Google Scholar (via GoogleBlog) has extracts from some entertaining US legal opinions (judgements) - including one written entirely as song lyrics, well except for the footnotes (hats off to the judge there, Chief Judge Buchmeyer!), several in verse, even one in hard boiled detective style. I'm surprised they didn't highlight the one where the judge didn't seem to understand how mobile phones / networks work, though I can't find it on a quick look.
Anyway, it's clever way of reminding us that Google have had US judgments (federal and state district, appellate and supreme court) on Google Scholar, freely available and searchable in full text, since last November.
I'm having trouble thinking of similarly entertaining UK judgments off the top of my head.
Of course we have Lord Denning's famous paean to cricket -
"In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone…"
And there's Kitchin J's straight faced recitation and analysis of rap lyrics.
But it seems the Beatles having to be explained to a judge as "a popular beat combo band, m'lud" is in fact sadly just an urban legend. According to Wikipedia.
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2 comments:
How about the decision of Peter Smith J at first instance in Baigent v Random House [2006] EWHC 719 (Ch) (07 April 2006) affd [2007] EWCA Civ 247 (28 March 2007) concerning copyright in Dan Browne's book "The Da Vinci Code"?
As is now notorious, the judge embedded a coded message in his judgment, but nothing turned on this in the appeal. As Lloyd LJ commented
"[3] ... As was noted at the time, he was prompted by the extensive use in DVC of codes, and no doubt by his own interest in such things, to incorporate a coded message in his judgment, on which nothing turns. The judgment is not easy to read or to understand."
Thank you, of course!
For anyone interested, the decrypted text and solution to the cipher was written up in Wikipedia.
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