Above, you’ll find the cover of Star Trek #11, published not so long ago in 1990. As you can see, the story continues the story entitled “The Trial of James T. Kirk” which, we assume, was an eventful proceeding. To be honest, we’re not entirely certain what is occurring on the cover (which depicts what appears to be a futuristic courtroom). We’re particularly confused about the gentleman espousing curious dialogue and wearing what appears to be a 20th century suit. Oh, well. We assume there’s some explanation for all of that, and perhaps some day, we’ll track down this issue and learn for ourselves. But not today, dear readers. Not today.

A former member of Steely Dan has sued, well, Steely Dan, seeking past due royalties.

If you’re into property law, The New York Post had a fascinating piece this week on the tale of a hotel recluse who masterfully negotiated a $17 million buy out to finalize a huge Central Park development.

Philip Bump of The Wire has a fascinating piece on who, legally, owns the rights to the “selfie” photograph taken at The Oscars and heavily promoted by the show’s host, Ellen DeGeneres. You probably saw something about that now famous photograph week (likely because it was impossible to escape in the immediate aftermath of the Oscar broadcast). Bump’s piece is a nice read for law nerds; check it out here.

Whoa! Batman was in Charlotte this week! In fact, the picture depicts the Caped Crusader in a neighborhood very, very near our Charlotte office. Alas, we did not run into Batman that day.

Come on, you know you want to “like” the Abnormal Use Law Blog on Facebook. All you have to do is click here!

Rest in peace, Harold Ramis, the famed comedian, Ghostbuster, and director of Groundhog Day, one of our favorite, favorite films. Above, you’ll find the cover of The Real Ghostbusters #180, published way, way back in the halcyon days of 1991. Pictured prominently on the cover is Dr. Egon Spengler, the character immortalized by Ramis in the film. (Note: The character of Spengler has his own Wikipedia entry, which you can read here.). Like many in our generation, we first encountered Ramis in Ghostbusters, one of the biggest films of 1984. Those were the days. But it was 1993’s Groundhog Day that was his masterpiece. Has any comedy ever captured the existential dilemmas of life so well? We think not.

Friend of the blog and Georgia lawyer Michael Scaljon put it this way:

Whether as a writer, director or actor, Harold Ramis touched many people’s lives with a sense of humor that was both subversive and sweet for over three decades.  There aren’t many comedians, comedic actors or writers with a success rate quite like his.  That’s the most amazing thing, not that he was funny, but that he was really funny for a really long time, and without ego.  His passing sucks.

Indeed. For another good Egon related comic book cover, please see here.

Friend of the blog Jill Wieber Lens, a law professor at Baylor University, has published a new article on products liability issues.  Specifically, the article discusses the post-sale duty to warn and how the version of same that most states have adopted is likely a burden to small businesses.  If you’re interested, please take a look here. You might recall that we have interviewed Professor Lens not once but twice, first here in December 2010 and again here in September 2013.

Don’t forget! You can follow the Abnormal Use law blog on Facebook here and on Twitter here!

Above, you’ll find the cover of Batman Annual #1, published not so long ago in 2012. “Featuring The Torment Of Mr. Freeze!” the cover proclaims, and after last week’s snowpacalypse, we can relate. Sure, our neighbors to the North can chuckle about our inability in the Carolinas to cope with frozen inclement weather. But we’re not used to such things. Cut us some slack!

Our friend Kevin Underhill of the Lowering The Bar blog has been chronicling the tale of Kayla Finley, a South Carolina citizen who was arrested recently for allegedly failing to return her rented copy of Monster in Law to her local video store . The interesting point: The arrest occurred in 2014, the alleged offense occurred nine years before in 2005. (Cue your favorite VHS joke.). Well, Kevin is continuing to chronicle the saga of this ordeal, so please see his posts here, here, and here for more information. And remember, be kind and rewin.

If you practice in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, you might be interested in this bit of news from the local bar:

As of the term beginning March 3, 2014, the weekly clean up calendar for Mecklenburg County District Civil Court 6330 will move from 10:30 am on Mondays to 2 pm on Fridays.  The clean up calendar will be conducted in courtroom 6330 by the Trial Court Administrator’s Office, without a judge presiding.

There’s more news from Charlotte. According to The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte may be getting Google Fiber. Way, way back in March of 2010, we wrote about Greenville, South Carolina’s attempt to woo Google to bring Google Fiber to that city. To revisit that story, and see the amazing photographs of the accompanying publicity stunt, please see here and here.

We must confess that we have been negligent of late in failing to link the Drug and Device Law blog’s Steve McConnell’s wonderful post about The Beatles and the Sixth Circuit. Just go to that post now and enjoy it; it is full of Beatles references and song titles. He even managed to throw “Helter Skelter” in there!

Rest in peace, Devo guitarist Bob Casale.

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, and since we’re such cynical lawyers, we do not have much to offer on such sentimental topics. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, we were once told by someone. Well, the least we can do is present you with the cover of Teen-Age Temptations #5, which features a curious courtroom scene. As a stern judge looks down from the bench, a woman points at a witness and tells the jury: “She’s the one! She led my son to ruin! She’s got a lavish love nest, furs and jewels! That was my lifetime savings!” Well, we certainly understand the woman’s anger, if that is the case, but we can’t understand why she, herself, is addressing the jury. Is this a civil proceeding? It must be, as we doubt she is a prosecutor. Did she bring the case pro se? If so, why is she addressing the jury directly at a point in the the proceedings when a witness is on the stand? Where is the witnesses’s lawyer in all of this? Shouldn’t that lawyer be objecting?

As you might have heard, we here at Abnormal Use – as denizens of the East Coast – have suffered through a bit of a weather problem this week. There was snow everywhere! However, we are happy to report that today all of our offices are once again open. We hope to be posting some snow pictures later.

Way, way back in 1959, Orson Welles starred in the film Compulsion, based on the Leopold and Loe murder trial.  Apparently, the courtroom scene was so powerful that it was released on vinyl – the cover of which you’ll see above. The sleeve proclaims: “Here is the dramatic courtroom scene from COMPULSION where Orson Welles, as Jonathan Will, appeals to the court to spare the lives of two accused teenage murders. The portrayal by Mr. Welles is one of the screen’s greatest moments. The words are those of one of history’s greatest criminal lawyers, Clarence Darrow.” To see the back cover, click here.

Friend of the blog Alberto Bernabe, who himself blogs at the Torts Blog, shares a photograph of a warning sign at a local skating and sled hill.  See it for yourself here.

Survivor, the band, has sued its record company!

Over at CNN, attorney Patrick Krill has an important article worthy of your attention: “Why lawyers are prone to suicide.” According to this piece, Mr. Krill is the director of the Legal Professionals Program at Hazelden Addiction Treatment Center. Please take a moment to read it. We learned about this article when we noticed that he had linked one of our own prior pieces on the subject, that being this 2012 blog post by our own Stuart Mauney.

Rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Well, as you might recall, in last week’s edition of Friday Links, we mentioned that we would be focusing on legal themed album covers for a while, as it’s getting more and more difficult to unearth legally themed comic book covers. (Fear not, dear readers, we’ll return to comic book covers on Fridays in the not too distant future.). Today, we direct you to the cover of the single of “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” by Atoms for Peace, released not so long ago in 2013. You can’t get more legally themed than that, now can you? Atoms for Peace is a supergroup of sorts featuring Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea. By the way, on this law blog, we’ve apparently mentioned Radiohead not once but six times before: here, here, here, here, here, and here. With us tossing out occasional references to such hip music, our indie street cred is surely preserved and you are estopped to argue otherwise, dear readers.

You may have heard that Quentin Tarantino’s latest script leaked onto the Internet. The Hollywood Reporter asks: “Does Quentin Tarantino have a Case Against Gawker?” Follow up: Can we still sue him for Four Rooms, or has the statute run?

Thanks again to Tim Pratt for his guest editorial on the proposed revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We published that yesterday, and if you missed, click here. Oh, and you can follow Tim on Twitter here.

We understand that the law of aviation is complicated and full of nuances. We understand that the federal government maintains a compelling interest in ensuring the uniformity of such regulations. We understand that there are legitimate privacy concerns about the use of drones in our airspace. But, even considering all of that, we were crestfallen to read this story: “FAA Stops Beer Drone Delivery.” Come on, FAA!

By the way, the SiouxsieLaw blog offers some initial thoughts on the purported “Cessation of Touring” agreement Motley Crüe is using to promoting its purported “Final Tour.” Says the writer: “While I admire the steps the Crüe have taken to end their band, I don’t exactly get it.  The four of them could just decide to rip up their agreement at any time and start touring again. It’s like four college girls agreeing to go on a diet together and putting it in writing.  You know eventually one of them is going to bring ice cream back to the sorority house.  And then after consuming the ice cream, they will collectively wipe their mouths with their binding agreement.” We’ll be weighing in on that fateful contract some time next week. How could we not?

We’ve commented before how difficult it is to find new legal themed comic book covers week after week after week for our Friday Legals posts. Well, today, we decided to be a bit different and post a legally themed album cover. This is big news. So, above, dear readers, you’ll find the Bobby Fuller Four’s I Fought The Law, released way, way back in 1966. According to the Wikipedia, the album was named for the song of the same name, which has a storied history in American popular culture:

“I Fought the Law” is a song written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and became popularized by a cover by the Bobby Fuller Four, which went on to become a top-ten hit for the band in 1966 and was also recorded by the Clash in 1979. The Bobby Fuller Four version of this song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and the same year was named one of the 500 “Songs that Shaped Rock” by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Our favorite version, of course, is the one by The Clash, but we’ve got to give it to BFF for popularizing the song as they did.

In case you were wondering, “Yes, Emoji Death Threats Are Admissible in Court.” By the way, we here at Abnormal Use are decidedly anti-emoji.

Three years ago this week, on January 25, 2011, we published our Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case FAQ. In it, we attempted to tell the tale of that infamous case using only the original court documents and early 1990’s media coverage. Our original introduction to that piece:

First entering the public consciousness in 1994, the Stella Liebeck trial, known as the McDonald’s hot coffee case, has become such a fixture of litigation lore that many are unaware of the basic facts of the case, or even where and when it was tried. Litigated and reported upon before the rise of the Internet, much of what appears online about the case is the worst sort of unsourced speculation and conjecture. Our friends at Overlawyered have done an excellent job over the years dispelling the various myths about the case, including those that have arisen suggesting that the industry standard was to serve coffee at temperatures lower than that of McDonald’s. In an effort to publish some of the basic facts of the case, we here at Abnormal Use have created the following FAQ file regarding the matter. In so doing, we have relied solely upon the original pleadings and motions in the case and some contemporary news coverage.

So in light of this anniversary, go back and take a look at our first – and only – FAQ.

We would have liked to have observed the Google Glass traffic ticket trial. We suspect there will be similar trials in the future.

Behold, dear readers, the cover of Web of Spider-Man #126, published back in those wonderful days of 1995. The issue is dedicated to “The Trial of Peter Parker,” and of course, we know that Mr. Parker is Spider-Man’s alter ego. So what did he do? We were kinda curious, so we Googled the usual places, and we turned up nothing. However, additional diligence directed us to the SpiderFan website (not a law blog!), which offers this summary of the plot:

Peter was imprisoned awaiting trial for full multiple murders in Utah on the basis of fingerprint evidence. He didn’t do it and his clone Ben Reilly has swapped places with him so Peter can be with his pregnant wife, Mary-Jane. MJ has been told that there could be a problem with the baby she’s carrying due to Peter’s infected blood. Judas Traveller has been revealed as some sort of mysterious, well traveller, who is hundreds of years old and is searching for the true meaning of evil and good. Peter saved his life after he had played with the time continuum. A new Green Goblin has appeared – and seems to be a good guy – and the mysterious character of Kaine is still over-looking the events in Peter’s life. Also, the Jackal has yet another Peter clone.

So there we have it.

How could we ignore an article called “21 Weird Music Lawsuits“?

Whoa! Insane Clown Posse has sued the Justice Department and the F.B.I.! Can you imagine this lawsuit? Here’s more from Kevin Underhill at the very funny and award winning Lowering The Bar law blog.

Um, we think that there may be an occupation missing from this list of most stressful professions. How can lawyers not be included on that list? (Hat Tip: Kim Lawson).

Apparently, we didn’t realize that last month was PACER’s 25th birthday. Let’s all celebrate (if we can remember our PACER passwords).

The South Carolina Supreme Court has expanded its business court program statewide.

“How Gangland’s Sinister Disc Jockey Was Trapped!” proclaims the cover of Mr. District Attorney #2, published way, way back in 1948. Our question: Um, why is the district attorney pursuing disc jockeys? And why does Gangland need one? Is this some kind of payola thing?

The Hollywood Reporter has run a pretty interesting interview with the Motion Picture Association of America’s outside counsel. See here.

Don’t forget! The new Bruce Springsteen album comes out next week! (Hat Tip: Ultimate Classic Rock).

We will miss Phil Everly.

Congratulations to our own Steve Buckingham, who recently became a partner at the firm. He was a blogger at this site for quite some time before retiring almost a year ago to the day. You can revisit his farewell column here.

Well, next month, the North Carolina Bar Association is putting on a CLE entitled “Guns and Roses.” No, it’s not about Axl Rose (although that would present a host of legal issues). For more, see here.

FYI: Last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court published its annual order on Interest Rate on Money Decrees and Judgments. For the full order, please see here.

Headline of the week: “Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson Settle Lawsuit Over Use of ‘A-Team’ Images.” You would think any lawsuit arising from the recent A-Team film would be one challenging its quality. Oh, well.

You’ve probably read – or at least heard of – law student blogs. We here at Abnormal Use peruse them occasionally to remind us of our lost youth. One of our favorites was So The Bear Says, a blog written by a Baylor Law School student back in the day.  In fact, if you revisit that student’s blog, you’ll learn that ten years ago this week he first became a registered law student. We hope someone is reviewing our posts at this site ten years from now.

Welcome to our first edition of Friday Links of 2014. Above, you’ll find the cover of More Fun Comics #17, published way, way back in the 1930’s. Happy New Year!

Three years ago this month, we published our interview with Jeff Richardson, the author of the iPhone J.D. blog. Let nostalgia take the wheels and revisit that post here.

Speaking of anniversaries, it’s now been three years since we here at Abnormal Use received a voicemail message from Wilford Brimley. To learn that fateful story, please click here.

In case you missed it, the North Carolina Court of Appeals cited Nathaniel Hawthorne in a recent commericial litigation case. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter 197 (Bantam Books 1986) (1850). Indeed, the wearing of multiple “faces” may bewilder not only men, but also corporations.

Bank of America, N.A. v. Rice, 750 S.E. 2d 205, 206 (N.C. Ct. App. 2013) (Hat Tip: North Carolina Bar Association Bankruptcy Listserv).

The musician Beck is being sued by an actor from a Quentin Tarantino film! It’s a landlord/tenant case. We tried really, really hard to come up with a “Loser” prevailing party joke, but we just couldn’t do it. Alas.

From Mental Floss: “11 Obscure References in Classic Songs—Explained!” Our favorite: “You’re So Vain.” Yes, of course that would be our favorite.