Often at issue in products liability litigation is whether a manufacturer adequately warned consumers of the potential dangers of its product. Product warnings can be pictorial, but typically, they take the form of written statements printed on the product’s packaging or within its instruction manuals.  Often, these printed warnings are written only in English.  But as our country becomes more culturally diverse, questions arise as to whether English-only warnings are adequate.  Recently, in Farias v. Mr. Heater, Inc., No. 11-10405, 2011 WL 2354369 (11th Cir. June 21, 2012), the Eleventh Circuit touched on that very issue – somewhat. (Back in January 2011, we covered the lower court’s opinion.)

In Farias, the plaintiff purchased two propane infra-red portable heaters manufactured by Mr. Heater, Inc.  One night, the plaintiff went to sleep with the two heaters running inside her home.  Because she neglected to close a valve on one of the propane tanks, her home caught fire, causing $300,000 in damages.  She filed suit against Mr. Heater and the retailer, asserting claims of strict products liability and negligent failure to warn.  The Spanish-speaking plaintiff alleged that the pictorial and English-language warnings were inadequate in alerting her of the dangers of using heaters indoors.  After Mr. Heater was awarded summary judgment on each of her claims, the plaintiff appealed.

The plaintiff acknowledged that Florida law did not impose an automatic duty to provide bilingual warnings.  However, she alleged that the warnings were inadequate because the pictures and English-text were inherently contradictory, inaccurate and ambiguous.  Further, she argued that English-only warnings were inadequate because Mr. Heater marketed the heaters to Miami’s Hispanic community.

The Eleventh Circuit was unpersuaded by either argument.

The  argued contradiction between the pictorial and English-language warnings is intriguing.  First, it is unclear how pictures and written text can be contradictory when the consumer lacks the ability to read the text.  If the written warnings were inadequate because they were not written in Spanish and, thus, could not be read by the plaintiff, it is illogical to assert that unreadable words contradicted with the pictorial warnings.

Second, the heater’s packaging contained six pictures depicting the appropriate usage of the product.  None of these pictures showed the heaters being used inside a home.  To accompany these pictures, the following warnings were printed on the box:

This heater is recommended for outdoor use only.

Always store propane cylinders outdoors in well-ventilated areas.

Not designed for use in living areas or small tightly enclosed spaces.

Propane heaters should be located outdoors during heater operations.

It is hard to envision any inconsistency between these written warnings and the pictures printed on the box.  However, the fact that the plaintiff was unable to read the English-language warnings leaves open the possibility that the pictures did not foreclose on the idea of using the heaters indoors.  Of course, the plaintiff had already conceded that Florida law does not require bilingual warnings.

As to the plaintiff’s second argument, the Eleventh Circuit found no evidence that Mr. Heater targeted the Hispanic community in its marketing.  As such, the Court did not find that the marketing efforts created a duty to provide bilingual warnings.  It would have been interesting to see how the Court’s analysis would have changed if Mr. Heater did so market the heater.  This may precluded summary judgment.

Unfortunately, due to some well-established Florida law on the subject, the Eleventh Circuit did not provide any thought-provoking jurisprudence on the necessity of bilingual warnings.  We here at Abnormal Use expect that the precedent will be challenged as we move forward.  While we doubt manufacturers will ever be required to print warnings in every language spoken in the United States, it isn’t far-stretched to assume they might be required to address the predominant ones.

Ever wonder how much a 2002 Saturn is worth?  On the private market, Kelley Blue Book values the car at $2,800 when moderately equipped.  Well, in the eyes of Ohio woman, Michelle Mathis, that price is a little low – about $500 billion low.

According to a report from the Huffington Post, Mathis has sued the Columbus (OH) Department of Public Safety’s Impound Unit when her car was allegedly improperly impounded.  In January, Mathis was hospitalized for an extended period of time after a motor vehicle accident.  While in the hospital, her car was towed.  After being discharged from the hospital, she went to the Impound Unit to reclaim her vehicle.  When officials allegedly denied her request for information, Mathis came to believe that the Impound Unit disposed of her car because they didn’t like her.  In response, she filed suit against the Impound Unit in an Ohio federal court.  In the suit, she brought claims under the Fourth Amendment for improper search and seizure; under the  Fourteenth Amendment for violation of the Equal Protection Clause; and under the Ninth Amendment for violation of her inalienable rights.  Mathis has demanded $500 billion in compensatory damages and a mere $20 billion in punitives.  Recently, Federal Magistrate Elizabeth Preston Deavers recommended Mathis’ federal causes of action be dismissed.

So how did Mathis come up with such an outrageous number for the alleged loss of her car?  According to the magistrate’s report, Mathis alleges that musicians Jay-Z and P. Diddy were involved in the seizure of her vehicle.  In recommending that the case be dismissed, the magistrate obviously did not realize that 2002 Saturns are a hot commodity among famous rappers these days.  Even so, it seems like if she wanted to go after that much money, she would at least sue the parties with the deeper pockets, not just a governmental entity.

We here at Abnormal Use are hesitant to call any lawsuit “frivolous” without knowing all the facts.  However, this suit was likely doomed from the start with such a bold demand.  If plaintiff would have stuck with a conversion claim and made a reasonable demand this claim likely would remain on the docket and out of the press.  But no, that would have been too easy.

Today, Abnormal Use continues its series, “Abnormal Interviews,” in which this site will conduct interviews with law professors, practitioners and makers of legal themed popular culture. For the latest installment, we turn to Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which bills itself as “a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and readers.” In so doing, it “provides legal referrals, representation, advice, assistance, and education in furtherance of these goals.”  Sounds like the perfect candidate for an interview by comic-loving legal bloggers, right? Brownstein was kind enough to submit to a brief interview about the Fund and, of course, legal comics. So, without further ado, the interview is as follows:

Nick Farr: Can you begin by telling our readers a little bit about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund?

Charles Brownstein: Sure. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was established in 1986 to protect the First Amendment rights of the comic book art forum.  Ever since then, we’ve participated in dozens of cases providing legal support and paying for legal bills pertaining to cases involving retailers, artists and increasingly readers who are being criminally prosecuted in connection with exercising their First Amendment rights.

NF:  How does the Fund decide what cases to take?

CB:  The way our case selection process works is that people come to us with an aid need, and we present that need to our Board of Directors, who then will vote on the case, whether we can take it or not. The guiding principle is always whether the material – whether the case at issue is a First Amendment-based case where the comic is either being prosecuted as a result of sale or prosecuted as a result of being read or created are protected and that this is a case where the First Amendment is being violated.

NF: What percentage of the cases are criminal versus civil?

CB:  I don’t have an exact percent breakdown, but the majority of our work is criminal oriented.  We have done some civil defense from time to time in incidents where an artist might be civilly prosecuted by an organization that is alleging that their parody work is infringement or dilution of their rights, but those cases are fairly rare.  The majority of the work that we get and the majority of the work that’s coming in frankly tends to be criminal in nature.

NF:  Can you tell us about some of the successes of the Fund?

CB:  Absolutely.  Most recently, the Fund was leading a coalition to defend an American citizen who was being unlawfully prosecuted in Canada. When I say unlawfully, there were excesses in the arrest, and he was being prosecuted under the allegation of possession of obscene child pornography for possession of constitutionally protected comics.  And thanks to our efforts in developing a very strong defense, Canada dropped the charges against this American citizen.  That case is R. v. Matheson.  The defendant, Mr. Ryan Matheson, is a comic reader from Minnesota. This is part of a growing generation of cases involving governments in Canada and the United States prosecuting individuals for the contents of the comics that they’re reading. As we speak, there’s a case that is pending here in the states that I can’t really speak in detail about involving an American citizen prosecuted by our law enforcement here.  So that is a very concerning area because we’re seeing these laws that are designed to protect real people being misapplied to the consumers of constitutionally protected art work.  Other successes of the Fund we’ve managed over our history are a variety of cases where we’ve successfully defended retailers who were being prosecuted by local law enforcement for selling constitutionally protected material and the most recent of those is Georgia v. Gordon Lee, which was a case in Rome, Georgia, where a retailer was wrongly prosecuted for allegedly distributing harmful materials to minors.  It took three years and several shenanigans on behalf of the prosecutor where they threw out the facts and then refilled the facts and changed their story several times, but at the end of it we were able to successfully defend Mr. Lee who had not performed the crime that they accused him of. Most importantly, we were able to make sure that constitutionally protected material didn’t suffer a setback in court.

NF:  What are some of the most egregious cases that you’ve seen through the years?

CB:  Probably the – the most disconcerting case is one that happened pretty early in the Fund’s development which was Florida v. Mike Diana.  This is a case involving a comic book artist in Florida who was ultimately prohibited from drawing in his own home.  Mike Diana was a cartoonist that was creating comics for distribution through local stores and through the mail back in the time when there were networks of underground trading going on. He was first pulled aside by local law enforcement that found his physical description matched a suspect they were looking for in a murder investigation. When they realized that he was not the person they were looking for but had looked through his comics and were disturbed by them, they created a sting operation where one of the police officers engaged in a correspondence with Mike and ultimately purchased his comics through the mail.  In doing so, that gave them the warrant to arrest him and he was prosecuted for creation and distribution of obscene material.  Now, Mike’s comics are from a tradition of underground comics that were speaking of – speaking satirically in a kind of outsider art visual idiom about some of the more egregious social issues of the day.  So his comics were black satire about religion and about sexual abuse and about many of the evils that were plaguing society, and he was applying an underground cartoonist editorial point of view to it. Unfortunately, in his case being brought before a jury in Florida, the jury just did not find that there was artistic merit and Mike was ultimately convicted. Despite the efforts of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the efforts of the ACLU on the appeal, that conviction was upheld.  And so, yes, most egregiously an American citizen was told that they were unable to draw in their own home.

NF:  Once you get word of a case, do you work with local counsel or does the Fund handle the representation?

CB:   The CBLDF has – our outside general counsel is Bob Corn Revere of Davis, Wright, Tremaine who’s an extremely experienced First Amendment litigator and who manages the case work that comes in.  By that we mean that Bob will identify the case, make recommendations for the Board and then if we take the case, we’ll locate local counsel that is best equipped to wage the case.  And then we work in a very hands-on capacity with that counsel, supervising how the work’s being done and providing them with access to our network of experts to manage the case.

NF:  At Abnormal Use, we write a good deal about the depictions of lawyers and the legal system in comics.  Do you have a personal favorite depiction of lawyers or the legal system in a comic?

CB:   It’ll take a minute to think about.  I hadn’t anticipated that. Batton Lash at Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre is always an amusing look at lawyers and an amusing look at a variety of classic comics genres. I think that’s supernaturallaw.com is his website.  And it’s hard to argue with Matt Murdock, right?

NF:   Do you have any opinions on the most egregious depiction of lawyers in comics?

CB:   You know, lawyers are kinda set dressing in comics.  There really has never been a good literary or thriller depiction of lawyers or law, really.  We’re really good at depicting fantasies about law enforcement, but we’re not so good about the other side of the law.

NF:  In closing, is there anything in particular that you’d want our readers to know about the Fund that they would not have known beforehand?

CB:  I think – right now we’re in the middle of an extremely disconcerting trend where readers are finding themselves vulnerable to prosecution for the contents of the art that they read. As we move into a more robust visual communications environment, this problem becomes much more serious. So the Fund is actively working to participate with folks in doing local CLE sorts of seminars where we talk about the history of our casework, and we talk about the current realm of cases.  Because we feel that it’s extremely important that more individuals know their rights and it’s extremely important that more folks in the legal system or in the legal community are connected with this area of casework that’s emerging.  So I strongly encourage the readers if they’re interested in helping us spread the word about these generations of cases and helping us spread the word about getting these rights into the readership community to please contact us at info@cbldf.org because that’s an increasingly important area. Ultimately, nobody should ever go to jail for reading comic books, making comic books, or selling comic books, and as the fight changes, so do we to stay on top of everything.

BIOGRAPHY: Charles Brownstein is the Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Prior to working with the Fund, he served as Programming Director for Comic-Con International in 1998 and 1999, where he developed and managed the panels and special events for Comic-Con. Brownstein is also the publisher of the award-winning interview book Eisner/Miller, and the Eisner and Harvey nominated monograph The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen. You follow Brownstein on Twitter here.

Generally, manufacturers have a duty to warn users about non-obvious, known dangers.  But, what steps must a manufacturer take to discover potential hazards?  The legal standard is for manufacturers to warn of dangers that could have reasonably been discovered.  Obviously, this alleviates the duty to discover a soothsayer in a distant land prophesying about the inherent dangers of a product.  But, what about sources that are more apparent, like medical journals?  Recently, the Sixth Circuit tackled this very issue. In Rodriguez v. Stryker Corp., No. 11-5335 (6th Cir. May 21, 2012), the Sixth Circuit held that a pain pump manufacturer did not have a duty to warn of a danger based on 13 articles published at various times in the 70 years before the pump was used.  In 2008, the plaintiff discovered that he had developed chondrolysis, a condition which left him with no cartilage in his shoulder.  According to the plaintiff, he developed the condition after using a pain-pump manufactured by Stryker Corporation to infuse his shoulder with an anesthetic known as bupivicaine for two-days following a 2004 surgery.

How could the plaintiff make such a claim?  Digging up articles from 1933 medical journals, that’s how.

The plaintiff did not claim Styker had actual knowledge in 2004 that the pump could cause chondrolysis.  After all, the first reported case of chondrolysis linked to anesthetics didn’t pop up until 2005.  Rather, the plaintiff alleged that Stryker should have known of the dangers based on 13 articles that “document [ ] significant damage to articular cartilage after prolonged exposure to foreign solutions.”

As the Court noted, the plaintiff’s argument is a stretch given what the articles say.

For example, the plaintiff produced one article from 1933 that shows injecting rabbits with water and saline solutions over a period of weeks produces chronic arthritis.  Four other articles are used to link chondrolysis to dyes and antiseptics – not anesthetics.  Three articles discuss the use of bupivicaine within a joint, but none of which say bupivicaine is unsafe.  One article from 2004 did describe a patient who developed chondrolysis after using a pain pump with bupivicaine, but that article offered no conclusions linking chondrolysis to pain pumps.  When looking at the articles in total, the Court stated:

[N]ot one of Rodriguez’s thirteen articles shows that medical experts understood in 2004 that infusing a joint with bupivicaine for two days could cause irreversible cartilage damage.  Stryker had no duty to understand what the relevant medical literature did not.

We here at Abnormal Use must applaud the Sixth Circuit for its holding.  To be clear, the holding does not imply that manufacturers have no duty to discover relevant medical literature.  Rather, they do not have a duty to piece together articles over several decades to make medical conclusions that the literature has not made.  Medical literature has plenty of value and should be reviewed.  The most-respected researchers in any field are cautious about drawing conclusions. Why should we impose a duty on manufacturers to jump to conclusions the researchers haven’t made?  Manufacturers should not be expected to have a heightened level of understanding beyond that of the medical research. A manufacturer’s duty to warn is limited to risks that are known – by somebody.  As long as that somebody isn’t the mountaintop oracle of a foreign land.

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use love to write about the intermingling of music and the law.  Well, some of us, anyway.  Aside from our interview with singer-songwriter Chuck Brodsky and a satirical review of a legal themed concept album, you won’t catch me writing anything music related.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy music.  I do.  I just fail to see the excitement of legal references in popular music.

While traveling to a deposition recently,  the song “Cocaine Blues” (written by others but performed and made famous by Johnny Cash) came on the radio, and I realized right then why writing about legal music is not my forte.  The writers of pop music butcher our legal system worse than television’s David E. Kelley.  “Cocaine Blues” is about a man who becomes high on cocaine and shoots his wife after discovering she had committed adultery.  This is not unusual subject matter for an outlaw country song.  Where the song falters legally, however, is the song’s portrayal of the repercussions of the man’s illegal actions.

The morning after committing the crime, the man flees to Mexico.  Shortly after his arrival, he is apprehended by his hometown sheriff. He then freely confesses to his crime.  Thereafter, the man is immediately transported back to the United States.  Because the song was written by Red Arnall in 1947, it would be another 20 years before Miranda rights became an issue.  But, how does a sheriff from Jericho Hill so easily avoid any extradition procedures?  I doubt the Mexican government had an open door policy for small town American police departments.

For the sake of musicality, I can forgive the logistical problems of the man’s extradition.  What happens next, however, is indefensible.  The following morning, a mere three days after the crime, the man is up for trial!  Criminal defendants are entitled to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment, but even our founding fathers are asking for a reprieve with this one.  No indictment?  No discovery?  Don’t expect the prosecutor to be trying this one on the merits.  Whatever the case presented, the jury was convinced.  After a five minute deliberation, the jury found the man guilty of first degree murder.

The verdict itself is a bit of a misnomer.  The lyrics do not give us any evidence of the premeditation necessary for first degree murder.  I am sure the man’s lawyer – if he even had one – attempted to portray the murder as a crime of passion.  His wife was cheating on him with five guys after all.  We just do not know if he caught her in the act.  Simply put, the song lacks too many details to make an appropriate legal analysis.

It is difficult for any songwriter to cram enough detail into a three minute song to satisfy a lawyer.  I can’t appreciate the lyrics and the melody if I have to check a hornbook to validate the song’s accuracy.  With that said, Johnny Cash remains one of my favorites.  He was arrested and detained enough times to have some credibility when singing about prisons.  Just don’t expect to see me writing about it – again.

For many of us, an engagement ring is one of the first major purchases of our lives.    In 2011, the average engagement ring costs $5,392.  The common norm suggests spending three months salary on a ring.  Ouch.  The price is small when compared to the benefit of sharing your life with another, we suppose.  But what happens to the ring if the marriage ends in divorce?  Or, even worse, if the wedding never takes place?  The ring-purchaser can certainly think of a few other bills to pay with three months salary.

Recently, in Campbell v. Robinson, No. 4969 (S.C. Ct. App. May 9, 2011), the South Carolina Court of Appeals offered its thoughts on the age old former-relationship property dispute.  After their engagement was cancelled, Campbell sued his ex-fiance, Robinson, seeking a declaration that he owned an engagement ring he presented to her during the proposal.  In addition, he sought restitution for the benefit Robinson received while possessing the ring.  Robinson counterclaimed for breach of the promise to marry and sought recovery of her prenuptial expenditures.  We suspect there may have been some awkward depositions during this case. The trial court charged the jury that Campbell would receive the ring if Robinson was at-fault for ending the engagement and vice versa.  The jury found for Campbell on Robinson’s breach of the promise to marry claim.  However, the jury determined that Campbell was at-fault for ending the engagement and, thus, was not entitled to recover the ring.  On appeal, the Court of Appeals held that fault has no bearing in determining ownership of an engagement ring.  Rather, an engagement ring is conditioned on the marriage taking place.

Guess what? I myself had the pleasure of watching the trial of this case when I was in law school.  To sum it up nicely, the trial was equal parts property law lecture and soap opera.  Because this was a case of first impression in South Carolina, the arguments regarding the law took much longer than the trial itself.  Even as a law student, I can remember questioning the imposition of “fault” into basic gift law.  For starters, what does “fault” even mean in this context? Is the at-fault party the one whose conduct led to the demise of the relationship?  Or is the at-fault party the one who actually calls off the engagement?  The jury was never given any guidance.   You can imagine the helter skelter craziness that must have transpired in the deliberation room.

Once fault became an element, the trial became suitable for television.  With countless “he said, she said” arguments, the jury becomes the arbiter for choosing sides in a break-up – not resolving a property dispute.  Decisions like these are best left for Judge Judy.

At the end of the day, the Court of Appeals got this one right.  For now, the easiest way to resolve these disputes is by treating the ring as a conditional gift and applying gift law principles.  But in the future, these disputes could be easily eliminated if we required reciprocal gifts at the time of the engagement.  Who would sue for the return of a ring if it meant giving up your new set of golf clubs?  Not me.

On this Memorial Day, we here at Abnormal Use would like to reflect on the American men and women who sacrificed their lives in fighting for our country.  We will forever be indebted to these courageous soldiers for their service.  In their honor, we give you the cover of War Heroes # 5, published way back in 1943.  As you can see, this issue honors one of America’s most infamous war heroes, Major General George S. Patton, Jr., otherwise known as “Old Blood and Guts.”  Little did this comic know, Patton was just beginning to leave his mark on American history.  Following this publication, he was a part of several pivotal moments in World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and crossing the Rhine in 1945.  While Patton did not die in combat, he passed away in Germany as a result of injuries he sustained in a car accident just months after the end of the war.  Today, we salute you, General Patton, and all those who have served our country, before and after.

And, of course, you should revisit our Memorial Day posts from years past – one, featuring another comic book cover, and another, featuring a history of this national holiday.

With summer on the horizon, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a warning to users of portable pools.  According to the report, an average of 35 children under the age of 5 die annually in portable pools, accounting for 11 percent of all pool drownings.  Considering these statistics, the CPSC obviously has valid reasons for concern.  However, in our usual irreverent way, we here at Abnormal Use must question the sufficiency of the CPSC’s tips for the prevention of such accidents.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the CPSC’s tips.  Rather, the advice is more akin to a helpful reminder that breathing is essential to sustain life.  Take this tip for example:

Teach children to swim, float and other-life saving basics.  But do NOT consider young children “drown-proof” because they have had swimming lessons.

No doubt, the ability to swim is a great way to lessen one’s chances of drowning.  We understand that not all parents are ideal, but do people really consider children taking swim lessons as “drown-proof”?  After all, they are called swimming lessons – not Olympic training.  Maybe the better tip would be:

Even children capable of swimming are susceptible to drowning.  When children are playing in pools, always assume that accidents are possible.

Our personal favorite tip is one with a great deal of merit.  It is perfectly logical.  Yet, something about it seems a bit misplaced.

If you can’t fence the pool, use smaller, easier to store portable pools.  Then, empty the water ANY time you are not supervising the pool and turn it upside down or store it away.

Again, it’s good advice.  If a small pool is capable of being drained after each use, it makes sense to do so and take away the hazard.  But is this really the solution?  Reading between the lines, we know what the CPSC really meant to say:

If you choose to purchase an unsightly above-ground pool, fence it in.  If fencing is not an option, save yourself the embarrassment of having others know you purchased an above-ground pool by seeking other options.  Small plastic pools are socially acceptable for young children.  There is no shame in having your children observed temporarily playing in such pools.  But please, empty the water and remove the pools from your yard when not in use.  Teach children to clean up their toys.

Even if fencing is an option, understanding why anyone elects to purchase a large, above-ground pool is beyond our pay-grade.  If the CPSC was forthright, they would have taken inspiration from the late Mitch Hedberg:

Do not be persuaded through television advertising to purchase an above-ground pool.  Those commercials are only 30-seconds long because that is the maximum amount of time you can depict yourself having fun in an above-ground pool.  To prevent accidents and overall boredom, please seek out safer, more entertaining alternatives.

With that said, we do applaud the CPSC’s efforts.  Pools do present a risk of drowning.  With an appropriate level of care, many of these accidents can be prevented.  If you do have a pool in your yard – of any type – we refer you to the most important rule formulated by the Commission:

NEVER leave a child unsupervised near any pool or spa.

Friday night at 10/9 Central, the USA Network premieres its new drama, “Common Law.”  Despite the name, the show has nothing to do with judicial precedent.  Rather, “Common Law” centers around the comically dysfunctional partnership of LAPD detectives Travis Marks (Michael Ealy) and Wes Mitchell (Warren Kole).  We here at Abnormal Use obtained an advance screener of tomorrow night’s pilot episode.  Written by husband and wife screenwriting team Cormac and Marianne Wibberly, the pilot is widely-entertaining and makes a great introduction to the new series.

With only a few minor, minor spoilers, the basic premise is as follows:  Marks is the product of 18 different foster homes.  Mitchell is a former partner in a law firm.  Together, they are now the top detectives in the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division.  Sounds like a match made in heaven, right?  Unfortunately, their relationship is problematic at best, even leading to physical combat at times.  In order to maintain their professional partnership, the two are forced into couples therapy by their police captain (Jack McGee). Despite the hostility, the duo is able to effectively solve crimes and save the day.  We were a little skeptical when we learned of the show’s therapy gimmick.  From its outset, however, “Common Law” adds some zing to the tired police procedural television marketplace.

Despite the unbelievable premises, the leads, Ealy and Kole, make it work seamlessly.  The pilot’s opening scene finds the duo bickering in a couples therapy class.  Like a well-seasoned married couple,the pair is obviously better together than apart.  With each zinger, the two actors play off of each other and actually advance the plot line while doing so.  Indeed, the show does not feel bogged down by its clever banter, which is to the credit of both the writers and the actors.

Standing alone, the odd-couple relationship of Marks and Mitchell probably wouldn’t be enough to warrant a second season.  Couple that relationship with an intriguing criminal investigation, however, and you have the makings of a potentially great series.  The pilot is a microcosm of this point.  In it, the partners investigate the murder of the son of a federal judge. Sound familiar?  It has been the plot line of “Law and Order” at least a dozen times.  Unlike “Law and Order,” however, “Common Law” tells the story from the standpoint of two dysfunctional detectives trying to get out of the doghouse of a district attorney for getting into a heated argument among themselves during an earlier trial.  Surprisingly, this new spin on the crime dramedy works, at least in the pilot.

We have written several mildly favorable reviews of USA legal dramas in the past (“Suits,” “Fairly Legal”).  We couldn’t give our complete blessing to those shows, however, because their legal inaccuracies were irksome to attorneys.  While  “Common Law” may share those flaws, our criminal background is limited, to say the least.  As such, when watching this show, we aren’t burdened by the potential for misrepresentation of our profession.  Sure, we know most detectives don’t fire their guns during an informal witness interview.  But we can leave that critique for those involved in criminal justice.

Our only criticism of the show has nothing to do with the plot or the acting.  While we found the writing superb, we did take exception to one line.  When speaking of his former legal career, Mitchell stated, “People need a good cop more than they need a good lawyer.”  Ouch.  And here we were thinking we worked in the noblest of professions.

To maintain the good will, we will just assume Mitchell’s assertion was limited to criminal lawyers, not civil litigators.

For viewers looking for a new take on the crime genre, “Common Law” offers a great blend of comedy and suspense.  At a time when most of our television “stars” are of the reality TV variety, the acting of Ealy and Kole is a breath of fresh air.  Don’t expect “Common Law” to sweep the awards shows this year, but expect an entertaining episode each week, and that’s good enough for us.

Recently, the Associated Press reported that a New Zealand woman died as a result of a Coke habit. Hearing reports of someone dying because of coke is nothing new, but this time we aren’t talking about the powdery white stuff.  Rather, this time a woman has died after regularly consuming 2 gallons of Coca-Cola per day.

After the 30-year old mother of eight died of a heart attack in February 2010, an inquest was held to investigate the unusual death. According to the AP, pathologist Dr. Dan Mornin testified that Harris most likely suffered from hypokalemia caused by the excessive consumption of Coke (between 2.1 and 2.6 gallons daily) and overall poor nutrition.  Further, Dr. Mornin indicated that toxic levels of caffeine may have contributed to her death.  That, and the fact that she ate little and smoked 30 cigarettes per day.

While we have never thought of soda as necessarily healthy, we have also never considered it a killer. Even though this incident has earned our (and certainly the Coca-Cola Company’s) attention, we don’t expect Coca-Cola do be worried about any potential litigation. First, there are clearly factors other than mere ingestion of Coke at play here. Harris’ consumption was far beyond the realm of reasonable use. As Coca-Cola Oceania was quick to point out, even water can be dangerous in excessive amounts. Couple her excessive consumption with her poor appetite and pack-and-a-half per day smoking habit, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Second, the risk of heart attack after drinking two gallons of Coke daily is not a risk of which Coca-Cola has a duty to warn. The hazards of caffeine are well-documented. Therefore, it should go without saying that the risks of drinking a soda swimming pool should be open and obvious.

This incident is not about Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or any other soda manufacturer. This is about over-consumption and an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle. Even the fast food litigation has more merit than dragging a soda manufacturer into court after super-saturating oneself with the product.