“When the Master Jailer imprisons someone, it’s a life sentence,” proclaims a villain, presumably the Master Jailer himself, on the cover of Superman Family #219, published way back in 1982.  But hasn’t the Master Jailer heard of the federal sentencing guidelines? He can’t just sentence someone to life! There’s a complicated scheme by which he must evaluate aggravating and mitigating circumstances before imposing a sentence! (Obviously, the federal guidelines apply because he appears to be in a federally insured bank!)  But the real victim here is Supergirl, who is imprisoned because of the Master Jailer’s apparent abuse of discretion! 

Apparently, there’s a band in Georgia called The District Attorneys.  The Dead Journalist blog reviewed the band’s new EP, Waiting on the Calm Down: The Basement Sessions, here.  We think they should tour with the Pennsylvania band, The Lawsuits, who we interviewed earlier this year here.

Our editor, Jim Dedman, finds himself in Cary, North Carolina today for the North Carolina Bar Association Law Practice Management annual convention (where there is sure to be much discussion of social media, legal technology, and other fun topics).  If you’re there, say hello!

McDonald’s is back in the news this week with yet another hot coffee lawsuit. (Don’t worry, dear readers, we’re not going to do another full post on a hot coffee case for a while, but we did think it merited a brief mention here in this edition of Friday Links).  According to this report from the Law360 blog, an Illinois woman sued the fast food chain after her toddler sustained severe burns from McDonald’s coffee.  We don’t know how the toddler came in contact with the coffee.  For the good of America, let’s hope the beverage didn’t leak from his baby bottle. We suspect this one may be in the news again someday, and if so, we’ll keep you posted.

From the November 11 edition of The New York Times:

Today it is possible to write the date with the repetition six times of a single digit.  It is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year, and so one may save time and just put it down 11-11-11.  It will be a century before the same thing can be done on Nov. 11, 2011 though, of course, on Dec. 12th next year there will be a close approximation to it with 12-12-12 as a correct presentation of the date.

Still today for the last time until the error is changed will one digit appear seven times in the date, however it be written.  Today, 11-11-1911, 800 years ago this was beaten by writing 11-11-1111, on Nov. 11, 1111 but it is not likely that the precise monkish scribes at that time would have allowed so slovenly a method of recording an essential fact.  As none of us is likely to be living in the year 11111, it would be well for those who delight in curious trifles to take their fill of enjoyment out of this method of dating today, 11-11-11.

“Today is 11-11-11; Date Can’t Be Written in This Way Again for a Century,” The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1911.

We love sharing these fascinating historical artifacts with you.  We greatly suspect that the writer of this 1911 New York Times piece wondered what we here in 2011 might say about this curious temporal phenomenon.  Imagine that writer in Manhattan a century ago penning this article looking forward a hundred years wondering if we here in this day might look back to his article a hundred years in the past. Mission accomplished!

We’ve previously brought to your attention other fun historical notes like these.  You will remember that last Thanksgiving, we unearthed a 1910 magazine article in which the writer, living in 1910, looked back to 1810 to note the enormous societal changes that had occurred in that century.  At the end of that piece, the writer speculated what we the citizens of 2010 might do to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Last December, we brought to your attention a series of editorials, published in the New York Times in 1931, speculating what the year 2011 might be like.

So, sometimes its fun to abandon true legal blogging for a day and remark upon these fun finds.

Dude. The cover of Young Romance #196, depicted above and published way, way back in the early 1970s, has got to be the most depressing legal themed comic book cover we have ever seen.  Usually, we profile silly comic book covers featuring superheroes in court or other such nonsense.  But look at this!  “Father has a new family now, Mother, but you won’t be alone! I’ll always be with you . . . I promise!” says the daughter.  Look at how sad her mom looks! In the background, we see the father embracing his new paramour, while a young man – with a very 1970s haircut – asks “But, Debbie, what about us?” We’re not sure who that guy is, but if that’s Debbie’s boyfriend, then he’s got some bad timing. What’s he even doing in the courtroom, anyway? What was DC Comics thinking? This is sad stuff!

Recommended reading for the day: “My iPhone foreclosure.”

If you like our posts on the Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee case, you’ll love Ted Frank’s “Questions for Susan Saladoff about ‘Hot Coffee’“, which ran Monday on his Point of Law blog.

Friend of the blog Alan Crede of the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog had some kind words for us this week regarding the occasion of our 500th post. Thanks, pal.

The Lexis Nexis Litigation Resource Community is soliciting nominations for the Top 25 Tort Blogs. If you enjoy our work here, we would humbly request that you head to their site and nominate us.  Apparently, all you have to do is briefly register for their site and then post a comment here nominating us. We would greatly appreciate your support!

Don’t forget! This month is National Novel Writing Month! There’s still time to pry yourself away from those discovery responses and pour your soul into a manuscript. (Hat Tip: The Faculty Lounge).

“Robin and Batgirl, I pronounce you man and wife — til death do you part!,” exclaims a thug on the cover of Batman Family #11, published way back in 1977. Note that multiple armed villains are coercing the two heroes into this wedding (although they didn’t bother to remove the heroes’ masks). This is not a family law blog, but we do seem to remember something from bar review about weddings and duress.  We’re thinking that Batgirl and Robin – in his bizarre tuxedo get-up – will be able to dissolve this marriage on those grounds. (We note that technically, though, this is not a shotgun wedding, since the assailants are all armed with pistols, although we doubt that affects the legal analysis of the duress issue).

Our own writer Frances Zacher got a shout out this week from Brian Comer at the South Carolina Products Liability Law Blog. See here.

Here’s a civil procedure exam question for you: can whales be Plaintiffs?

Congratulations to Brad Gower and Rocky Rogers, our two GWB associates who passed the bar examination last week. It’s been a while since we here at Abnormal Use endured the slings and arrows of the bar examination, but we sure do remember that immense sense of relief that accompanies notice of passage.  Ah, the good old days.

Oh, no, he didn’t! Colin Miller of the EvidenceProf Blog went there.  Yes, he made a Jerry Maguire reference in the headline to his recent post about a new Hawaii Court of Appeals case on the rule of completeness. See here.

Believe it or not, this edition of Friday Links is actually our third post today.  Earlier this morning, we ran a post wishing the bloggers at the Drug and Device Law blog a happy fifth birthday.  (Although they recognize their birthday as October 30, their first post actually went live five years ago today).  Also, we published an entry this morning directing your attention to our editor Jim Dedman’s first contribution to the North Carolina Law Blog, a group blog sponsored by the North Carolina Bar Association. From now on, he’ll be submitting one post per month to that site.

Just in time for Halloween, we bring you the cover of The Witching Hour #51, published way, way back in 1975.  “Bring in the prisoner to face his judge and jury!” exclaims the skeletal judicial figure, while a menacing skeleton jury awaits.  We think this poor criminal defendant may have some constitutional arguments here (although we have our doubts as to whether this trial judge will sustain any such objections). And if this is the trial court judge, we’d hate to see the appellate panel!  Don’t forget, we’ve featured some other tough comic book cover juries here, here, and here.

Begins this recent piece in the Salem Eagle Tribune: “A Salem Superior Court jury has ordered Toys ‘R’ Us to pay more than $20 million to the family of a young mother who died five years ago after an inflatable pool slide sold by the national chain partially collapsed while she was using it during a pool party in Andover.” (Hat tip: Eric Nordstrom).

J. Benjamin Stevens, a/k/a The Mac Lawyer (who practices just down the road in Spartanburg, SC), appeared on the Lawyer2Lawyer podcast to discuss the impact of Steve Jobs on the legal profession.  To hear the podcast, click here.

Our own Stuart Mauney directs us to this piece in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog regarding alligators and the doctrine of “animals ferae naturae.” It’s probably been a while since you’ve referenced that legal doctrine in a brief, right? Yikes.

Our friends at The Law and The Multiverse are considering starting a second blog to discuss the application of law and legal principles in non-comic book fiction.  For more information, see this post (which includes a reader poll).

Don’t forget; you can become a fan of Abnormal Use on Facebook by clicking here! And we’re on Twitter here!

Superman appears to be cross examining Lois Lane on the cover of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #100, depicted above and published way, way back in 1970. “Lois, do you deny having had this fight with Lana Lang?,” asks Supes, as he holds a photograph of Lane fighting Lang. “And after it you killed her – in cold blood?” he exclaims. Lois replies: “No! No! I’m innocent!” Meanwhile, a police officer notes that the lie detector needle “jumped like crazy” and that Lane will be executed. Uh, first off, we don’t think that polygraph evidence is going to be heard by the jury. However, we suspect that this scene may be illustrative of some deeper problems that Lois and Supes are having in their relationship. Back in April 2010, we showed you the cover of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #99, which shows Lane on trial for this very crime. And earlier this year, in May, we showed you Superman confronting convict Lois about another series of crimes and her resulting imprisonment. What’s up with all that?

Bill Latham at The HyTechLaywer Blog alerts us to a campaign by Nancy Patterson of litigatortechnology.com to create a “Legal” category in the Apple iTunes App Store. Not a bad idea, that. As Patterson notes, there is a medical category, so why not a legal one? There’s certainly lots of legal apps. See here for more information.

Just when you thought Steve McConnell of the Drug and Device Law blog had topped himself with his post a few weeks back citing Nirvana, R.E.M., and The Beatles, he outdoes himself yet again. This past Monday, McConnell summarized a new Southern District of Ohio pain pump case using George Harrison song titles as a handy gazetteer. See here for the full post. (Although, we do wonder about the absence of “Got My Mind Set on You.”).

It’s off-topic for a law blog, but you might want to read this post The Signal Watch explaining why the author hates, above nearly all other things, talking about music. We are crestfallen.

Don’t forget; you can become a fan of Abnormal Use on Facebook by clicking here! And we’re on Twitter here!

STEVE JOBS (1955 – 2011)

We here at Abnormal Use were saddened this week to learn of the death of tech pioneer and Apple, Inc. czar Steve Jobs. We’ve been fans of him for decades, and each day, when we use our iPhone and our iPads, we realize just how much he has changed the way we as consumers, and as lawyers, communicate with each other. Just two weeks ago, we were attending a CLE seminar in Columbia, South Carolina featuring a section called “Using the iPad in Litigation.” Pictured above is the February 15, 1982 cover of Time Magazine, almost thirty years old, showing that Jobs was making innovations even then. (See its Time Magazine Cover Gallery entry here.). Now, today, two days after his death, we pause to reflect upon his life and legacy and how his creations affected and influenced our daily lives.

I myself have had a long history with Apple Computers. As an elementary school student, I used an Apple IIe in computer class to learn the Logo programming language (and, of course, play The Oregon Trail). At home, I first began using an old school Macintosh computer – one of those clunky old boxy ones – in the mid to late 1980s. My mother, a freelance graphic designer at the time, brought one home one day.  Many grammar school homework assignments made their way through that old Mac (though I always preferred to play Shufflepuck Cafe).  Later, in high school, as the editor of the school newspaper, I used Macs to cobble together our monthly publication after school in the old journalism classroom (although staffers would often switch over from Aldus Pagemaker to Sid Meier’s Pirates!).  There was a point where I really, really wanted to buy a NeXT computer, although that never came to be. In college, working in the editorial department of the student daily, I used Macs and the QuarkXPress platform each day to design opinion pages.

Somewhere along the way, though, I reverted back to PCs. Even as a college student, I used a Dell as my home computer. I was a PC user for many years after that. It wasn’t until 2004 that I finally came back into the fold. It was April of that year, and I was in Los Angeles visiting an old friend, Daniel Loyd, who had a new device: a third generation iPod. That day, driving around L.A., we listened to a host of terrible heavy metal songs, simply because we could do so in such an easy fashion. (Dan makes a living as an editor using an Apple computer and Final Cut Pro). Within the week, I had bought my own iPod, and I’ve bought at least four of them since that fateful day in California. I was hooked. Every computer I’ve bought since has been made by Apple, including two successive desktops and a laptop. I’ve gone through three models of iPhones already (and I anticipate pre-ordering the new iPhone 4S sometime today – the first day one can do so). And of course, just a month ago, I bought an iPad, which is one of the most fun purchases I’ve made in many, many years.

With the iPhone, we are able to accomplish with a single device tasks that previously required multiple devices. Remember the old days, not so long ago, really, when traveling out of state, you’d have to take a laptop, Blackberry, cell phone, and iPod? Now, just one Apple product can cover for all of those devices. It’s a marvel. The products make you wonder how you ever lived without them.

What’s the legacy of Steve Jobs? Many have contemplated that over the course of the last two days in pieces far more eloquent than these words here. Really, though, he brought into existence the types of devices we’d previously only seen on Star Trek.

That’s a pretty good epitaph. May he rest in peace.

The last two days have seen many tributes to Jobs from the blogosphere. We would encourage you to take a look at this piece by Jeff Richardson of the iPhone J.D. blog as well as this article by Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer blog. Those are two of our favorite Apple-related blogs. We’d also recommend this post from The Rainmaker Blog and this entry from the Associate’s Mind blog.

This is not an intellectual property blog, although we couldn’t resist sharing the cover of The Adventures of Bob Hope #68, published way, way back in 1961. Hope, the comedian and star of the eponymous comic book series, appears at the Patent Office with a crate labeled “Top Secret,” which he claims contains “the greatest invention ever.” This appears to upset the caveman sitting nearby his own invention, the wheel. Something tells us this is not an accurate depiction of the patent application process as it existed in the early 1960s.

Maxwell Kennerly of the Litigation and Trial blog has a very interesting post on “The Three Types of Practicing Lawyer Blogs.”  He divides law blogs by practicing lawyers into three categories: the mainstream, the personalities, and the marketers.  And guess what? He identified us as an example of a personality blog! Says he: “The personalities are the single lawyer or handful of lawyers who write when they’re inspired, and they’re written with a distinctive voice. These blogs can range from analysis of case law (e.g., Drug and Device Law, D & O Diary) to personal observations about law (e.g., Erik Turkewitz, Associate’s Mind, Day on Torts) to a mixture of both (e.g., China Law Blog, Abnormal Use) . When someone mentions the ‘blawgosphere,’ they’re usually talking about those blogs — not least because those blogs are far, far more likely to link out to other websites and to engage in discussion with one another. ‘Organic’ is an apt description.”  Check out the full post.  In it, Kennerly offers the wisest advice one can give to prospective law bloggers: “Don’t feel compelled to write a particular type of blog; write what you like to write and get good at it, or it will suck and you will hate it.” We just discovered the post last night, and we may offer a more substantive response in the coming weeks.  We love blogging about legal blogging, after all.

Did you know that yesterday was National Coffee Day? We’ve written much about hot coffee lawsuits this past year, but it all began with our Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee FAQ, which we published in January in an attempt to dispel myths about the infamous lawsuit.  In writing the piece, we relied only on the original sources, those being the actual pleadings and motions in the case, as well as some contemporary media coverage of the verdict and settlement from 1994.  To celebrate this week’s National Coffee Day, take a look back at that FAQ here.

Well, I guess we’re going to have to buy new iPhones now.

You’ve got to hand it to Steve McConnell at the Drug and Device Law Blog.  In a post he ran Monday, he begins a paragraph recounting his memories of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with a Sgt. Pepper reference! (“It was 20 years ago today,” begins the old Beatles song, and Nirvana’s most famous song appeared on the Nevermind album 20 years ago this month). And the post itself is about a new Seventh Circuit opinion on “the standard of review for a district court’s refusal to permit an amended complaint.”  How did he tie it all together, you may ask? The musical references are to songs with misheard lyrics, while the new Seventh Circuit case is about unintelligible allegations in a pleading.  Nice.

The comic book cover above, that of Action Comics #301, published way back in 1963, presents a bit of a dilemma for Superman, the apparent criminal defendant. “Superman, the people will prove that you killed reporter Clark Kent because he discovered  your secret identity,” asserts the district attorney.  Meanwhile, Superman thinks to himself, “How can I prove I’m innocent without revealing that I am Clark Kent?”  Well, we think one thing he might have done would have been to simply walk into the courtroom as Clark Kent, rather than Superman, thereby obviating the need for a trial. Our favorite part: The exhibit tag on the suit says “Clark Kent’s Clothes” instead of Exhibit A.

Filthy files may be destroyed, says the South Carolina Supreme Court. (Hat tip: Legal Profession Blog).

Today, in Columbia, South Carolina, the South Carolina Bar is putting on its 2011 Solo & Small Firm CLE and Annual Meeting, subtitled “Exploring the Business Side of Law Firms.” There is a heavy emphasis on legal technology at this conference, which is why we’ll be there to check it out. (We are looking forward to the speeches on DropBox and Cloud Computing, and there’s even a presentation on “Using the iPad in Litigation!”) If you find yourself there, seek us out! We’ll also be live tweeting the event from our official Twitter account, which you can find at @GWBLawfirm.

The Risk Management Monitors lists “The Ten Most Dangerous Jobs in America.”

Five years ago this week, the Legal Profession Blog was born. Mike Frisch of that site reflects on the occasion here. We here at Abnormal Use are big fans of that site, and we wish them a happy birthday.

“Don’t Judge This Man Until You Hear Why I Defended The Monkey Man!,” proclaims the fabled hero, Mr. District Attorney, on the cover of Mr. District Attorney #12, published way, way back in 1949. Here’s the thing: Why is the district attorney -defending- anyone? He’s a prosecutor! If there were concerns about the guilt of the Monkey Man, shouldn’t he have simply refrained to prosecute him? And if the Monkey Man is not to be prosecuted, why on earth is he in court being put on display? Or is the district attorney suggesting that – due to unexplained reasons – he temporarily left the prosecutor’s office to defend the Monkey Man? If that’s the case, surely he knows that his own personal reasons for electing to defend the Monkey Man are not admissible? And if he has decided to represent this poor soul, why is he calling him The Monkey Man, rather than by his real name? That doesn’t seem right. Oh, well. (For our prior discussion of Mr. District Attorney comic book covers, please see here, here, here, and here.).

We typically don’t write about applications to change one’s legal name, but a guy in Missouri has legally changed his name to Led Zeppelin II.  Can you believe that? Is there anything cooler than that? We doubt it. However, it probably would have been too much to change his name to Led Zeppelin IV. That would be gilding the lily. Whatever the case, good for the new Mr. Zeppelin, and we hope this inspires someone to change his or her name to Van Halen II. (Hat Tip: Boing Boing).

If you haven’t already, check out this piece by Dionne Searcey at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog entitled “Congress Examines Alleged Fraud by Asbestos Claimants.” It’s worth a read, to be certain.

By the way, thanks to the Greenville chapter of the Public Relations Society of America for its invitation to our editor, Jim Dedman, to speak on “The Perils of Blogging.” They seemed to dig his speech, although they must not have read Steve Buckingham’s piece on Monday about his editorial management style. Alas.