As I perused the Times’ weird cases this week, they both jumped out at me as being slightly wackier than usual.
Firstly, hat tip to Pooni on this one who flagged this top story up last week or so.
From the Times 17/07/09:
Magdalena Kwiatkowska is seeking compensation having discovered that her 13-year-old daughter, whom she asserts has not had sex, became pregnant while on holiday. The mother says conception occurred after her daughter received a “stray sperm” in an Egyptian hotel swimming pool. Suing the hotel, the mother avows that there is no way her daughter could have met any boys while on the family holiday.
Oh she received a ‘stray sperm’ all right. I’m just not convinced it was casually floating about in the swimming pool. It certainly brings a new dimension to the argument that civil litigation claims are getting ever more fanciful?
And for a touch more legal wackiness:
A woman [from Missouri] had sex, separately, with identical twin brothers on the same day although neither man knew of the other’s sexual encounter with the woman. She gave birth to a daughter but each brother claimed to be the baby’s uncle not her father. The woman identified Raymon Miller as the father but, objecting to making payments of $256 a week in child support, he argued his twin, Richard, was the father. Paternity tests using DNA samples revealed only that both brothers had over a 99.99 percent probability of being the father.
The judge decided that since Raymon had spent the night with the woman and Richard’s sexual encounter had been much briefer; Raymon should be held as the legal father of the child.
The woman presumably knew they were identical twins, seeing as they didn’t know about each other’s assignation with the woman, right? Or maybe she thought it was the same guy each time and there wasn’t much in the way of pillow talk to give the game away?
I don’t know, but I do know that it’s truly amazing how people get themselves in these situations.
Wow that twin story truly is stupid!! How stupid can they get?! She was clearly a dumbass redneck :P
ReplyDeleteNo kidding, Pooni!
ReplyDeleteStories like these make me wonder how it is that we've managed as a species to survive, make it to the moon, come up with nuclear bombs, and also not blow ourselves up with them whilst blaming each other.
ReplyDeleteHas the first woman never read Chuck Palahnik? Spontaneous parthenogenesis would have been more believable!
Absolutely, Mel. And re Spontaneous parthenogenesis, if I knew what that was, I'm sure I'd totally agree with you! :-/
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
ReplyDeleteAsexual reproduction basically - the egg would replicate itself, sans need for any 'stray' sperm.
(Got it off an episode of House MD, init! )