Fortuny did not immediately respond to e-mails from The Associated Press, and calls Monday to his telephone number generated a message saying the subscriber ''is not in service."
He's been killed! These enterprising reporters should give up on this phone stuff and start dredging the Snoqualmie River.
More likely he's just entered the Asshole Protection Program, and will live out the rest of his life disguised as a perfectly nice guy, somewhere in Itawamba County, Miss.
Hi Anderson! Glad to see you back. (Everyone else, Anderson is a good commenter at LGM, so -- well, I'm not sure exactly what to say but certainly my pleasure at seeing him is unfeigned.)
You know, I don't wish violence on him, but it would make me very happy to hear that Fortuny, by pure happenstance, saw some hugely ripped, steroids-feasting abomination appearing to follow him through the parking lot at, say, the mall - when in fact the Hulk was simply parked next to him - and that the paranoia kicked in for him in that moment and he's now cancelled his cell service, locked up his house and is hiding behind a friend's couch.
A certain professor I work for teaches a certain class in which this affair would be a richly illustrative example, and I'm happy that it has now appeared in a respectable newspaper so I could send her the story without appearing to spend my day reading objectivist LiveJournals
"You know, it is totally proof of the encroachment of the state on the individual that I find myself cashing this unemployment check. Why won't you people just let me control my own destiny?"
12: I think you're mistaken, Labs. You've forgotten that "A = A." From which follows that there are no conditions under which an Objectivist would be unemployed.
The chief contribution of "A=A" is that it provides a short, convenient way of announcing to the world that one is a crank. Mwwaaah, the objectivist crackpot has always been celebrated for its excellence.
He's likely the sort of skeeve that would take the unemployment benefits and turn around and endorse voting against them because only lazy people use them.
The more I think about this, the more I think that a little vigilante justice wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened. The guy did something incredibly destructive for reasons that are basically just evil, and it's tough to see legal action (civil or criminal) being very effective. Private violence to enforce social norms is seldom if ever a good thing, but this case might be the exception.
Another weird aspect of this is that his livejournal reveals him to be a complete tool. I quoted the bits about how he doesn't like black people, and his careful, temperate remarks about Katrina victims have been widely circulated. Once again, well-played!
Even if nothing bad happens legally, and if no prospective employer refuses to hire him because of the CL thing, he still looks like an ass in public.
The thing that bugs me most about the tautologies-for-section-titles thing that goes on in Atlas Shrugged is that she thinks she is displaying rationality, when really she is displaying dogmatism. She is saying "no I am not going to give arguments for my views; they are self evident."
That may have been obvious, but I had to get it off my chest.
Another weird aspect of this is that his livejournal reveals him to be a complete tool.
What's so weird about this? Isn't it just what you'd have expected? Besides, he's not a tool, he's courageously telling the truths others don't want to hear.
I'm with Labs. Read the guy's LJ, and you realize that he (and the other person who helped him with this stunt) is so thoroughly an asshole that he'd never survive in the Asshole Protection Program. He'd go to the local church bingo game and start trolling the old ladies and such.
The really just thing would be if he had some horrible, searing secret that got revealed as a consequence of his stunt.
I take it to be weird in this way, Ben. Most people who enjoy talking about how lame black people are at least know that such talk has to stay quiet. This guy says things that most people abhor (and he knows this) then makes his site superfamous.
I keep looking for the way in which this counts as a victory for him, and I keep coming up short.
Tim, what would count as a horrible secret that *isn't* revealed already? Already he's gone on about
(i) weird health problems involving low testosterone levels;
(ii) the rise and fall of his relationship with his fiancee;
(iii) that his mom was sleeping with enough guys at the time of his conception that there's genuine uncertainty about who his father is;
(iv) some other shit that I can't think of right now.
30: Here's a horrible secret to try on for size. Maybe Fortuny is still posting Craigslist personals! It certainly wouldn't be uncharacteristic from what we know from his LJ. Perhaps a little infiltration is in order?
Happy Birthday Devin!
Being with you is just like heaven
When you touch my special place, I purr or growl or make the cute face
And when I rub your bum, you squeal happy, cause you know you're gonna get some
The first night we met was quite a high
We got it on in front of a homeless guy
We snuck back to your place for first date sex
And that's when you broke my first date hex
I knew you were the woman for me
When I didn't feel bad about giving it up for free
You make me special dinners with love and care
And after dinner, you even scratch my hair
We snuggle on the couch watching Conan O'Brien
I when I say that makes me happy, you know I'm not lyin'
Believe me when I say you're the best
And not just because you let me touch your breast
You're so patient with me and my internet antics
You forgive me when I'm acting like multiple pricks
But you make me want to be a better man
You're like the army, making me the best I can
So I salute you on your birthday, lover
And after I type this, I'm going to join you under your cover
I wish everyone could have a girl like you
(Except for Jameth cause he's a gay jew)
Then they would know the peace and content I feel in my heart-y
When we sit down to watch Alex host Jeopardy
I'm going to love you forever and ever
And don't think I'll leave, cause it'll happen NEVER
No woman can compare to your beauty and grace
Or the tingling feeling I get when I kiss your face
When we cum my toes curl, and you're quite a yeller
I'm Chandler Bing and you're Monica Geller
So Happy Birthday, my favorite Sexycat
Daddy's here to love you, and that's all I have to say about that
Practically, DaveL's right -- no point in suing him, he's judgment proof.
Legally, I'd have to do the research. It's not defamation, because it's true. There's a tort relating to the exposure of embarrassing private information, but I haven't run into it in the wild, and I don't know what the parameters are. My wild-ass, uneducated guess is that I'd be surprised if Fortuny's liable for much here, because that sort of tort tends to be very narrowly drawn; I don't know that there isn't a case against him, but I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't.
Tim, what would count as a horrible secret that *isn't* revealed already?
I'm imagining some shameful random CL hookup from whom he's afraid he contracted some horrible disease.
I'm not interested enough to read his entire journal, but he certainly wants people to think he's some kind of sociopath, doesn't he? The affectedness of his whole "Hello, internet! I'm perky and beautiful and so are you (except for the darkies)!" schtick couldn't be more, well, affected. He gives me the impression of thinking that playing an Objectivist Overman on the internets convincingly enough is the best way to become one.
IIRC Washington recognizes a tort of outrage, aka intentional infliction of emotional distress. If I were looking at suing the guy, I'd look into that as well as privacy-related torts.
But I'm still not sure that the best solution isn't just for a large angry man with little left to lose to make it abundantly clear to Mr. Fortuny that this sort of shit is not OK.
I just did a little reading, and 'public disclosure of embarassing private facts' is looking more viable than I thought it would. I'd say the issue that would be most in question is whether facts that you have voluntarily mailed to someone you don't know count as private, or whether they've been disclosed enough by your actions that you no longer have an interest in concealing them, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's an unsettled question.
Goodness only knows how to calculate damages.
IIRC Washington recognizes a tort of outrage, aka intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I thought that was almost impossible to win -- you really needed someone to tell you, falsely, in front of your assembled family, that your husband who you thought had been killed last week had been seen, alive, on Fifth Avenue, having sex with a donkey, and was then hit by a bus. Short of that, no outrage. Actually, having written that out, maybe this isn't that far off.
I don't know the law, but I read enough badly written philosophy of law articles to ask: isn't there something about the relevance of the information to the public sphere that affects liability? That is, can't I get in trouble if I know an embarassing secret about someone and print it, causing them harm, even if it's true, if there's not a good reason (like they're a politician or something) that I would have to broadcast the information?
I think the last paragraph of 44 is right, including the last sentence. The guy was just purely fucking with strangers' lives in a really serious way in order to provide some trivial entertainment for himself and his friends. That's pretty outrageous, perhaps even in the technical sense. Not to mention plain ol' evil.
45: Yes, exactly. The 'public disclosure of embarassing private information' tort I mentioned has an out for real news or matters of public interest -- publishing that I'm having an affair is probably tortious even if true, because no one but I and my loved ones has any interest in it, while publishing that George Bush is having an affair isn't tortious because it's a legitimate subject of prurient public interest.
46: Yeah, I started 44 thinking "don't be silly, nothing counts as outrage, it has to be really, really ridiculously evil." And then I realized, "Hey, this is kind of really really ridiculously evil."
My philosophy of law: theorizing is all very interesting, but in a fight between the most brilliant lawprof and the person in the black dress who barely passed torts, the black dress wins every time.
I'm not a lawyer, but reading over Washington's libel law, it appears that Fortuny is quite exposed. The fact that what he published was true is quite irrelevant as far as this law is concerned: libel 'shall tend...to expose any living person to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or to deprive him of the benefit of public confidence or social intercourse.' Fortuny has been quite open about this being his intent, if I'm not mistaken.
It seems to boil down to the same thing the EFF guy says: if he can argue that he published it with 'good motives and for justifiable ends' then he's off the hook. Since I'm not a lawyer I don't know if this is easier than it sounds; as a layman it's quite obvious that he's acting with malice, and his acts since publishing this stuff seem to be specifically designed to drive that point home. Then again, maybe all he has to do is prove that he felt like he was doing the world a service.
Pretty much every comment he's made on his site builds the case that he was doing it for "lulz"; he's going to be swimming upstream against his record to make a public benefit case.
Does much of this turn on (a) the electronic format or (b) that the victims didn't know Fortuny? Does anything change if this had been paper-based, or if Fortuny was the jilted lover printing letters sent in confidence?
Also, looking at Washington's blackmail law, it appears that Fortuny would be in big trouble if he threatened to do what he did. But it's not at all clear that just doing it is illegal. Kinda weird, no?
Truth isn't irrelevant, although you're right that in Washington it doesn't seem to be a total defense (which I find surprising -- it is in the states I'm familiar with). See from your link:
Every publication having the tendency or effect mentioned in RCW 9.58.010 shall be deemed malicious unless justified or excused. Such publication is justified whenever the matter charged as libelous charges the commission of a crime, is a true and fair statement, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends. It is excused when honestly made in belief of its truth and fairness and upon reasonable grounds for such belief, and consists of fair comments upon the conduct of any person in respect of public affairs, made after a fair and impartial investigation.
Now, that still seems to cover Fortuny's behavior in a manner corresponding to the 'publication of embarrassing private information' tort -- it looks as though the WA statute rolls the two torts together.
57: This is where me not being a lawyer is relevant... but it seems like that passage says libel is excused when it consists of fair comments upon the conduct of any person in respect of public affairs (and the other stuff). This is rather obviously not in respect of public affairs, so does it apply?
Well, if it's true and charges the commission of a crime (is adultery a crime in WA? Attempted adultery?) and it's for good ends it's okay, even if it's not of public interest. But you're right that what truth exception there is doesn't seem to cover Fortuny's actions.
I find this surprising -- in most states (I think) truth is an absolute defense to defamation. But it does seem to be the case in Washington. What it looks like to me is that the WA legislature wanted to write a statute covering two common-law torts: defamation and that publication of private information thing I was talking about above, and so rolled them together into one statute rather than having a defamation statute saying truth is an absolute defense, and a separate publication of private information statute saying that you can't do this regardless of truth.
Isn't the law great? Who would have thought that language out of 19th-century melodrama would be a real-life legal term? I can't help thinking of someone in a frock coat bellowing "This, sir, is an outrage!" while reaching for the horsewhip.
And as for British land law, it's more like a 14th-century melodrama. Just imagine what would happen if a case involved both soccage and scutage.
Generally in the USA when we see a law being invoked that involves a hilarious-sounding anachronistic term, it is being used as a very last resort to defend a racist status quo.
Or flotsam, jetsam, and the frequently forgotten ligam.
I worked on a case a few years ago relating to 'trespass to chattel': an almost defunct tort more familiar within the family in the words "Moooom! She touched my stuff!" But clever people figured out how to apply it to spam.
Of course, the person from whom he stole the ad text and picture might have a case for copyright infringement...
I certainly wouldn't hire an IT person who had proven himself capable of releasing sensitive data for his own amusement. Let's hope that Seattle-area companies feel the same. Or that he does get a job and discovers one night that his co-workers are all kinky vampires with a thirst for revenge.
Karma being what it is, I see "re-incarnated as a dung beetle" in his future.
The world being full of shit, dung beetle is too good for him. Maybe he can come back as the last polar bear, slowly starving to death in an Arctic that closely resembles Orange County.
66- arguably, outing someone is illegal under these same theories, particularly if done intentionally and with malice. There's some splits on this among the various states, I think, probably relating to how potentially damaging being outed is in various communities across the country.
Oh, relating to all sorts of stuff. This kind of tort law is way, way inconsistent from state to state -- while there are general themes, the details are all over the place.
I think that the internet as opposed to other means of communication or publication is significant only in that unfamiliarity increases the odds a judge will do something screwy -- it shouldn't be a factor, but it adds some randomness.
66: Certain kinky things are technically illegal in some states [California being one of them, having determined that its citizens need protection against consensual contact with the riding crop, a lethal weapon] even if no one is ever prosecuted these days. People who wouldn't dare fire a gay guy will fire a kinky one. If nothing else, there is more social disapprobrium evinced against the BDSM crowd - "common" wisdom [read: ignorance] is that they're all sociopaths/victims of pathologies - than against gays.
I suspect that, deep down, what the Embryonic Dung Beetle really wants is to lick some high-heeled boots and beg 'Please, Mistress, may I have another'.
74: Yes, one doesn't need to be a professor of English to find themes aplenty. A frail young man of uncertain parentage, kept vital only by synthetic sex hormone, lashes out at the most aggressively sexual men around him as part of an attempt at seduction. It's like Elric of Craiglist or something.
"Consortium" is (among other things) the value of a spouse's company in and of itself, over above earning power, pension benefits or other more material values. In a wrongful death suit it has to be assigned a cash value.
It's never happened, but I don't understand why not: it seems to me that if a guy was just no damn good at all, abusive and unemployed, the widow should owe money to the insurance company.
62 reminds me of 1066 and All That: "To extract from the Villein saccage and soccage, tollage and tallage, pillage and ullage, and, in extreme cases, all other banorial amenities such as umbrage and porrage" were among the duties of barons under the futile system.
Oh it's written in the village rolls
That if one plough-team wants an oxen
And that oxen is lent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the loooord's consent.
Yeah, yeah,
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent.
1066 And All That! I haven't thought of that book in years! My granpa convinced me to read it when I was 10, and I didn't get it at all. I did learn what a "surfeit" was, though. Is it worth going back and re-reading?
Also, looking at Washington's blackmail law, it appears that Fortuny would be in big trouble if he threatened to do what he did. But it's not at all clear that just doing it is illegal. Kinda weird, no?
There are something on the order of a jibbity-billion articles on this so-called paradox of blackmail if you're interested.
One fun example that I saw when looking at a book on loopholes in law and in morality is the following [paraphrased]: Melinda and Emily are both actresses. Melinda is more talented, and every time they both audition for a part Melinda gets it. Emily hears about an upcoming audition for a part which, she thinks, will be a huge boost to her career if she gets it. But she knows Melinda is also planning to audition for it, and that Melinda always gets the part when they both audition. So she is sunk. But she has a trump card: Emily knows Melinda has been cheating on her husband. One thing she could do is write a letter to Melinda saying, "If you show up for the audition for that part, I will tell your husband you've been cheating on him." But this is exactly the paradigm of blackmail.
Instead, Emily decides to write a letter to Melinda's husband detailing what she knows about his cuckoldry and how she knows it. She mails this letter, and then calls Melinda to truthfully tell her that she has mailed a letter containing truthful information about Melinda's adulte
ry, said letter to arrive during the audition.
What is the (moral and legal) status of what Emily has now done?
[End paraphrase.] I don't remember anything in the facts as presented dealing with the outlandish possibility of rescheduling the audition.
I had a defamation case in the early 90s in Washington -- product disparagement, actually. (Apples, if you must know). The statutes are, as usual, not the whole story. IIRC, AIMN, NYT has some application even when one is not dealing with a public figure.
Unrelated, but I also once filed a complaint alleging detinue or, in the alternative, trover. And I'm filing a brief tomorrow that actually cites Hadley v. Baxendale. I'm working on a way to work Somersett's Case into a suit I have going -- anytime you can use Lord Mansfield is a good time. IME, bringing the judge into the historical sweep works. The trick is you have to believe in it yourself to make it work.
And try explaining to a dotty old [but veryvery rich] control freak that law deriving from a decision made in the 14th century invalidates a desired provision in his estate plan that would dictate to his descendants of the umpteenth generation.
97: As setting a standard for the purity of air? Admittedly, you need a slave for testing purposes -- if they find themselves freed by breathing it, you know the air is of equivalent purity to 18thC England.
98: I thought that a couple of states had done away with the Rule Against Perpetuities, the better to attract the investment dollars of control freaks.
100 -- There was a book out last year or the year before arguing that Somersett's case was a primary cause of the Revolution. It makes colonists' complaints about being 'reduced to slavery' ring particularly hollow.
The couple of reviews I just skimmed suggest that the book overstates its case. Which is not to say that slavery wasn't an important issue for the revolutionaries, just that Somerset may not have been as significant as the authors say.
I'm not sure if Somerset was specifically cited as precedent in American cases, but there were a bunch of cases in Missouri in the 1820s to 1830s where slaves sued for and won their freedom based on the fact that their owners had taken them to live in free states/territories for a few years and thus should not be re-enslaved when they came to Missouri. So part of the reasoning of Somerset, if I understand it correctly (admittedly, I've never studied it) was carried over into parts of the US legal system. (There were similar cases in some other states.)
According to those precedents Dred Scott could have won his freedom too - he'd lived in a free territory for a while before being brought to Missouri - and Somerset, the Missouri cases, and some others are all mentioned in some of the Scott opinions. Obviously the majority didn't agree to follow them.
(This comment is based pretty much entirely on the intro to this book.
98: Sounds like the rule in Shelley's case, or the rule against perpetuities. In Ireland we still have the Statue of Uses to watch out for, and the requirement to use words of limitation in a deed (both gone in England/Wales for the last 80 years). Also the tort of criminal conversation where a husband could sue his wife's lover for damages was only abolished in 1981.
And try explaining to a dotty old [but veryvery rich] control freak that law deriving from a decision made in the 14th century invalidates a desired provision in his estate plan that would dictate to his descendants of the umpteenth generation.
101 - I think South Dakota has. One of the Dakotas. They were running a lucrative business in perpetual land trusts when I last looked, which was some time ago.
Then there was the estate with the will that had 23 pages of "if my beneficiaries do X, they're disinherited". Breathing wasn't specifically listed, but it was implied. Many things had to clarified by the judge, and it became a monthly treat for estate lawyers to sit in on the hearings. For instance: If a provision disinherits anyone who enters a house of worship other than a synagogue for any reason other than to attend a wedding or a funeral, does that mean no touring Westminster Abbey on holiday in London? Or are we talking house-of-worship-during- services? How about the Parthenon, once a temple of Athena, but now singularly lacking a congregation, as well as much of its original architecture? We used to take bets on the rulings.
105: Yes, indeed. Someone in my old office once did a rap song on the RAP; I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
75: The Gayatollah, having parked his flying Koran, and exhausted from his long day awakening Republican women to their deep seated lesbian passions so they would no longer menace the world, began rummaging around in the pockets of his pink fur lined cape for his house keys at the door to his ramshackle, unheated house in Scenic Collegeville, which concealed his poshly appointed underground lair--some might even have called it a dungeon--when his Tighty Whitey Sense tingled, and he turned around. He saw a curiously pale young man with refined, almost feminine, features weaving about in the bushes.
The young man, upon realizing he was being observed, leapt to the attack. "En garde!" he yelled, brandishing a sword that seemed curiously small for its scabbard. "Blackguard, I am Jason Fortuny, and I saw thy n00dz!"
"Son, so did half of Chelsea," said The Gayatollah. "Your point being? (And nice cape.)"
"You are humiliated! Exposed! Unmanned! N00dz! Totally pwned! Teh L4m3r!" his voice became increasingly chirpy and shrill with each passing word.
The Gayatollah looked up at the sky. He felt tempted, for a moment, to ask some force greater even than superkoranic fellatio power for a reprieve, but he knew that with great power came great responsibility, and no one could show this man, forcibly, the path of righteousness, like he could.
"Come into my house, young man," rumbled The Gayatollah. "You can check my premises."
"I already know your premises are phallicious--I mean fallacious."
"I will show you how much you'll like suckling on my productive achievements."
"NEVAIR!" screamed the young Jason. He rushed towards The Gayatollah, intending to stab him in the heart, but in the end, collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
"It's okay, Jason," said The Gayatollah. "Soon you will know the joys of AA=".
No way, the dude's an Objectivist? Am I the only one who thinks that having one's prejudices confirmed is one of the most pleasant experiences in life?
My first clue that something was seriously wrong should have been his about page, which talks about how Fortuny is THE MAN who can get away with things that ordinary people can't, you know, like...Ferris Bueller.
It looks like we're in for a reversal of Fortuny.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 9:04 AM
His alias should be Fortuny Labs.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 9:07 AM
Fortuny did not immediately respond to e-mails from The Associated Press, and calls Monday to his telephone number generated a message saying the subscriber ''is not in service."
He's been killed! These enterprising reporters should give up on this phone stuff and start dredging the Snoqualmie River.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 9:08 AM
He's been killed!
More likely he's just entered the Asshole Protection Program, and will live out the rest of his life disguised as a perfectly nice guy, somewhere in Itawamba County, Miss.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:01 AM
Hi Anderson! Glad to see you back. (Everyone else, Anderson is a good commenter at LGM, so -- well, I'm not sure exactly what to say but certainly my pleasure at seeing him is unfeigned.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:28 AM
You know, I don't wish violence on him, but it would make me very happy to hear that Fortuny, by pure happenstance, saw some hugely ripped, steroids-feasting abomination appearing to follow him through the parking lot at, say, the mall - when in fact the Hulk was simply parked next to him - and that the paranoia kicked in for him in that moment and he's now cancelled his cell service, locked up his house and is hiding behind a friend's couch.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:38 AM
I don't endorse harming him physically, but if it happened, I have to admit I'd probably experience some schadenfreude.
My hope is that people just stop calling him for jobs. Do objectivists get unemployment benefits?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:45 AM
A certain professor I work for teaches a certain class in which this affair would be a richly illustrative example, and I'm happy that it has now appeared in a respectable newspaper so I could send her the story without appearing to spend my day reading objectivist LiveJournals
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:53 AM
How about false advertising law? Could they get him on that?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:56 AM
Hi Anderson! Glad to see you back.
You know, I had the craziest dream about being in some other thread about this Fortuny guy ... gotta quit mixing the bourbon and Scotch.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:56 AM
"You know, it is totally proof of the encroachment of the state on the individual that I find myself cashing this unemployment check. Why won't you people just let me control my own destiny?"
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 10:59 AM
11: I think John Galt just rapes the woman behind the desk, then takes the money as payment for services rendered.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:10 AM
12: I think you're mistaken, Labs. You've forgotten that "A = A." From which follows that there are no conditions under which an Objectivist would be unemployed.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:13 AM
12: Then he smokes a cigarette with a dollar sign on it to symbolize a rational civilization.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:22 AM
The chief contribution of "A=A" is that it provides a short, convenient way of announcing to the world that one is a crank. Mwwaaah, the objectivist crackpot has always been celebrated for its excellence.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:27 AM
#15: And then there's AAAAAY, which provides a short, convenient way of announcing to the world that one is The Fonz.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:39 AM
When The Fonz snorts crank, he announces that AAAAAY=AAAAAY.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:41 AM
Also, mononucleosis = teh suck.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:41 AM
Mwwaaah, the objectivist crackpot has always been celebrated for its excellence.
Bless you, Labs, bless you.
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:46 AM
He's likely the sort of skeeve that would take the unemployment benefits and turn around and endorse voting against them because only lazy people use them.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:17 PM
The more I think about this, the more I think that a little vigilante justice wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened. The guy did something incredibly destructive for reasons that are basically just evil, and it's tough to see legal action (civil or criminal) being very effective. Private violence to enforce social norms is seldom if ever a good thing, but this case might be the exception.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:23 PM
21: We can send in the Fightin' 34th Armed-with-Mono Apostropher Brigade. One make-out session with apo and this guy's out for several weeks.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:29 PM
Poor Apo. You're going to need more than 3 hours sleep/night for a while.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:36 PM
Another weird aspect of this is that his livejournal reveals him to be a complete tool. I quoted the bits about how he doesn't like black people, and his careful, temperate remarks about Katrina victims have been widely circulated. Once again, well-played!
Even if nothing bad happens legally, and if no prospective employer refuses to hire him because of the CL thing, he still looks like an ass in public.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:36 PM
The thing that bugs me most about the tautologies-for-section-titles thing that goes on in Atlas Shrugged is that she thinks she is displaying rationality, when really she is displaying dogmatism. She is saying "no I am not going to give arguments for my views; they are self evident."
That may have been obvious, but I had to get it off my chest.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:37 PM
Another weird aspect of this is that his livejournal reveals him to be a complete tool.
What's so weird about this? Isn't it just what you'd have expected? Besides, he's not a tool, he's courageously telling the truths others don't want to hear.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:43 PM
I'm with Labs. Read the guy's LJ, and you realize that he (and the other person who helped him with this stunt) is so thoroughly an asshole that he'd never survive in the Asshole Protection Program. He'd go to the local church bingo game and start trolling the old ladies and such.
The really just thing would be if he had some horrible, searing secret that got revealed as a consequence of his stunt.
Posted by Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:45 PM
I take it to be weird in this way, Ben. Most people who enjoy talking about how lame black people are at least know that such talk has to stay quiet. This guy says things that most people abhor (and he knows this) then makes his site superfamous.
I keep looking for the way in which this counts as a victory for him, and I keep coming up short.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:48 PM
The really just thing would be if he had some horrible, searing secret that got revealed as a consequence of his stunt.
Except that we can't anticipate what would be searing to him; most people would think seeminly racist comments would qualify, but he doesn't.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:49 PM
Tim, what would count as a horrible secret that *isn't* revealed already? Already he's gone on about
(i) weird health problems involving low testosterone levels;
(ii) the rise and fall of his relationship with his fiancee;
(iii) that his mom was sleeping with enough guys at the time of his conception that there's genuine uncertainty about who his father is;
(iv) some other shit that I can't think of right now.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:53 PM
In my highly detailed fantasy life, dude's dad gets in touch with him after all these years as a result of this story and he's black.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:01 PM
Yes, I too had imagined the Black Father, but have you seen the dude? Pale.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:02 PM
Yes, true, but in my HDFL this is some unexpected manifestation of his whole Mystery Illness.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:12 PM
Honkemia.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:17 PM
30: Here's a horrible secret to try on for size. Maybe Fortuny is still posting Craigslist personals! It certainly wouldn't be uncharacteristic from what we know from his LJ. Perhaps a little infiltration is in order?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:23 PM
34: Honkonucleosis?
(BTW, if y'all need anything while you're under the weather, just let us know.)
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:28 PM
Happy Birthday Devin!
Being with you is just like heaven
When you touch my special place, I purr or growl or make the cute face
And when I rub your bum, you squeal happy, cause you know you're gonna get some
The first night we met was quite a high
We got it on in front of a homeless guy
We snuck back to your place for first date sex
And that's when you broke my first date hex
I knew you were the woman for me
When I didn't feel bad about giving it up for free
You make me special dinners with love and care
And after dinner, you even scratch my hair
We snuggle on the couch watching Conan O'Brien
I when I say that makes me happy, you know I'm not lyin'
Believe me when I say you're the best
And not just because you let me touch your breast
You're so patient with me and my internet antics
You forgive me when I'm acting like multiple pricks
But you make me want to be a better man
You're like the army, making me the best I can
So I salute you on your birthday, lover
And after I type this, I'm going to join you under your cover
I wish everyone could have a girl like you
(Except for Jameth cause he's a gay jew)
Then they would know the peace and content I feel in my heart-y
When we sit down to watch Alex host Jeopardy
I'm going to love you forever and ever
And don't think I'll leave, cause it'll happen NEVER
No woman can compare to your beauty and grace
Or the tingling feeling I get when I kiss your face
When we cum my toes curl, and you're quite a yeller
I'm Chandler Bing and you're Monica Geller
So Happy Birthday, my favorite Sexycat
Daddy's here to love you, and that's all I have to say about that
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:33 PM
So is somebody going to start restoring all of those [redacted] comments now?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:36 PM
I haven't been clicking through and reading much on this, but please say you found that somewhere rather than composing it, FL.
Otherwise, I'm frightened.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:37 PM
LB, I wrote it just for you. In exchange, what's your lawyerly take on this?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:39 PM
Practically, DaveL's right -- no point in suing him, he's judgment proof.
Legally, I'd have to do the research. It's not defamation, because it's true. There's a tort relating to the exposure of embarrassing private information, but I haven't run into it in the wild, and I don't know what the parameters are. My wild-ass, uneducated guess is that I'd be surprised if Fortuny's liable for much here, because that sort of tort tends to be very narrowly drawn; I don't know that there isn't a case against him, but I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:54 PM
Tim, what would count as a horrible secret that *isn't* revealed already?
I'm imagining some shameful random CL hookup from whom he's afraid he contracted some horrible disease.
I'm not interested enough to read his entire journal, but he certainly wants people to think he's some kind of sociopath, doesn't he? The affectedness of his whole "Hello, internet! I'm perky and beautiful and so are you (except for the darkies)!" schtick couldn't be more, well, affected. He gives me the impression of thinking that playing an Objectivist Overman on the internets convincingly enough is the best way to become one.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:06 PM
IIRC Washington recognizes a tort of outrage, aka intentional infliction of emotional distress. If I were looking at suing the guy, I'd look into that as well as privacy-related torts.
But I'm still not sure that the best solution isn't just for a large angry man with little left to lose to make it abundantly clear to Mr. Fortuny that this sort of shit is not OK.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:09 PM
I just did a little reading, and 'public disclosure of embarassing private facts' is looking more viable than I thought it would. I'd say the issue that would be most in question is whether facts that you have voluntarily mailed to someone you don't know count as private, or whether they've been disclosed enough by your actions that you no longer have an interest in concealing them, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's an unsettled question.
Goodness only knows how to calculate damages.
IIRC Washington recognizes a tort of outrage, aka intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I thought that was almost impossible to win -- you really needed someone to tell you, falsely, in front of your assembled family, that your husband who you thought had been killed last week had been seen, alive, on Fifth Avenue, having sex with a donkey, and was then hit by a bus. Short of that, no outrage. Actually, having written that out, maybe this isn't that far off.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:16 PM
I don't know the law, but I read enough badly written philosophy of law articles to ask: isn't there something about the relevance of the information to the public sphere that affects liability? That is, can't I get in trouble if I know an embarassing secret about someone and print it, causing them harm, even if it's true, if there's not a good reason (like they're a politician or something) that I would have to broadcast the information?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:18 PM
I think the last paragraph of 44 is right, including the last sentence. The guy was just purely fucking with strangers' lives in a really serious way in order to provide some trivial entertainment for himself and his friends. That's pretty outrageous, perhaps even in the technical sense. Not to mention plain ol' evil.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:19 PM
45: Yes, exactly. The 'public disclosure of embarassing private information' tort I mentioned has an out for real news or matters of public interest -- publishing that I'm having an affair is probably tortious even if true, because no one but I and my loved ones has any interest in it, while publishing that George Bush is having an affair isn't tortious because it's a legitimate subject of prurient public interest.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:21 PM
46: Yeah, I started 44 thinking "don't be silly, nothing counts as outrage, it has to be really, really ridiculously evil." And then I realized, "Hey, this is kind of really really ridiculously evil."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:28 PM
Yay! I learned something in philosophy of law!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:29 PM
My philosophy of law: theorizing is all very interesting, but in a fight between the most brilliant lawprof and the person in the black dress who barely passed torts, the black dress wins every time.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:32 PM
I'm not a lawyer, but reading over Washington's libel law, it appears that Fortuny is quite exposed. The fact that what he published was true is quite irrelevant as far as this law is concerned: libel 'shall tend...to expose any living person to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or to deprive him of the benefit of public confidence or social intercourse.' Fortuny has been quite open about this being his intent, if I'm not mistaken.
It seems to boil down to the same thing the EFF guy says: if he can argue that he published it with 'good motives and for justifiable ends' then he's off the hook. Since I'm not a lawyer I don't know if this is easier than it sounds; as a layman it's quite obvious that he's acting with malice, and his acts since publishing this stuff seem to be specifically designed to drive that point home. Then again, maybe all he has to do is prove that he felt like he was doing the world a service.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:37 PM
Pretty much every comment he's made on his site builds the case that he was doing it for "lulz"; he's going to be swimming upstream against his record to make a public benefit case.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:39 PM
Does much of this turn on (a) the electronic format or (b) that the victims didn't know Fortuny? Does anything change if this had been paper-based, or if Fortuny was the jilted lover printing letters sent in confidence?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:39 PM
I think the answer to both (a) and (b) in 53 is "no." At least not for any of the torts in question.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:41 PM
Also, looking at Washington's blackmail law, it appears that Fortuny would be in big trouble if he threatened to do what he did. But it's not at all clear that just doing it is illegal. Kinda weird, no?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:41 PM
Also he and Miller described the action as low, nasty, etc. There's no plausibility to the idea that he was crusading against adultery or anything.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:42 PM
Truth isn't irrelevant, although you're right that in Washington it doesn't seem to be a total defense (which I find surprising -- it is in the states I'm familiar with). See from your link:
Now, that still seems to cover Fortuny's behavior in a manner corresponding to the 'publication of embarrassing private information' tort -- it looks as though the WA statute rolls the two torts together.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 2:42 PM
57: This is where me not being a lawyer is relevant... but it seems like that passage says libel is excused when it consists of fair comments upon the conduct of any person in respect of public affairs (and the other stuff). This is rather obviously not in respect of public affairs, so does it apply?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 3:21 PM
Well, if it's true and charges the commission of a crime (is adultery a crime in WA? Attempted adultery?) and it's for good ends it's okay, even if it's not of public interest. But you're right that what truth exception there is doesn't seem to cover Fortuny's actions.
I find this surprising -- in most states (I think) truth is an absolute defense to defamation. But it does seem to be the case in Washington. What it looks like to me is that the WA legislature wanted to write a statute covering two common-law torts: defamation and that publication of private information thing I was talking about above, and so rolled them together into one statute rather than having a defamation statute saying truth is an absolute defense, and a separate publication of private information statute saying that you can't do this regardless of truth.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 3:32 PM
Isn't the law great? Who would have thought that language out of 19th-century melodrama would be a real-life legal term? I can't help thinking of someone in a frock coat bellowing "This, sir, is an outrage!" while reaching for the horsewhip.
Posted by Basil Valentine | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:01 PM
It's a darn good thing that the tort of outrage is hard to prove. I'd be in court all day every day, one way or the other.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:19 PM
And as for British land law, it's more like a 14th-century melodrama. Just imagine what would happen if a case involved both soccage and scutage.
Generally in the USA when we see a law being invoked that involves a hilarious-sounding anachronistic term, it is being used as a very last resort to defend a racist status quo.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:22 PM
Apparently this has never been baked.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:29 PM
Or flotsam, jetsam, and the frequently forgotten ligam.
I worked on a case a few years ago relating to 'trespass to chattel': an almost defunct tort more familiar within the family in the words "Moooom! She touched my stuff!" But clever people figured out how to apply it to spam.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:31 PM
Of course, the person from whom he stole the ad text and picture might have a case for copyright infringement...
I certainly wouldn't hire an IT person who had proven himself capable of releasing sensitive data for his own amusement. Let's hope that Seattle-area companies feel the same. Or that he does get a job and discovers one night that his co-workers are all kinky vampires with a thirst for revenge.
Karma being what it is, I see "re-incarnated as a dung beetle" in his future.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:37 PM
Is outing people as gay on the interwebs illegal? How is this more damaging to Hypothetical Non-Public Figure X than outing them as gay would be?
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:39 PM
The world being full of shit, dung beetle is too good for him. Maybe he can come back as the last polar bear, slowly starving to death in an Arctic that closely resembles Orange County.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:39 PM
66- arguably, outing someone is illegal under these same theories, particularly if done intentionally and with malice. There's some splits on this among the various states, I think, probably relating to how potentially damaging being outed is in various communities across the country.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:52 PM
Oh, relating to all sorts of stuff. This kind of tort law is way, way inconsistent from state to state -- while there are general themes, the details are all over the place.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:55 PM
68. Of course. I just seem to suspect, and vaguely recall, that being a significant factor.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:56 PM
68 s/b 69.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 5:57 PM
I think that the internet as opposed to other means of communication or publication is significant only in that unfamiliarity increases the odds a judge will do something screwy -- it shouldn't be a factor, but it adds some randomness.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 6:03 PM
Sorry, for some reason I interpreted the 'that' in 70 as referring to 66. Without that assumption, 72 makes no sense.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 6:05 PM
66: Certain kinky things are technically illegal in some states [California being one of them, having determined that its citizens need protection against consensual contact with the riding crop, a lethal weapon] even if no one is ever prosecuted these days. People who wouldn't dare fire a gay guy will fire a kinky one. If nothing else, there is more social disapprobrium evinced against the BDSM crowd - "common" wisdom [read: ignorance] is that they're all sociopaths/victims of pathologies - than against gays.
I suspect that, deep down, what the Embryonic Dung Beetle really wants is to lick some high-heeled boots and beg 'Please, Mistress, may I have another'.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 6:07 PM
74: Yes, one doesn't need to be a professor of English to find themes aplenty. A frail young man of uncertain parentage, kept vital only by synthetic sex hormone, lashes out at the most aggressively sexual men around him as part of an attempt at seduction. It's like Elric of Craiglist or something.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 6:28 PM
61 is one of my favorite comments ever.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 6:35 PM
"Consortium" is (among other things) the value of a spouse's company in and of itself, over above earning power, pension benefits or other more material values. In a wrongful death suit it has to be assigned a cash value.
It's never happened, but I don't understand why not: it seems to me that if a guy was just no damn good at all, abusive and unemployed, the widow should owe money to the insurance company.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 7:08 PM
62 reminds me of 1066 and All That: "To extract from the Villein saccage and soccage, tollage and tallage, pillage and ullage, and, in extreme cases, all other banorial amenities such as umbrage and porrage" were among the duties of barons under the futile system.
Posted by Basil Valentine | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 7:12 PM
Oh it's written in the village rolls
That if one plough-team wants an oxen
And that oxen is lent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the loooord's consent.
Yeah, yeah,
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
(na na na na)
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent
Then the villeins and the ploughmen got to have the lord's consent.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 7:24 PM
1066 And All That! I haven't thought of that book in years! My granpa convinced me to read it when I was 10, and I didn't get it at all. I did learn what a "surfeit" was, though. Is it worth going back and re-reading?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 7:58 PM
Also, looking at Washington's blackmail law, it appears that Fortuny would be in big trouble if he threatened to do what he did. But it's not at all clear that just doing it is illegal. Kinda weird, no?
There are something on the order of a jibbity-billion articles on this so-called paradox of blackmail if you're interested.
One fun example that I saw when looking at a book on loopholes in law and in morality is the following [paraphrased]: Melinda and Emily are both actresses. Melinda is more talented, and every time they both audition for a part Melinda gets it. Emily hears about an upcoming audition for a part which, she thinks, will be a huge boost to her career if she gets it. But she knows Melinda is also planning to audition for it, and that Melinda always gets the part when they both audition. So she is sunk. But she has a trump card: Emily knows Melinda has been cheating on her husband. One thing she could do is write a letter to Melinda saying, "If you show up for the audition for that part, I will tell your husband you've been cheating on him." But this is exactly the paradigm of blackmail.
Instead, Emily decides to write a letter to Melinda's husband detailing what she knows about his cuckoldry and how she knows it. She mails this letter, and then calls Melinda to truthfully tell her that she has mailed a letter containing truthful information about Melinda's adulte
ry, said letter to arrive during the audition.
What is the (moral and legal) status of what Emily has now done?
[End paraphrase.] I don't remember anything in the facts as presented dealing with the outlandish possibility of rescheduling the audition.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:05 PM
80: Yes. Not reading 1066 and All That is a Bad Thing.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:06 PM
82# but I've read it - should I re-read it?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:14 PM
I had a defamation case in the early 90s in Washington -- product disparagement, actually. (Apples, if you must know). The statutes are, as usual, not the whole story. IIRC, AIMN, NYT has some application even when one is not dealing with a public figure.
Unrelated, but I also once filed a complaint alleging detinue or, in the alternative, trover. And I'm filing a brief tomorrow that actually cites Hadley v. Baxendale. I'm working on a way to work Somersett's Case into a suit I have going -- anytime you can use Lord Mansfield is a good time. IME, bringing the judge into the historical sweep works. The trick is you have to believe in it yourself to make it work.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:14 PM
I never read 1066 and All That, but I have read The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, which I've heard is similar. I liked it a lot.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:16 PM
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody is the book I have read.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:17 PM
My fucked-up formatting in 85 seems to have mysteriously fixed itself while I was clarifying.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:18 PM
Dammit.
I'll always hold it against law school that we read Hadley but not Somersett
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:19 PM
Mysterious, isn't it.
Posted by Formatting Elves | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:20 PM
I was surprised by the speed. Less than a minute.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:20 PM
I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:20 PM
Holy shit, when did Gatemouth Brown die?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:21 PM
I didn't even know he was sick.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:22 PM
There are teams of elves hard at work at all times desperately trying to save the internet from the effects of certain blundering oxen.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:24 PM
The song in #91 I first discovered in Portishead's BBC Essential Mix, which is worth risking the wrath of the whole RIAA to download and listen to.
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:25 PM
84: How is Somersett's Case going to come up? A case under the Clean Air Act?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:26 PM
Hey, I just got a briefed into a Clean Air case today! You see a way to use Somersett?
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:40 PM
And try explaining to a dotty old [but veryvery rich] control freak that law deriving from a decision made in the 14th century invalidates a desired provision in his estate plan that would dictate to his descendants of the umpteenth generation.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:43 PM
97: As setting a standard for the purity of air? Admittedly, you need a slave for testing purposes -- if they find themselves freed by breathing it, you know the air is of equivalent purity to 18thC England.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:48 PM
99: this case is starting to sound really interesting.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:55 PM
98: I thought that a couple of states had done away with the Rule Against Perpetuities, the better to attract the investment dollars of control freaks.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 8:58 PM
Cute, LB.
I've hated the RAP since before I missed the unborn widow question on the bar exam. Or a fertile octegenarian, I forget which.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 9:06 PM
100 -- There was a book out last year or the year before arguing that Somersett's case was a primary cause of the Revolution. It makes colonists' complaints about being 'reduced to slavery' ring particularly hollow.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 9:11 PM
The couple of reviews I just skimmed suggest that the book overstates its case. Which is not to say that slavery wasn't an important issue for the revolutionaries, just that Somerset may not have been as significant as the authors say.
I'm not sure if Somerset was specifically cited as precedent in American cases, but there were a bunch of cases in Missouri in the 1820s to 1830s where slaves sued for and won their freedom based on the fact that their owners had taken them to live in free states/territories for a few years and thus should not be re-enslaved when they came to Missouri. So part of the reasoning of Somerset, if I understand it correctly (admittedly, I've never studied it) was carried over into parts of the US legal system. (There were similar cases in some other states.)
According to those precedents Dred Scott could have won his freedom too - he'd lived in a free territory for a while before being brought to Missouri - and Somerset, the Missouri cases, and some others are all mentioned in some of the Scott opinions. Obviously the majority didn't agree to follow them.
(This comment is based pretty much entirely on the intro to this book.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 11:47 PM
98: Sounds like the rule in Shelley's case, or the rule against perpetuities. In Ireland we still have the Statue of Uses to watch out for, and the requirement to use words of limitation in a deed (both gone in England/Wales for the last 80 years). Also the tort of criminal conversation where a husband could sue his wife's lover for damages was only abolished in 1981.
Posted by Emir | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 5:16 AM
And try explaining to a dotty old [but veryvery rich] control freak that law deriving from a decision made in the 14th century invalidates a desired provision in his estate plan that would dictate to his descendants of the umpteenth generation.
Try "What do you care? You'll be dead."
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 5:56 AM
I worked on a case a few years ago relating to 'trespass to chattel'
Hey, I filed a complaint on that a few months ago! The last case in Mississippi was, like, from 1953 or something.
Tho in this case, it was *Mom* touching the stuff.
Anyway it's too stupid a case for me to hope it doesn't settle.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:01 AM
Try "What do you care? You'll be dead."
What are you trying to do, impoverish half the legal profession? What kind of sicko are you?
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:02 AM
Or flotsam, jetsam, and the frequently forgotten ligam
If you mean ligan, why are you excluding the much more exciting derelict? If you mean lingam, I think you're looking for this thread.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:09 AM
101 - I think South Dakota has. One of the Dakotas. They were running a lucrative business in perpetual land trusts when I last looked, which was some time ago.
Then there was the estate with the will that had 23 pages of "if my beneficiaries do X, they're disinherited". Breathing wasn't specifically listed, but it was implied. Many things had to clarified by the judge, and it became a monthly treat for estate lawyers to sit in on the hearings. For instance: If a provision disinherits anyone who enters a house of worship other than a synagogue for any reason other than to attend a wedding or a funeral, does that mean no touring Westminster Abbey on holiday in London? Or are we talking house-of-worship-during- services? How about the Parthenon, once a temple of Athena, but now singularly lacking a congregation, as well as much of its original architecture? We used to take bets on the rulings.
105: Yes, indeed. Someone in my old office once did a rap song on the RAP; I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:26 AM
92: Gatemouth died about a year ago. As you'd know if you read my blog.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:34 AM
75: The Gayatollah, having parked his flying Koran, and exhausted from his long day awakening Republican women to their deep seated lesbian passions so they would no longer menace the world, began rummaging around in the pockets of his pink fur lined cape for his house keys at the door to his ramshackle, unheated house in Scenic Collegeville, which concealed his poshly appointed underground lair--some might even have called it a dungeon--when his Tighty Whitey Sense tingled, and he turned around. He saw a curiously pale young man with refined, almost feminine, features weaving about in the bushes.
The young man, upon realizing he was being observed, leapt to the attack. "En garde!" he yelled, brandishing a sword that seemed curiously small for its scabbard. "Blackguard, I am Jason Fortuny, and I saw thy n00dz!"
"Son, so did half of Chelsea," said The Gayatollah. "Your point being? (And nice cape.)"
"You are humiliated! Exposed! Unmanned! N00dz! Totally pwned! Teh L4m3r!" his voice became increasingly chirpy and shrill with each passing word.
The Gayatollah looked up at the sky. He felt tempted, for a moment, to ask some force greater even than superkoranic fellatio power for a reprieve, but he knew that with great power came great responsibility, and no one could show this man, forcibly, the path of righteousness, like he could.
"Come into my house, young man," rumbled The Gayatollah. "You can check my premises."
"I already know your premises are phallicious--I mean fallacious."
"I will show you how much you'll like suckling on my productive achievements."
"NEVAIR!" screamed the young Jason. He rushed towards The Gayatollah, intending to stab him in the heart, but in the end, collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
"It's okay, Jason," said The Gayatollah. "Soon you will know the joys of AA=".
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:10 AM
Nicely.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:15 AM
done.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:28 AM
No way, the dude's an Objectivist? Am I the only one who thinks that having one's prejudices confirmed is one of the most pleasant experiences in life?
Posted by Anon | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 10:04 AM
The dude is indeed an objectivist.
My first clue that something was seriously wrong should have been his about page, which talks about how Fortuny is THE MAN who can get away with things that ordinary people can't, you know, like...Ferris Bueller.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 10:08 AM
Tia wins the whole everything.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 10:39 AM
"a sword that seemed curiously small for its scabbard" s/b "an ebony broadsword of prodigious girth which moaned insanely in its wielder's hands"
Otherwise, #112 gets it exactly right.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:13 PM
an ebony broadsword of prodigious girth which moaned insanely in its wielder's hands
Stormbringer?
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:57 PM
"Soon you will know the joys of AA=".
Oh, my God. I can't breathe.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 10:44 PM