• The comic book cover above is that of Star Spangled Comics #10, published way back in 1942. Depicted are The Guardian, sitting a bit too casually in the jury box, and members of the Newsboy Legion, who appear to be conducting a criminal prosecution of sorts. Meanwhile, someone at counsel’s table seems to be drafting the confession of Nick Cappa, the apparent villain of the story, although it’s unclear from the cover whether Cappa is the defendant standing trial. The presiding judge, who is apparently rather lenient on courtroom decorum, looks eerily like Clark Kent, doesn’t he?
• We just realized that this month marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of John Grisham’s novel, The Firm, which according to Wikipedia, was first published on February 1, 1991. The popular film based on the novel, directed by the late, great Sydney Pollack and starring Tom Cruise, was released two years later in June of 1993.
• RockAAA.com, not an insurance website, asks “Is your download collection insured?” Good question. What happens if you lose both your desktop computer and any external hard drive back up due to some type of accident? We here would be crestfallen. That article, published last November, just recently came to our attention, and notes that most insurance policies in the United Kingdom do not cover downloaded media.
• The Faculty Lounge has a brief post – with links to candidate bios – regarding the five finalists for the dean position at the University of South Carolina law school.
• Alan H. Crede at the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog authors this post entitled “CPSC May Mandate Flesh Detection in Table Saws: Is It a Good Idea?” An issue to monitor, that.
• Our own Jim Dedman takes a break for law blogging to review the new album by David Lowery, the former frontman of such bands as Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. See his thoughts here at the Dead Journalist blog, a music site out of Atlanta.

• Believe it or not, but the Marvel Comics character She-Hulk is an attorney. Above, you’ll see the cover of The Sensational She-Hulk #59, published not so long ago in 1994, during which She-Hulk, clad in her courtroom attire, asks the court for a “short recess” so that she can dispose of the host of super villains who have appeared. (One wonders how they all bypassed the security at the courthouse entrance). Whatever the case, we suspect the request was granted by the trial court judge. She-Hulk’s Wikipedia entry describes her as a “highly skilled lawyer” who has “served as legal counsel to various superheroes on numerous occasions.” She apparently practices at the fictional firm of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway which, curiously enough, has its own Wikipedia entry. (Below, at the end of this post, you’ll find the cover of She-Hulk #7, published very recently, only back in 2006. Note that She-Hulk dresses up for hearings and walks up the courthouse steps just like real lawyers do!)
• The ContractsProf Blog uses a clip from “Seinfeld” to illustrate the principles of Lauvetz v. Alaska Sales & Serv. d/b/a Nat’l Car Rental, 828 P 2d 162 (Alaska 1991). We encourage this method of legal instruction. As you know, we love “Seinfeld.”
• You may recall that here and here we mentioned the case of Barbour v. Int’l Union United Auto. Aerospace & Agric. Implement Workers of Am., (4th Cir. Feb. 4, 2010) (PDF), in which the Fourth Circuit adopted the last served defendant rule in the removal context. Beware: that case is now no more. Brian Peterson of the West Virginia Legal Weblog reports that the Fourth Circuit, en banc, has issued a new opinion in the case and held that it will not adhere to the last served defendant rule after all. Rather, it has elected to follow the McKinney Intermediate Rule. See the new opinion here. [PDF].
• Eric Goldman of the Technology & Marketing Law Blog writes about Badella v. Deniro Marketing LLC, 10-03908 CRB (N.D. Cal. Jan 24, 2011), a putative class action brought on behalf of “lonely and vulnerable men” who claimed they were tricked into using an online dating site. The court refused to dismiss all of their claims. Those are going to be some great depositions.
• We must confess that we love it when Plaintiffs claim one thing in their lawsuits and entirely contradict themselves with posts and pictures on Facebook. This past week, that topic was apparently quite popular, with a story at MSNBC/Reuters and follow-ups here at Overlawyered and here at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. While you’re off reading those reports, we’re just going to go set our Facebook Wall to private.
• Deadline Hollywood, a widely read Hollywood blog, reported this week that pay cable giant HBO has bought the rights to “Hot Coffee,” the Susan Saladoff directed documentary about the Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case. As you recall, we previously commented upon that film here. This, of course, means that the film will receive a much wider audience than it did at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered just a week ago . Writes Deadline Hollywood‘s Mike Fleming:
  

  EXCLUSIVE: HBO has closed a deal for Hot Coffee, the Susan Saladoff-directed competition documentary which focuses on how corporations have used the memory of outlandish legal verdicts as a way to press for tort reforms and avoid jury trials through arbitration on cases that actually have merit.

  HBO’s Sheila Nevins viewed the documentary after it premiered last Monday. I’m told the deal was mid to high six-figures. HBO licensed the film for broadcast and VOD for 2 years, and will afford the film a qualifying Oscar theatrical run before it airs on the pay channel. Preferred Content’s Kevin Iwashina brokered the sale. Carly Hugo and Alan Oxman produced with Saladoff.

  The film’s title refers to the famous case of a woman”s million dollar judgment from McDonald’s over a spilled cup of coffee. Saladin, a lawyer, focuses on other outrageous cases that illustrated where corporations were negligent or unresponsive. They include a case involving Halliburton, which housed a 19-year old worker overseas in a barracks with men and ignored her concerns. She was gang-raped.

  Although we caught some grief last week for pointing out Saladoff’s career as a Plaintiff’s attorney and longstanding ties to various “civil justice groups,” we stand by our post and look forward to see the film when it hits our television screens.

• Depicted above is the cover of Green Lantern #11, published way, way back in 1962. It features a story entitled “The Strange Trial of Green Lantern,” which is an odd affair indeed. It’s nice to know that the High Court of the Green Lanterns of the Universe doesn’t just find criminal defendants to be not guilty of the charges at issue; they go so far as to pronounce the defendant innocent of the charges. However, we think that Earth’s Green Lantern, the apparent defendant in this case, should have just pleaded guilty in the first place if his response to the acquittal is “I’m Guilty! You must strip me of my super-powers!” Extraterrestrial judicial economy is not served by forcing an alien tribunal to go through a trial if you’re just going to plead guilty at the end of the process, anyway.
• We’ve arrived! We here at Abnormal Use must be doing something right if a Plaintiff’s friendly blog like The Pop Tort sees fit to bash our commentary of “Hot Coffee,” the documentary by Plaintiff’s lawyer Susan Saladoff which profiles the famous Stella Liebeck case and advocates civil justice reform to make it easier for Plaintiffs to recover. The Pop Tort‘s philippic, written under the pseudonym “Joe Consumer,” calls our writer Nick Farr’s story a “sorry attempt to slam” the film and part of “a dirty corporate disinformation campaign” all concocted by a “corporate lawyer” attempting to relitigate the famed case. Wow! Nick is planning his own retort to set the record straight which we will publish next week. In the meantime, we thank the mysterious “Joe Consumer” for also linking our “comprehensive” FAQ on the Liebeck case, published here the day after our film comment.
• This is not a copyright and trademark blog, but we can’t resist sharing WordSpy‘s definition of the term “copyfighter,” which is defined as “[a] person who opposes copyright laws and practices that he or she perceives to be unfair.” If you’re not familiar with the site, WordSpy is dedicated to defining newly coined words and clever turns of phrase in the media.
• In this video, we learn that Darth Vader is quite adept at contract modification. We pray he doesn’t alter the deal again. (Hat tip: ContractsProf Blog).
• We congratulate the Honorable Henry F. Floyd of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina for his appointment by President Obama to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. See the news coverage of the appointment here.

• The comic book cover depicted above is that of Blackhawk #208, published way, way back in 1965. Blackhawk, if you remember, was an ace World War II era American pilot and leader of a team of airmen called, eponymously enough, The Blackhawks. In the issue above, he’s confronted at a military trial with a photograph purportedly showing him collaborating with the enemy. We don’t know how this one turned out, but he must have been acquitted, as the series continued for another few years. We think, though, that Blackhawk, who is apparently representing himself, should object to the authenticity of the photo.
• With our reviews of “Harry’s Law” and “Fairly Legal,” this was surely Hollywood week at Abnormal Use. But we have to ponder why the chief protagonists of all these legal shows are introduced in the pilot as just having quit a more interesting and powerful job. In “Harry’s Law,” the character played by Kathy Bates quits a megafirm to start a tiny firm and shoe store. In “Fairly Legal,” the character played by Sarah Shahi resigns the bar to become a full time mediator. In “The Outlaw,” which we reviewed last fall, the character played by Jimmy Smits resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court, of all places, to start a new firm. Uh, wasn’t he already in a good spot to influence the law? What gives?
• Friend of the blog and John Marshall Law School torts prof Alberto Bernabe responds to our earlier post on the issue of bilingual products warning. We’re prepping our reply to his response, which may prompt a sur-reply by him. We shall see.
• Our firm, Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. has at least one lawyer live tweeting the South Carolina Bar Conventon. That would be Stuart Mauney, and you can follow him here.

• Above you’ll find the cover of Action Comics #263, published way, way back in 1960. In it, Superman, the defendant in a criminal case, is sentenced by a jury of Bizarros. The punishment is, apparently, that Superman will himself be turned into a Bizarro, which is surely cruel and unusual. (No word on whether the Bizarro constitution has an Eighth Amendment prohibiting such.). Again, we think that Supes has a “jury of his peers” objection, just as Batman did when he faced a juryful of Jokers or when a human was sentenced to death by an insect jury. The question: Why are all these defendants pro se? You’d think the Justice League would have some sort of insurance policy providing counsel in these cases. (For the record, we previously explored the antics of the Bizarros here.).
• Oh, and if you’re not reading the Law and the Multiverse blog, you’re missing out big time. The site is dedicated to one question: How would our laws apply to comic book superheros? This wonderfully clever site is written by two relatively new lawyers, James Daily and Ryan Davidson. Why do they do it? See their FAQ file here. Though new (it just began in November), the site is already quite popular, having been profiled here and here in The New York Times and here at The Volokh Conspiracy. We’re already fans.
• We thank Alan H. Crede of the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog for his recent kinds words about our site and the recent ABA Blawg awards. We tried to email him directly to share our appreciation, but we couldn’t find a direct email address on his site.
• By the way, if you look in our right hand column, you’ll see a bar entitled “South Carolina Law Blogs.” We just updated that list to include a number of new blogs in our state, as well as a handful that have been around a while that we somehow overlooked. Take a gander.

• The image above is the cover of House of Mystery #149, published way, way back in 1965, which features a story entitled “I Was Tried By An Insect Jury.” Note that the criminal defendant, a human apparently representing himself (most certainly a bad idea in insect court, no doubt), has just been sentenced to death. Surely there was a “jury of peers” objection? (Kudos to Ryan S. of The Signal Watch for alerting us to this comic cover).
• Jonathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy shares with us the books he’s planning to read in 2011. It’s mostly non-fiction, but hey, he’s a law professor, so that’s okay. We’d suggest he add George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones to the list, as HBO will be premiering an original series based on that work this coming spring. That, or World War Z.
• Best judicial opinion ever? “The gist of the copyright dispute between the parties is whether Plaintiff’s virtual horses infringe on copyrights associated with Defendant’s virtual bunnies.” Amaretto Ranch Breedables v. Ozimals, Inc., 2010 WL 5387774 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2010). Yes, you guessed it; it’s a case involving the virtual world of Second Life. (Hat Tip: Eric Goldman of the Technology and Marketing Law Blog).
• We’re big fans of Bob Dylan’s work (“My Back Pages” is sublime), but we must confess to enjoying this recent news which, to be honest, might have resulted in some of the most interesting litigation imaginable. Here’s the story from Stereogum: “. . . a guy with backstage credentials for a nearby Bob Dylan concert walked into Antonio’s, pizza place close to the venue, and ordered $3,900 worth of pizza. The place closed at 2 a.m. but he promised them a big tip, so they stayed until 5:30 in the jingle-jangle morning making the pizzas. But the guy never returned to pick up his order or pay for it. And it turned out he had no affiliation with Bob Dylan. The guy got away with the prank, and most of the pizza ended up in the trash after the pizza place called the police. But the paper says he later felt bad and and turned himself in, got a lawyer, and has settled with the pizza place. Since it’s not a criminal matter and he’s agreed to pay, they haven’t released his name.” Alas; the Bob Dylan Pizza Litigation That Never Came To Be. That reads like an apparent authority exam question, no? (Hat Tip: Stereogum via the Amherst Bulletin).
• Did you know that this week marks the 32nd anniversary of the murder trial of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious? We didn’t either, until we were alerted by this piece from The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party blog which is not, by the way, a law blog. Apparently, Vicious did not live long enough to see a verdict, as he died just a month after the trial began.
• “Why should not the hundreds of millions of Americans in 2011 have the opportunity of witnessing representations of the principals events of 1911?” – G.F. Blaisdell of Brooklyn, New York, in this letter to the editor of The New York Times, published on July 19, 1911. Mr. Blaisdell was writing in response to “Records for Posterity,” an editorial published by The Times on July 13, 1911. Both the editorial and the letter were commenting upon efforts at that time to preserve video and audio records of the day for future generations.

• We here at Abnormal Use are still surprised that this is our last post of 2010. So without further ado, we present our final “Friday Links” of the year. Have a safe evening tonight.
• The Criminal Justice Degrees Program lists the “10 Best Legal Shows in TV History” (including embedded video). Without a mention of Harvey Birdman, the list is a bit mainstream, but it’s definitely worth your review. (Hat tip: The Volokh Conspiracy).
• We’ve not yet seen the new remake of True Grit, but we see that at least two legal blogs have remarked upon legal concepts depicted in the film. That’s right; both the EvidenceProf Blog and The Faculty Lounge are abuzz with legalisms in the latest cinematic offering from the Coen Brothers. See here and here for more.
• Jeremy Telman of the Contracts Prof Blog comments upon the new lawsuit filed by the actres Zooey Deschanel. Kudos to him for the Lady Duff Gordon reference.
• As 2010 draws to a close, we thank Dan Eller and Mary Giorgi for their contributions to the site. Both began the year as founding contributors to this site, and both have now retired from the blog (although we still get to see them each day at the office). Associate Frances Zacher took the place of Dan a few months ago, and starting next week, associate Nick Farr will assume responsibility for Mary’s beat on the blog.

It’s Christmas Eve, and if you’re reading a products liability blog today, odds are you were the one associate or junior partner who couldn’t extricate him or herself from coming into the office today. We here at Abnormal Use would feel for you, but unfortunately for you, we wrote this post days ago and set it to automatically publish today before we headed off for the holidays.

By the way, depicted above is the cover of Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2, published in the late ’80s. Please note that Batman is staring intently at a teddy bear held by Green Lantern.

The question you have to ask yourself, though, is: Are you really going to do any billable work today, or are you going to play around on the Internet and read Christmas links?

We suggest the latter, and in that spirit, we present to you the following links:

• We still dig 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street, which is both a Christmas and a courtroom movie. Law nerds that we are, we are happy to see that the Wikipedia entry for the film includes a section dedicated to the film’s legal inaccuracies, which we quote here: “In the book Reel Justice, the authors claim that Judge Harper could have dismissed the case early without the political repercussions he feared. In their theory, once the prosecutor rested his case immediately after Kris Kringle admitted in court simply that he believed he was Santa Claus, Judge Harper could have ruled that prosecution had forfeited its opportunity to prove that Kringle was dangerous (the basic point of such hearings; Kringle’s actual mental state itself being irrelevant), and ordered him immediately released. However, this high standard for involuntary commitment was not instituted until 1975 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision O’Connor v. Donaldson.” Indeed.
• We hate those gooey holiday candies – peeps. So we direct you to the “100 Ways To Kill A Peep” blog which, sadly, is no longer being updated.
• The news here in merry Greenville is that it may actually snow on Christmas day. However, we fully expect to publish each day next week, barring some unforeseen snowpocalypse.

• Depicted above is the cover of The Incredible Hulk #153, published way back in 1972. As civil litigators, we can’t say we know in detail all the various rules of criminal procedure which govern the sentencing of defendants. However, surely there must be one that could be invoked to allow the judge to sentence The Incredible Hulk in absentia to prevent the result shown above. The shackles they elected to use didn’t seem to do the trick.
• Jeffrey Kuntz of The Florida Legal Blog asks an interesting question: “Is It Proper To Cite To A Shortened URL in An Appellate Brief?” As Kuntz notes, there is a risk inherent in such citations, as the abbreviated link may itself expire, and if it does, there is no way to ascertain the nature or domain of the original link. Best to use the full URL, we think.
• Oh, boy, do we have a bone to pick with Stephen J. McConnell over at the Drug and Device Law blog. Writing about a series of four related court orders, McConnell strayed into popular culture and opined that “any rock band with four letters in its name will produce wretched music. Okay, we agree about Bush, Devo, Fuel, KISS, and TOTO, but AC/DC?! (There is massive disagreement here in Dechert-ville over ABBA, Rush, and Styx.).” We are aghast and agog. Where to begin? First off, Rush is a fine band as a matter of law. There can be no reasonable disagreement as to that fact (although the closest that one may come to creating a fact issue may well be the band’s 1991 album, Roll The Bones, which includes a pseudo-rap in the title track.). But as to McConnell’s more general statement about bands with four letter names, what about Beck, INXS, Muse, Nico (whose “These Days” is sublime), Pulp, Ween, Love (led by the late, great Arthur Lee), Luna, Lush and MGMT? Blur, Cake, Ride (who would inspire a band called Radiohead), RJD2, and Fear (the immortal Los Angeles punk band)? What about glam legend T. Rex and rap star Jay-Z? Sure, we’re torn about Ratt, Asia, Toto, and Seal, but Devo is sacrosanct. Earlier this year, we here at Abnormal Use were very excited to learn that Devo was to play a gig within 60 miles of our fair city, and we were crestfallen when that show was canceled due to an injury suffered by the guitarist. Alas.
• Funny Or Die has posted a new Jackie Chiles video titled “Jackie Chiles Knows The Internet.” You’ll recall that we here interviewed actor Phil Morris – who plays Chiles in the video and on “Seinfeld” back in the old days – here.
• Elsewhere in online video circles, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has a little bit of fun with the reaction of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to news that Shrek souvenir glasses might contain cadmium. See here for that amusing clip.
• Don’t tell our managing partner, but we here at Abnormal Use may sneak out of the office a bit early today to see the Tron sequel. We were kids when the original came out in the early 1980s. The sequel gives us a chance to revisit that era in our minds and recall a time when we had never heard the terms “billable hours” or “document review.”

• The cover of Wonder Woman #260, published way back in 1979, depicts the title heroine, in handcuffs, being ushered out of the courtroom by two bailiffs. The judge sternly pronounces: “Wonder Woman is a menace to society! Put Her Away!”, to which she replies, “Impudent Fools! No prison can hold me! I will return and DESTROY YOU ALL!” This is not good courtroom etiquette. (And, in fact, we’re not certain that Wonder Woman’s costume is appropriate courtroom attire.). However, we must admire Wonder Woman’s restraint in respecting the authority of the bailiffs escorting her out of the courtroom in handcuffs while simultaneously vowing to return and erase them from existence.
• Do you dig independent films? Greenville, South Carolina based writer and director Chris White this week released Good Life, a twelve minute movie shot at Ristorante Bergamo, an Italian restaurant just a few short blocks from our law firm’s offices. How about that? White describes the plot as follows: “The Girl’s tenth birthday. A perfectly lovely dinner at a downtown restaurant with her father. Presents, candles, cake. Tonight though, it is she who will take care of him.” There are some tender emotional moments in the film, so we expect that some hard hearted litigators may be confused. But most others will enjoy its the simple joy depicted therein. To watch his new film online, click here.
• Ken Shigley of the Atlanta Injury and Civil Litigation blog shares his remarks from the Bar Admission Ceremony at the Fulton County Courthouse last week. He offers some good tips to the newly minted Georgia lawyers (despite the fact that he’s a Plaintiff’s attorney).
• We believe that any court in the land would find that 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back is the best film of the Star Wars series as a matter of law. No fact issues there, your honor. Thus, we here at Abnormal Use were saddened to learn of the recent death of Irvin Kershner, that austere film’s director. May he rest in peace.
• Professor Mark Osler of the University of St. Thomas Law School (who this site interviewed here back in October) recently blogged about his last day of class for his first semester at that institution, which he joined earlier this year. In so doing, he relates that he found the seating chart for his very first class as a professor at Baylor Law School way back in the fall of 2000. Fun fact: One of the contributors to this blog was in that class.
• We love “Seinfeld,” and we love Twitter. Since Monday, when we published our interview with actor Phil Morris (who played the character “Jackie Chiles” on “Seinfeld,” we’ve learned that Morris is on Twitter. You can find his account here, as well as the one he has set up for the Chiles character here. Finally, Whit Hertford, the writer and actor who is helping Morris with the resurrection of the Chiles character, can be found on Twitter here.
• Last week’s “Question of the Week” at the ABA Journal was “Which law blogger would you most like to meet, and why?” After his interview with Phil Morris was posted this past week, surely everyone would request Kevin Couch from right here at Abnormal Use?