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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   318 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 26, 2025

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Court opinion:

  • A ski resort has been in operation since year 1969. It includes a mountain face that bears not only several ski slopes, but also part of a gravel municipal road that runs across the slopes. The resort has with the municipality an agreement providing that, during the ski season (from November 15 to April 1), the municipality will close the part of the road that intersects the resort.

  • In year 2008, a person buys a large lot on the gravel road, adjacent to the resort, but still accessible by car during ski season if you drive on the part of the road that does not intersect the resort. He builds a vacation home, and subdivides the land into several lots, which he intends to market as "ski-in, ski-out" properties. In 2013, he tries to sell the house, but receives no offers. In 2014, he asks the resort about developing an alternative road leading through the resort to his properties, but the resort is not interested.

  • In 2015, the person sues the resort and the municipality to force them to keep the intersecting portion of the road open during the ski season. This would close the intersecting ski slopes (which seem to constitute around one-third of the resort), and might force the ski resort to cease operations entirely. The judicial proceedings end in 2022, with the intersecting portion of the road "vacated" by the municipality and ceded to the resort.

  • In 2021, the ski resort sues the person, alleging that his previous lawsuit was an abuse of judicial process intended to pressure the resort into developing the aforementioned alternative road. The trial judge grants summary judgment regarding liability, since the person literally admitted this under oath during the previous lawsuit. A jury grants damages of 600 k$ (400 compensatory and 200 punitive). In 2025, the appeals panel affirms.

Court opinion:

In 1888, Chief Justice Bleckley of the Supreme Court of Georgia authored a famed two-sentence opinion (Pacetti v. State, 7 S.E. 867, 868 (Ga. 1888)):

A social, genial gentleman, fond of company and a glass, by occupation a cigar-maker, who keeps his sleeping apartment with the doors "blanketed", in a fit condition for privately gaming therein, and who invites his friends at night to refresh themselves with beer, but has in the room, besides barrels and bottles, a table suitable for gaming, together with 11 packs of cards, and 2 boxes of "chips", one containing 80 chips and the other 300, and a memorandum book with names and numbers entered in it, and whose guests, or some of them, retire hurriedly under the bed on being surprised by a visit from the police at 1 o'clock in the morning, may or may not be guilty of the offense of keeping a gaming-house. A verdict of guilty, based on these and other inculpatory facts, such as the rattle of chips and money, and some expressions about $7 and $12, heard by the police on approaching the premises, is warranted by the evidence, and is not contrary to law.

How would you rewrite these "two sentences"?

A social, genial gentleman—fond of company and a glass, and by occupation a cigar-maker—(1) who keeps his sleeping apartment with the doors "blanketed" (in a fit condition for privately gaming therein), and (2) who invites his friends at night to refresh themselves with beer, but has in the room (besides barrels and bottles) a table suitable for gaming, together with 11 packs of cards, 2 boxes of "chips" (one containing 80 chips and the other 300), and a memorandum book with names and numbers entered in it, and (3) whose guests (or some of them) retire hurriedly under the bed on being surprised by a visit from the police at 1 o'clock in the morning, may or may not be guilty of the offense of keeping a gaming-house. However, a verdict of guilty, based on these and other inculpatory facts (such as the rattle of chips and money, and some expressions about $7 and $12, heard by the police on approaching the premises), is warranted by the evidence, and is not contrary to law.

The defendant-appellant in this case is a social, genial gentleman, fond of company and a glass, and by occupation a cigar-maker. He kept his sleeping apartment with the doors "blanketed", in a fit condition for privately gaming therein. He invited his friends at night to refresh themselves with beer, but had in the room (besides barrels and bottles) a table suitable for gaming, together with 11 packs of cards, 2 boxes of "chips" (one containing 80 chips and the other 300), and a memorandum book with names and numbers entered in it. His guests (or some of them) retired hurriedly under the bed on being surprised by a visit from the police at 1 o'clock in the morning. This man may or may not be guilty of the offense of keeping a gaming-house. However, a verdict of guilty, based on these and other inculpatory facts (such as the rattle of chips and money, and some expressions about $7 and $12, heard by the police on approaching the premises), is warranted by the evidence, and is not contrary to law.

Survey: The proportion of USAians who "display decorations with a religious meaning, such as a Nativity scene", for Christmas is 54 percent, down from 68 percent in 2010. Presumably, this number can be taken as an indicator of how many people consider Christmas a religious holiday as opposed to a secular one.

In 2015, the person sues the resort and the municipality to force them to keep the intersecting portion of the road open during the ski season.

I'm perpetually amazed at people who show up (or buy in) to a clearly established dynamic and then, much like a toddler, start stamping their feet and demanding the situation be reshaped to their specific wants and desires.

Well, in this case it's clearly not genuine - the guy just used the lawsuit as a pressure tactics to get freebees from the resort. What is astonishing here he actually admitted it on record - and still went for jury trial instead of settling (and then spent money on appealing it). Looks like a person with much more money than sense.

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