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PaperclipPerfector
14hr ago
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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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Notes -
Item 1 of 6
I ran two searches on GovInfo, one for "engineer" and one for "architect"—and, hilariously, for each of those searches the first interesting opinion revolved around a stingy insurance company.
A real-estate company buys one of the three lots that constitute a shopping center. A different company owns the other two lots. The shopping center's parking is split between the first company's lot and the second company's lots. The first company tries to exert unilateral control over parking in its lot, and the second company sues. The state trial court rules that the second company has an easement over the first company's lot. The state appeals panel finds only an implicit license, not an explicit easement. (The state appeals panel's opinion is a bit too complicated for me to summarize, but it does have helpful diagrams of the three lots.)
The real-estate company demands that its title-insurance company reimburse it for the lost value of what it purchased, up to the policy limit of 1.2 M$. However, the insurance company claims that the lost value is only 33 k$. The real-estate company sues.
The real-estate company's expert claims that the lost value is 1.1 M$: without the parking encumbrance it was worth 2.5 M$ as the potential site of a mixed-use commercial and residential redevelopment, but with the parking encumbrance it cannot be redeveloped in that manner and therefore is worth only 1.4 M$ in its current commercial form. The insurance company's expert claims that the difference in value between a shopping center with an exclusive parking lot and a shopping center with a shared parking lot is only 33 k$. The jury agrees with the real-estate company's expert. The appeals panel affirms, finding little merit in the insurance company's arguments.
Item 2 of 6
In May 2023, four condominium units are rendered uninhabitable by a fire. The condo company calls on its insurer for coverage. By July, the condo company and the insurance company agree that complete demolition and replacement are necessary.
In August 2023, there arises a dispute regarding whether the concrete slab needs to be included in the demolition and replacement. The insurance company's engineer prepares a report stating that concrete exposed to extremely high temperatures turns pink, indicating chemical changes that make it unsuitable for further structural use. The report includes two photographs (reproduced in the judge's opinion) that clearly show pink concrete in the slab. However, the engineer concludes that the slab need not be replaced! The condo company disagrees with this assessment.
In January 2024, the condo company's engineer conducts a core test on the slab. The test indicates that the slab does not have sufficient strength to support a replacement structure. In July 2024, the insurance company's engineer finally makes a second visit to the site and changes his opinion, and the insurance company increases its replacement-cost estimate from 0.96 M$ to 1.05 M$.
In December 2024, the condo company sues the insurance company for bad-faith conduct that delayed construction and thereby inconvenienced the displaced inhabitants. In January 2026, the insurance company moves for summary judgment to dismiss the condo company's claims, but in September the trial judge refuses to grant it: there is enough evidence for a jury to conclude that the insurance company was unreasonable in (1) blindly relying on its engineer's obviously internally inconsistent report and (2) not sending its engineer out for a second inspection until six months after the condo company's core test brought his report into even greater question.
The trial was scheduled for next week, but the parties settled instead. Presumably, the insurance company folded.
Item 3 of 6
On the topic of structure fires comes a report hopefully funny enough to transcend its culture-war background: In designing the White House's new ballroom, President Trump has been ignoring… the building code!!! 😱😱😱 In response to the architect's complaints, he literally said: "I am the code." 😡😡😡
"Banquet halls" are explicitly included in IBC (International Building Code) occupancy A-2. ("Dance halls" are in occupancy A-3, but only if they do not accommodate consumption of food or drink.) For egress calculations, the number of people in an assembly-oriented space is assumed to be as high as one person per 5 ft2 (if they're all standing rather than sitting).
Item 4 of 6
A rural municipality has an I (Industrial) zone with the stated purpose of accommodating "light industrial" uses and an MI (Mineral Industrial) zone with the stated purpose of accommodating "heavy industrial" uses, where "light industrial" excludes "basic industrial processing" and "heavy industrial" includes asphalt plants. However, the table of permitted uses contradicts these statements of purpose: it says that asphalt plants are permitted in the I zone by special exception and are not permitted in the MI zone at all.
A company files an application to build an asphalt plant in the MI zone. The zoning official denies the application. The company appeals, pointing out that the contradiction in the zoning code makes it unconstitutionally vague. The municipal council and the trial judge reject this argument, but the appeals panel reverses. (One of the three appeals judges dissents: he thinks that the general statements of purpose are merely "aspirational", rather than legally binding, and the specific table of uses controls.)
Item 5 of 6
A 911 call is made regarding a robbery perpetrated at gunpoint by three juvenile males in black clothing. One mile away from the location of the reported robbery, the responding officers find two juvenile males—one in all black, and another, KC, wearing a black shirt and mask and gray pants. The officers pull over alongside the juveniles and start walking toward them while shining a flashlight at them. KC starts walking away. An officer steps in front of KC, blocking his path, and asks him what's in his waistband. KC discards the object in his waistband (a gun) and runs away, but is quickly apprehended. He is charged with various delinquencies.
The trial judge grants KC's motion to suppress the evidence. The officers fully detained him, rather than casually speaking with him, when they shined a flashlight on him and blocked his path; and they did not have reasonable suspicion to detain him, since the description given in the 911 call was vague and KC didn't even match it. (The caller didn't even provide a direction in which the assailants fled. Did the officers have the power to detain all juvenile males wearing a single article of black clothing within a one-mile radius of the robbery? No.) The appeals panel affirms.
Item 6 of 6
Another borderline culture-war item (though it definitely made me laugh when I came up with it):
Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny man visits a random restaurant to eat dinner alone. His waitress is a young, skinny woman. At first, the man considers asking the woman for a date. But then he realizes that she probably gets harassed constantly by customers and is not interested, so he refrains from asking.
[LLM writes story]
Write an opinion article criticizing the previous story for being a psy-op to promote cuckish/unmanly behavior (though maybe not in such harsh words).
See also Eager Readers in Your Area. (I relished converting " — " to "—" and " …" to "…" in my downloaded copy.)
I actually like the idea that Trump became President because he was tired of having to obey the building code even better than the theory that it's because Obama mocked him at a dinner!
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