any other "across-the-board" increase that may apply (3.5 percent per year in this contract—p. 28). The meaning of a blank PAR is not mentioned in the contract, but apparently it counts as a score of one (or maybe zero, since the complaint describes it as a four-point scale rather than a three-point scale). The plaintiff in this case alleges that his bosses were intentionally depriving him of these regular raises by failing to fill out his annual PARs.

Was there any suggestion of compensating the grocery store owner? This feels like a "heads we win, tails you lose" scenario - if the reason why the property is worth $2.9M instead of $3.5M (deduced from (4.8M-2.9M)*(4.0-2.0)/(8.5-2.0)+2.9M) is that the grocery store owner has an interest in the property too, isn't that interest worth $600K and in need of compensation? The interest is gone in 2018, sure, but if the rule is "evaluate as if it was 1994" then what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

This reminds me a bit of one of the loopholes for evading the Supreme Court ruling that governments can't keep the excess auction proceeds from property they seize for tax non-payment: the left hand of the government just sells to the right hand for whatever pittance covers the debt and lets the right hand take the auction profits.

On a side note,

The couple argues that the proper valuation date is year 1994

Wow - how bad were their property values in 2018? If it was already "blighted", "old", "in below average condition" in 1994, how much worse did it have to get for the decline to outpace 72% total inflation in the interim?!

if the reason why the property is worth $2.9M instead of $3.5M is that the grocery store owner has an interest in the property too

This is incorrect. Valuation as of 1994 means the price that a hypothetical buyer would have paid to buy the properties in 1994. However, buying the properties does not include canceling the grocery store's lease early. Rather, that would be a separate action after purchase. The grocery-store company terminated its lease voluntarily in 1999, so nothing is being taken from it in this condemnation action.

How bad were their property values in 2018?

It isn't mentioned in the appeals panel's opinion, but the original 2018 condemnation complaint indicates that the municipal government made an offer of just 0.92 M$, on the basis of an appraisal.

If someone said "the reason why my pants are 36 waist is that I've put on a little weight since college" I wouldn't say "This incorrect. Pant waist size means the number that a hypothetical tape measure would read when measuring around the waistband." Causal graphs are not just sets of ordered pairs, and when one effect has multiple causes sometimes the most proximal cause is not the only or even the most important cause.

But, to abandon brevity for clarity: the reason why the property was worth $2.9M instead of $3.5M is that that is the price that a hypothetical buyer would have paid to buy the properties, and the reason why that price was the former rather than the latter was because:

buying the properties does not include canceling the grocery store's lease early.

If they could have cancelled the lease early, or even if a cancellation after purchase could have been done without penalty, then I would have been incorrect; the existence of the lease would not have notably reduced the price.

The grocery-store company terminated its lease voluntarily in 1999, so nothing is being taken from it in this condemnation action.

Yes; this is what I phrased as "The interest is gone in 2018, sure". I'm just curious about the legal and ethical implications. "Compensation needs to be based on what it would have been in 1994" seems to the intent of the law here; so does that mean that the grocery store would have also been stiffed if the taking had gone through in 1994? If I move to a smaller house and give one of my kids a 30 year rent-free lease on my current house, the market value of my current house afterward might be negative (who else wants to pay property taxes for decades on a house they can't use themselves?); would that mean that if it's eminent domained then my kid is out of luck and I need to pay the taker for the privilege?

but the original 2018 condemnation complaint indicates that the municipal government made an offer of just 0.92 M$, on the basis of an appraisal.

Thanks for this!

I wouldn't say "This incorrect. Pant waist size means the number that a hypothetical tape measure would read when measuring around the waistband."

Because you're not a valuator.

"fair market value (FMV) is the highest price, expressed in cash, at which property would change hands between a hypothetical willing and able buyer and seller, each acting in their own interest in an open market without compulsion to buy or sell, and with reasonable knowledge of all relevant facts"

The thing that I think you're hung up on here is that you're assuming that a lease interest operates the same as an ownership interest, and that simply isn't the case as far as the law is concerned. A lessee may be entitled to compensation in a condemnation proceeding, especially if, as in this case, there is a long-term lease in operation at below market rates, but this isn't always the case; someone on an annual lease at market rent probably doesn't have a recognizable interest, no matter how inconvenient moving may be. The onus is thus on the lessee to prove to the government that they are entitled to compensation.

The short answer to why ACME wasn't compensated here is that they didn't intervene in the proceeding, didn't pay an expert to find out what their lease interest was worth, and neither the arbitration panel nor the court was in a position to make a determination of their interest. But that doesn't really answer your question; I suspect that had they intervened they wouldn't have gotten anything. The reason, I suspect, would be because eminent domain statutes generally only contemplate owners. Since a lessee would have to show extraordinary circumstances to be entitled to compensation, the what-if game doesn't apply to them. They broke the lease in 1999, could have only extended it to 2012 at the latest, and the building was demolished in 2015. They can't credibly argue that their interests are somehow prejudiced. The owner, obviously, can't either, but there's a statute that applies specifically to them and has to be followed. If the property had been taken in 1994, the grocery store would have had an argument and probably would have intervened in the condemnation suit.

If you're worried about the government being unjustly enriched, this isn't really the case to raise that concern. Their argument was to use the 2018 market value, and by that point the ACME store was razed and the rest of the plaza was dilapidated and vacant. This is what the township wanted to do, as it would have resulted in a much lower price.

The municipal government argues that the grocery store's below-market rent of 0.77 $/ft2 results in valuation of 2.3 M$ for the two properties at issue. The couple argues that the market rent for the grocery store was 8.5 $/ft2 and on that basis the proper valuation of the two properties is 4.8 M$

Huh? Why is the valuation only ~twice as much after the square foot price is 11x bigger?

Whoops, my mistake.

Without considering the ACME contract rent, the arbitrator determined "the market rent[]" for the ACME building was $4.00 per square foot. He then considered the ACME contract rate, finding "[a]ny reasonable buyer would certainly consider the financial impact of this lease in determining what it would be willing to pay for the subject site. To suggest that the ACME lease can be ignored in determining its market rent is manifestly unreasonable." Factoring in the contract rent, the arbitrator found the market rent for the ACME building was $2.00 per square foot.

Re: Gundam, what’s special about two arms? Robits are strong, and I’m not even sure which beam weapons have recoil. If one has more than two arms, how many of them have to be used to qualify as a rifle?

I propose that the deciding factor is whether or not there’s a stock (or brace; ATF be damned) behind the grip. But Gundam variants are worse than Pokémon, so I assume there’s plenty of weird models that violate this scheme.

Unrelated, but “declaring the property blighted” has got to be one of the cooler turns of phrase for city bureaucrats. I’m sure they’re thrilled to break that one out.

Robits are strong, and I’m not even sure which beam weapons have recoil.

Mobile suits also use rocket launchers one-handed. The Zaku Marine's is pistol-sized, while the RX-78-2 Gundam's is long-arm-sized and braced against the shoulder.

If one has more than two arms, how many of them have to be used to qualify as a rifle?

A few mobile suits, such as the The-O and the Advanced Hazel, have extra "sub-arms". But these extra arms typically are very short and unsuited for supporting a long weapon in collaboration with the two primary arms.

I propose that the deciding factor is whether or not there’s a stock (or brace; ATF be damned) behind the grip.

Yes, I forgot about this when I made the original comment. Here's one definition.

Long Arm: All kinds of long arms—guns fired either one- or two-handed and with the help of a shoulder stock. This includes: muzzle-loading muskets; muzzle-loading rifles; breech-loading single-shot or double-barreled rifles; bolt-, lever-, or pump-action rifles; semiautomatic rifles; assault rifles; single- or double- barreled shotguns; bolt-, lever-, or pump-action shotguns; semiautomatic shotguns; full-automatic shotguns; submachine guns; belt- or magazine-fed handheld light machine guns; grenade launchers; and gyroc carbines or support weapons. It also applies for any handgun, including a revolver, semiautomatic pistol, or machine pistol, that is fitted with a shoulder stock. All guns capable of full-automatic fire are best used with the Burst-Fire technique in that fire mode.

Pistol: All kinds of handguns—guns fired either one- or two-handed, but without the support of a shoulder stock. This includes muzzle-loading pistols, derringers, revolvers, semiautomatic pistols, stockless sawn-off shotguns (“shot pistols”), flare pistols, and gyroc pistols, as well as machine pistols without stock. The last are best used with the Burst-Fire technique in that fire mode.

But the mobile suits in question use beam "rifles" without any shoulder or waist bracing even when they do deign to use two hands.

“Declaring the property blighted” has got to be one of the cooler turns of phrase for city bureaucrats.

The Supreme Court agrees with you.

Public safety, public health, morality, peace and quiet, law and order—these are some of the more conspicuous examples of the traditional application of the police power to municipal affairs. Yet they merely illustrate the scope of the power, and do not delimit it. Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may do more than spread disease and crime and immorality. They may also suffocate the spirit by reducing the people who live there to the status of cattle. They may indeed make living an almost insufferable burden. They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs it of charm, which makes it a place from which men turn. The misery of housing may despoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a river.

We do not sit to determine whether a particular housing project is or is not desirable. The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled. In the present case, the Congress and its authorized agencies have made determinations that take into account a wide variety of values. It is not for us to reappraise them. If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation's Capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.

Most rocket launchers in military use are recoilless by virtue of having a big hole in the end of the tube which vents exhaust gas. You could fire an RPG-7 one-handed if you wanted to, though the ergonomics wouldn't be great. You could even do that with the much heavier Carl Gustav.

There are guided missile launchers like the Javelin which do have recoil, but only a minimal amount, mainly from the soft-launch system that gets the missile a few feet away from the user at low velocity before the main rocket motor kicks in.

For a combat vehicle the size of a Gundam, it's a non-issue.

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