We here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. celebrate the legacy and leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In honor of this day, our offices are closed today. Let us all revisit his “I Have A Dream” speech on this occasion.  You can find the full text of it here.

What a week. First, we lose David Bowie, and then, Alan Rickman. We here at Abnormal Use are fans of both of those talented artists, and we mourn their loss. A sad week for music and film.

The website Charlotte Beer turned five this week. We congratulate its author, Daniel Hartis, on this occasion. We’ve interviewed Daniel twice, once in 2013, and again in 2014.

No, we have not yet watched “Making A Murderer.”

Our favorite legal tweet of the week involves syrup. Make certain you spell it correctly.

21 USC §343, 333 & 21 CFR §168.180(c)(3) make it a federal crime to sell pancake syrup, unless “syrup” is spelled “syrup” or “sirup”

— A Crime a Day (@CrimeADay) January 9, 2016

As we do, we here at Abnormal Use will be attending the annual DRI Product Liability Conference. This year, it’s in at the Marriott in New Orleans from February 3 through 5. We expect that it will be a quite a program. We’ve not yet decided if we’ll be live tweeting the event, although you can certainly expect a few tweets and updates from our editor, Jim Dedman (who also serves as the chair of the DRI Product Liability Committee’s Newsletter section). If you’d like to join us at the conference, you can find the registration information here. We’ll be posting a bit more about the conference before we make the trek, so look out for future updates here in the coming weeks.

If you’ve been paying attention, South Carolina is experimenting with e-filing in state court. Pilot programs are appearing, and recently, the South Carolina Supreme Court expanded the e-filing pilot program to include Sumter and Lee Counties. In case you missed it, here’s the two paragraph order expanding the pilot program to include those two counties:

IT IS ORDERED that the Pilot Program for the Electronic Filing (E-Filing) of documents in the Court of Common Pleas, which was established in Clarendon County by Order dated December 1, 2015, is expanded to include Sumter County and Lee County, beginning January 19, 2016.  Beginning January 19, 2016, all filings in all common pleas cases commenced or pending in Sumter County and Lee County must be E-Filed if the party is represented by an attorney, unless the type of case or the type of filing is excluded from the Pilot Program.

Attorneys should refer to the South Carolina Electronic Filing Policies and Guidelines, which were adopted by the Supreme Court on October 28, 2015, and the training materials available at http://www.sccourts.org/efiling/ to determine whether any specific filings are exempted from the requirement that they be E-Filed.  Attorneys who have cases pending in Pilot Counties are strongly encouraged to review, and to instruct their staff to review, the training materials available on the E-Filing Portal.

You can read the full order here.

We here at Abnormal Use were saddened this morning to learn of the death of musician David Bowie. Just last week, in our Friday Links posts, we commented upon the release of his new album, Blackstar (which we spent most of the weekend listening to). That Friday, in fact, was Bowie’s birthday.

We encourage everyone to revisit Bowie’s discography this week. We’re going to blast “Heroes,” “Young Americans,” and “Something In The Air.”

Above, you’ll find the cover of Rock N’ Roll Comics #56, published back in the halcyon days of 1993.

So, above, you’ll find the cover of Blade Runner #1, published way, way back in 1982. As you probably know, this issue is an adaptation of the film released that year directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford. Why do we choose that cover today? Well, as you may remember, Ford plays Deckard, whose job as a blade runner is to pursue and kill replicants, cybernetic organisms which look just like adult humans. Rutger Hauer plays Roy Batty, a replicant hunted by Deckard. In the film, released 33 years ago, Batty’s “creation date” was January 8, 2016. That’s today.

Also, in case you weren’t aware, David Bowie released a new album today. It’s eerie.

Is anyone else going to the 6th Annual Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium at Duke Law next week?

Our favorite legal tweet of late concerns, of course, hot coffee warnings:

Getting mixed messages from this cup. If there’s one place you’d think would know better, pic.twitter.com/k6YzNhkbSG

— sigh hersh (@Ugarles) December 26, 2015

As it does each year at about this time, the South Carolina Supreme Court has issued its order on interest rates and judgments. In case you missed it, the complete order is as follows:

S.C. Code Ann. § 34-31-20 (B) (Supp. 2015) provides that the legal rate of interest on money decrees and judgments “is equal to the prime rate as listed in the first edition of the Wall Street Journal published for each calendar year for which the damages are awarded, plus four percentage points, compounded annually. The South Carolina Supreme Court shall issue an order by January 15 of each year confirming the annual prime rate. This section applies to all judgments entered on or after July 1, 2005.  For judgments entered between July 1, 2005, and January 14, 2006, the legal rate of interest shall be the first prime rate as published in the first edition of the Wall Street Journal after January 1, 2005, plus four percentage points.”

The Wall Street Journal for January 2-3, 2016, the first edition after January 1, 2016, listed the prime rate as 3.50%.  Therefore, for the period January 15, 2016, through January 14, 2017, the legal rate of interest for judgments and money decrees is 7.50% compounded annually.

You can find the full order here.

It’s a new year, and everyone is returning their eyes to their litigations. There are mediations to schedule, discovery requests to serve, and of course, depositions to notice.

In light of our return to the profession from the holidays, we here at Abnormal Use feel it is necessary to remind our attorney readers of a critical unwritten rule: Depositions are to be noticed at 10:00 a.m. local time. Of late, we’ve seen a number of our colleagues serve notices setting the deposition to begin at 9:00 a.m. or even earlier. We remain aghast.

As we wrote way, way back in September of 2012:

We, as lawyers, learn many, many rules from many, many texts, including statutes, cases, regulations, and such.  But what allows a practitioner to rise above the rest is his or her knowledge of the unwritten customs of the practice of law.  These practices vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, state to state. The most universal of them all, though, is the old familiar rule:  no depositions should start before 10:00 AM local time. Really, this informal custom is part of the glue that holds our profession together.

Come on, folks. We’re obviously not talking about doctor depositions. But for parties, fact witnesses, and retained testifying experts, let’s make certain we abide by this custom.

Wow. So, today, January 4, 2016, is the sixth anniversary of this blog. Six years ago to the day, we began writing on this site, and we’ve posted a piece each business day since that fateful time. That’s a lot of blog posts. In fact, we’ve now exceeded 1,600 posts, which is certainly many.

Of course, this enterprise would not be possible without the support of Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A., and our writers, who include the indefatigable Nick Farr, the inimitable Kyle White, the tireless Batten Farrar, and, of course, many others. We can’t thank them enough for their contributions to this blog. We’re looking forward to yet another year at Abnormal Use, and as always, if you have any ideas for us, please let us know.

Above, by the way, is the cover of Donald Duck #286, published not so long ago in 1994. Donald appears to be having a stressful birthday.

Here’s Father Time again, this time on the cover of Strange #6, published way, way back in 1958. We’re thinking of Father Time today, the first day of 2016, which we prefer to think of as the 20th anniversary of 1996. We here at the Abnormal Use law blog and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you a happy new year. To our lawyer readers, we say, try not to bill any time today! Spend it with your family and friends!