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.
PaperclipPerfector
13hr ago
(text post)
614 thread views
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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Item 1 of 4
A person is observed wheeling himself along a road in a manual wheelchair away from the scene of a single-vehicle car crash. He is drunk, and refuses to submit to a blood-alcohol test when a police officer accosts him.
Whoops! Overwhelming evidence indicates that the person was the driver of the car. But there is no indication of when the crash occurred, so the officer had no grounds to suspect that the person was drunk when he crashed the car (as opposed to crashing the car and then getting drunk off the half-empty bottle of liquor that was found in the car), and therefore no grounds to demand a blood-alcohol test in the first place. No problem! The prosecutor argues that the officer had grounds to suspect the person of driving the manual wheelchair drunk, and on that basis charges the person with refusing a blood-alcohol test. On that basis, he is found guilty, and his driver's license is suspended for 18 months.
The appeals panel reverses. It is illegal to refuse a blood-alcohol test if the officer has grounds to believe that you have driven a "vehicle" while drunk, where "vehicle" is defined to exclude both "self-propelled wheelchairs" and "electrical mobility devices". The prosecutor interpreted "self-propelled wheelchair" to mean propelled by the wheelchair, so that a manual, human-powered wheelchair is not self-propelled, and the trial judge accepted this interpretation. But this interpretation would lead to the absurd result of making the blood-alcohol test law applicable to a driver of a manual wheelchair but not to the driver of a more powerful electric wheelchair.
Item 2 of 4
Continuation of last week's lawnmowing shenanigans:
Sunday: I bring my corded electric lawnmower from home, and rent a gasoline generator from Home Depot. In three hours, I manage to cut the less-overgrown front one-third of the lot. This effort leaves me quite sore (which is why I don't try again until Thursday), and the more-overgrown back two-thirds still remains to be mowed.
Monday: The contractor claims once again that it "is getting someone to get it done".
Thursday (one day before govt.-imposed deadline): The contractor still hasn't cut the grass. I rent the generator again. This time, I've brought from home both a lawnmower and a string trimmer. However, (1) the lawnmower has some internal wiring that I previously fixed come loose in a weird way that I can't correct immediately⁎, and (2) the string trimmer is extremely inefficient, eating up two spools of string in cutting only a small area of grass. At this point, the owner of an adjacent lot (where he is constructing a house much larger than mine) suggests that I pay him 100 dollars to get the grass cut by the Friday deadline. I accept this offer.
Hopefully, at least one of these two contractors will not flake out and leave me on the hook for a 300-$/d govt. fine.
⁎I previously put three wires into a wire nut. But I guess the wire nut was too small or something, because not only did one wire come loose, but the exterior plastic part of the wire nut also detached from the internal metal part. I'll have to cut the wire nut off entirely, re-strip the ends of the wires, and add a new wire nut (or maybe one of those fancy Wago connectors).
Item 3 of 4
A person files for bankruptcy in the Northern District of Iowa. Among his debts is a 190-k$ loan from a bank. The Northern District's nearest courthouse is 10 miles from the debtor's house, 60 miles from the debtor's lawyer, 10 miles from the bank's headquarters, and 160 miles from the bank's lawyer (as measured by me "as the crow flies" in Google Maps; the measurements made by the judge in the opinion linked below are slightly different).
The bank points out that the person actually lives in the Southern District of Iowa, and moves for a change of venue. The Southern District's nearest courthouse is 60 miles from the debtor's house, 70 miles from the debtor's lawyer, 70 miles from the bank's headquarters, and 160 miles from the bank's lawyer.
The bankruptcy judge's "general practice is to retain improperly venued cases absent an objection from an opposing party". He is frustrated by the bank's motion here, since "all factors related to convenience and cost savings for all parties favor venue in this district" (emphasis in original), and "in other cases, like this one, the bank or its attorney appears to simply want to make things harder for the debtor". But the statute gives him no discretion, so he cannot avoid transferring the case to the Southern District.
Item 4 of 4
Absolute saga:
2017-04: Kevin dies intestate. His estate is split evenly between his four children, including Kareem. The estate includes a property on which property taxes of 7 k$ are owed.
2017-06: The municipal govt. sells a "tax-sale certificate" for the property to a company for 25 k$.
2019-10-01: The municipal govt. deems the property abandoned. The notice of abandonment is mailed only to the property itself, even though the govt. literally just said that it is abandoned and no one is living there. No one files a challenge to the decision.
2019-10-14: The company files a foreclosure complaint. Most of the possibly-interested parties are served personally (with letters addressed to them). However, "served" merely by publication (with an advertisement in the newspaper) are Kareem and his mother (not married to Kevin) Shadeerah (who has a child-support judgment against the property).
2020-06: No one redeems the tax-sale certificate for the govt.'s price of 47 k$, so the company successfully forecloses on the property.
2020-08-12: Kareem and Shadeerah move to vacate the foreclosure, arguing that they were not served properly. Shadeerah claims that all four heirs have authorized her to enter into a contract to sell the property for 185 k$, which would be more than enough to satisfy all debts.
2020-08-28: The trial court finds that the company was sufficiently diligent in trying to find addresses for Kareem and Shadeerah before giving up and serving them by publication. In particular, Shadeerah's abrupt move from her previous address just a few days before personal service was attempted, and her failure to leave a forwarding address with the landlord or the post office, thwarted the business's use of three different address-lookup services.
2022: The appeals panel vacates and remands in part. The trial judge failed to make any findings regarding the diligence of the business's search for Kareem, and must do so on remand.
2023: The trial judge finds that the company was sufficiently diligent in trying to find an address for Kareem. At the time, he was in jail, so in theory he should have been easy to find. However, in practice, (1) the aforementioned three address-lookup services showed no criminal activity for him, so the business had no reason to check the electronic court records, and (2) even if they had shown criminal activity, the electronic court records would have revealed only a bunch of people with the same first names and last names but different middle names.
2024: The appeals panel affirms on the topic at hand, but remands so that the trial judge can consider whether, under the federal Supreme Court's new ruling on "equity theft" and new state laws on the same topic, the foreclosure here was excessive.
2025: The trial judge finds that (1) the 2020 foreclosure was an invalid taking of property since it extinguished Kareem's excess equity on the basis of unpaid property tax, and must be vacated, but (2) the 2019 determination of abandonment remains valid, since it was based on the property's need for rehabilitation rather than on Kareem's failure to pay taxes.
2026: The appeals panel vacates and remands, reinstating the 2020 foreclosure. Kareem asked only for the return of his "stolen" excess equity. He didn't ask for the entire foreclosure to be overturned, and his three sibling co-owners definitely didn't ask for it! And the trial judge failed to properly investigate whether the municipal govt.'s determination of abandonment was appropriate in the first place.
So this court case is still going on, nine years after the tax-sale certificate was sold.
I never thought I'd see a 4chan meme show up in a real life court case.
Direct quote:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link