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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   999 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 2, 2024

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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Very funny court opinion:

  • A telecom company wants to build a 150-foot cellular tower in a municipality of 6,500 people. Three of its permit applications to build a cell tower on govt. land have already been rejected, so now it's trying to build on privately-owned land—in a commercial zone, but adjacent to a residential zone.

  • February 2018: The municipal govt. rejects the application because of the negative impact on the value of nearby residential properties.

  • August 2019: A judge vacates and remands because the govt. did not properly assess the factors underlying its decision.

  • November 2019: The govt.'s expert says that the cell tower would cause the value of nearby residential property to fall by 10 to 20 percent. The govt. accepts this testimony, and on that basis rejects the application.

  • February 2021: The judge vacates and remands because the govt.'s expert did not base his estimate of 10 to 20 percent on any actual data.

  • Unspecified date: The telecom company's expert testifies that, though it's anecdotally true that higher-end house buyers are "more discerning" and less likely to buy houses near cell towers, the data show that any drop in house prices near the cell tower would be less than one percent. The govt. rejects the expert's evidence-based testimony because the dataset is not representative of the site in question, but accepts his non-evidence-based anecdote about higher-end buyers, and on that basis denies the application.

  • June 2022: The judge reverses the govt.'s decision and approves the application outright, with no remand. The govt.'s treatment of the testimony of the plaintiff's expert was arbitrary and capricious.

  • February 2024: The appeals panel affirms the trial judge's decision in all respects.

Six years later, maybe the cellular tower can finally be built!

Court opinions (and arguments) are an underrated source of entertainment. One side is by definition always wrong, and you can hire a fancypants lawyer to argue almost anything. Hilarity ensues.

I know the Supreme Court has lots of available resources. Do you know any other courts that have easily available (searchable) opinions?

GovInfo offers full-text searches of opinions from federal appeals, district, and bankruptcy courts.

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