Frivolous Lawsuits & Silly Legal Disclaimers Vol 37 Ed 3

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor any sort of legal expert.

In my layman's understanding of common law, there is a basic principle called nuisance.

In grad school, I took a class called Environmental Security. It was team-taught by three professors, one of whom was a lawyer. One of the legal principles he taught us in that class was the principle of nuisance. It just kinda made intuitive sense to me and has stuck in my brain ever since. One of the key elements of nuisance was that it had to be something new - it couldn't be a pre-existing condition.

For example, consider the case of jet noise from a Navy airfield. Let's say the airfield is already there. Then some dude decides to build or buy a house next to the airfield. In that case, the guy couldn't sue the Navy because of the jet noise being a nuisance. The airfield was already there, and the guy sure as heck knew it was there and knew there'd be jet noise when he bought the house under the landing pattern. If, on the other hand, the guy had been living in his house, and the Navy came in and built a new airfield next to his house that he already owned, then he could sue the Navy for the nuisance of the jet noise.

For a civilian example, consider a tree that blocks or obscures a neighbor's otherwise-beautiful view. If I buy a house, and there's a tree in the neighbor's yard that blocks my view of the sunrise over Mount Hood, then too bad. I can't sue my neighbor to take down the tree because it's obstructing my view because the tree was already there when I bought the house. On the other hand, if I buy a house with a beautiful view, and then the neighbor plants a new tree that obstructs my beautiful view, then I can sue him for the tree being a nuisance. I was there first.

Alright? Make sense? Are you with me?

Now read this.

So lemme get this straight...

1. You researched the colleges in the area.
2. You went and visited the colleges you were most interested in.
3. You applied to the colleges that met your personal preferences and selection criteria.*
4. Out of the 27 institutions of higher learning in the great state of Vermont (or 2,024 universities in the great U.S. of A.), you CHOSE to go to Green Mountain College where all seven dorms (and bathrooms) are co-ed.
5. Now that you're there, you're suing the college because the bathrooms are co-ed????

*Let's rewind to step 3 above. Shouldn't one of your personal preference / selection criteria have been, "Single-sex bathrooms available"? I suppose when she toured the campus and saw the co-ed dorms and bathrooms, she giggled and girlishly blushed and thought of those times she would accidentally get a peek at some cute guy coming out of the shower. She must not have had any brothers or lived around any guys, because it didn't turn out as sexy and romantic as she thought. Suddenly she finds herself grossed-out by college guys' bathroom cleanliness (or lack thereof), not shutting the door when they pee, or peeking at HER in the shower.

Then again, maybe she intentionally chose this college just so that she could sue them and help pay for the tuition.

Chalk this one up as another frivolous lawsuit to clog our courts and make a laughing stock of our legal system.

I bet the next round of prospective freshmen visiting the campus will discover some silly sign at the front gates, "WARNING: Co-Ed Dorm and Bathroom Facilities. This college is not responsible for any embarrassing or gross experiences related to the personal hygiene of the opposite sex. Because we posted this sign to officially warn you, you can't sue us."

That reminds me... (Warning, tangent ahead.)

When we went to the Kennedy Center on Friday, there was one sign that was duplicated and posted EVERYWHERE. Seriously, there was one of these signs about every ten feet throughout the parking garage. Let's have some fun with this one. I'll pose this as a multiple-choice quiz and see if you can guess it.

What was written on the signs posted every 10 feet in the Kennedy Center parking garage?

A) Speed Limit 5 mph
B) No Back-In Parking
C) Kennedy Center is not responsible for damage or theft of valuables
D) Caution: Speed Bump
E) Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling

What do you think? Got your answer? Are you ready?

Friday night was just one of those times when I saw a sign, scratched my head, and said to myself, "Self, I wonder what outrageous and extremely rare alignment of the planets caused them to post THAT particular sign every 10 feet." It's one of those cases where you know they posted the sign because somebody tried it. Otherwise, nobody would have ever guessed that a sign was necessary. The answer was E) Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling.

Seriously?

Who could have thought up something like that unless someone had tried it. Why not post signs that say, "No Hitting the Cars with Sledge Hammers" or "No Spray Painting on the Walls" or "No Bazookas Allowed." Actually, I should have included those in the quiz instead. If you had asked me ahead of time, I totally would have guessed "No Spray Painting on the Walls" would be a more likely warning sign than "Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling." I would have guessed "No Longaberger Baskets Allowed" would have been just about as probable as "No Drilling in the Ceiling."

Can you imagine the poor guy that says to himself, "Self... gee, what to do on a Friday night? Hmmm. I KNOW!!! Let's go drill some holes in the ceiling of the Kennedy Center parking garage!" Imagine his glee as he put on his toolbelt, grabbed his DeWalt and the drill bits, hopped in his pickup truck and headed for the Kennedy Center. Imagine he was just giddy with excitement as he shelled out his $18 to pull into the parking lot.

Then he read the sign(s).

Imagine his disappointment... the pout on his lips... the slump of his shoulders... the power-drill hanging limply in his hand... It's like they just canceled Christmas.

Now what's he gonna do with his Friday night?

Triangles and Stupid Kevin Tricks

Last night, I went with four friends from church to the National Symphony Orchestra's performance of Handel's Messiah at the Kennedy Center. Overall, it was a wonderful performance, and I tremendously enjoyed sharing the experience with friends. (It's not LW's cup of tea, so she took the boys out to admire the Christmas lights in the nearby neighborhoods.)

I changed into a suit and tie in my office and left my uniform in my office, then headed over to meet my friends for dinner at CPK. We were a little worried at first that the traffic would prevent them from joining me for dinner, but the timing worked out perfectly. They trusted me to order a few pizzas and a salad for us all to share. I ordered, and the food was delivered to the table mere moments before they walked in the door. We had plenty of time to eat without feeling rushed, then drove over to the Kennedy Center.

C, me, and J at Kennedy Center

This was my first time to the Kennedy Center. It's ginormous and spectacular inside and out.


Of course, anytime you attend a live performance such as this, there will be little differences in how they present it to make it their own. For example, one section I'm used to hearing sung by the soprano was sung by the baritone. Another part that I am used to hearing done by the brass section was done by the wood-winds, and the wood-winds have never stood out in my mind as a prominent feature of previous Messiah performances. Those differences are easy to adapt and enjoy. However, there was one key difference that really threw me for a loop.

Before the performance, I was reading the program and noted the list of instruments included. Among the list of the usual violins, cellos, french horns, trumpets, and trombones, there was listed one triangle. I laughed, leaned over to my friend M sitting next to me and said, "There's a triangle down there somewhere." We spent a few moments scanning the orchestra trying to find the triangle. M guessed that it would be in the percussion section. (She was right, BTW). We joked about how we wouldn't be able to hear it over the rest of the orchestra, so why bother with it?

On went the performance, and when we got to my most favorite part...

And the government shall be upon his shoulders And his name shall be called

BRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!
Wonderful counselor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace

It sounded like someone wheeled in a 2-ton version of the classic alarm clock with the two dome-shaped bells on top and was wailing on the bells with a sledge hammer at the speed of a hummingbird's wings. There in the percussion section of the orchestra stood a man who must have been a professional body-builder by day in order to lift this very manly triangle. Ney, not a triangle. It was a

It would be inappropriate to use lower-case letters to describe this TRIANGLE. It had the diameter of a steam-roller. I think it was made from some recycled battleship gun barrel. Even from our seats up in the nose-bleed section, we could see the guy's rippling muscles as he lifted up that TRIANGLE.

Each time the chorus got to my favorite part, he beat the holy crap out of that darned TRIANGLE so hard that the echos of it ringing reverberated through my skull for several moments after the percussionist had set down his monstrous instrument, turned the page of his music and taken his seat.

After he did this the first time, M and I turned and looked at each other and laughed out loud at how wrong we were to assume that the TRIANGLE was such an un-manly instrument or that we would never notice it in the performance.

Stupid Kevin Tricks Vol 37 Ed 342

For those of you who aren't in the DC area or didn't notice in the news, the weather forecast last night was calling for heavy snow starting last night and throughout the day today. During the intermission, we stepped outside briefly to see the first snow starting to gently fall. It was very surreal and beautiful out on the terrace outside the Kennedy Center overlooking the Potomac River as the snowflakes slowly fell - only visible in the shafts of light from the spotlights under the evenly spaced trees on the terrace. After a short while, the house lights flicked on and off and signaled that it was time for us to return to our seats.

When we came out of the Kennedy Center, the roads weren't too bad, but they were a little slippery and traffic was already a mess with more traffic accidents than the emergency crews could keep up with. We left just after 10:30 p.m. and proceeded to creep home on I-66 in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

It was quiet initially in the minivan as we all had our cell phones open - texting and facebooking our experience at the Messiah performance while our driver listened to the traffic on WTOP. As time ticked on, the conversation in the car picked up as one-by-one, each of our cell phone batteries died.

Two and a half hours after departing the Kennedy Center, we finally arrived at my car in the Dulles North commuter parking lot where I had caught the bus to work that morning. I geared up - gloves on, hat on, backpack in hand, braced for the cold, got out of the car and trudged through the few inches of snow on the ground to my car. Brushed snow off my windshield, headlights, windows, then tried to open my car door... nothing.

You see, my car has the RFID keyless entry system where I just have the keys in my pocket and it senses that I'm there and allows me to open the door and start the car. I never even think about where my keys are, because they're always just in my pocket.

Yyyyyeah, not so much.

The keys weren't in my pocket. They were in the pocket of my uniform back in my office in Crystal City.

Me and that tall pointy-hat that said "DUNCE" on it got back into the van to humbly ask J for a ride home because I forgot my car keys. We made three stops to drop people off at their various homes, and then J took me to our house. I figured he would just drop me off and I'd worry about getting my car later. He insisted that I go in and get the spare set of keys and that we go back and get the car immediately before conditions got any worse.

By the time I got back to my house for the last time, it was 3:30 a.m. I didn't get out of bed until about 9 a.m. When I did sleepily stagger down the stairs, I was glad J took me back to get my car last night. There was 11 inches of snow on the back deck when first walked into the kitchen and measured it. As I write this on Saturday afternoon, we now have 21 inches of snow on our back deck, and it's still coming down hard.


I hope you all are safe and sound and enjoying some quality time with your family over the holidays - whether you're snowed in or not.