Santa Claus sets a bad example

From the Chicago Tribune 18/12/09:

Santa Claus should get off his sleigh and walk, run or bike, according to a cheeky public health doctor, who says Santa’s commercial image promotes obesity, reckless air travel and a general unhealthy lifestyle.

“His popularity should be used to promote healthy living,” Dr. Nathan Grills from Monash University in Australia argued in a light-hearted "analysis" in the Christmas issue of bmj.com.

In 2007 acting U.S. surgeon general Steven K. Gallson declared that Santa should be thinner. Despite the public outrage, Grills has jumped on the bandwagon. He wants Santa to lose his belly fat (the most dangerous kind), to eat carrots instead of energy-dense cookies and to don a helmet while participating in “extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping.”

I tweeted earlier this month that I’d seen a new safety-conscious Santa doing the rounds in the neighbourhood who had ditched the reindeer and donned on a hi-visibility jacket.  To be fair, the image wasn’t wholly convincing, not even to a 5 year old: red and white hat, untidy dark stubble, hi-vis jacket and aging jeans.  His sleigh had been replaced by a flat-bed trailer complete with stereo pumping out some awful Xmas musical number.

Thankfully, it seems that Gallson had intended his suggestions to be amusing – which is certainly how I found them when I stumbled across them in the Metro last Thursday morning.   I’m not sure that many kids look to Santa as a role model, fashion icon or anything to style themselves upon.

Horse Fair Victim's Claim Against Council Rejected

From CPD Webinars 14/12/09:

Geoffrey Glaister a County Durham man left with brain damage after being kicked by a horse at the 2004 Appleby Horse fair, has been blocked from claiming compensation.
Earlier this year a county court ruled his family could seek compensation from Appleby Town Council.   The court heard Mr Glaister, tried to grab hold of the untethered horse's rein because he feared it posed a risk to his wife and daughter. He suffered "catastrophic" injuries when the horse kicked him as he bent down, leaving him with permanent disabilities and "greatly reduced earning power".

In March, he was awarded the right to seek compensation by a Middlesbrough County Court judge, who said the town council had negligently failed to arrange public liability insurance for the event.

But Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Toulson, said the county court decision was "wrong in law" and the town council owed no duty of care to ensure the safe segregation and supervision of horses, or to arrange public liability insurance for the event.

Sitting with Lord Neuberger, and Lord Justice Jacob, he agreed Mr Glaister had acted in a "selfless and public spirited way". But he said the town council was not the occupier of the land in question and did not have direct control over the way the horse fair was run.
The court heard the town council owns only some of the land used in the event, but not the area where Mr Glaister was injured.

This is one of the those very tricky cases where the concepts of fairness on the one hand and rigid legal principles on the other dictate opposing outcomes.   It is a very delicate balance to strike to ensure that high safety standards of public events are adhered to without being so overbearing that it needlessly discourages event organisers. 

Public liability insurance is, of course, optional, though very advisable when hosting public events.  However, in the specific circumstances, it seems there is little doubt that the town council was not the event organiser, did not own all the land on which the event was occurring and in any case, did not have control over the way the event was run. 

But an even more fundamental question should be asked in this case: could a claim for negligence be made out against anybody associated with the horse fair?  The horse became untethered but was the injury foreseeable?  Mr Glaister courageously intervened and was injured in doing so but it's perfectly possible, of course, that in the same circumstances, the horse could have been re-tethered without drama. 

Still, although Mr Glaister's claim against the council has failed, he surely would still have a potential avenue for redress against someone - making the allegation that he has been 'blocked from claiming compensation' a touch misleading. Whether the claim against, say, the person who failed the securely tether the horse was successful, though, would be another matter all together. The council would have been the preferred defendant on the basis of their deeper pockets.

Brucie Baby loves a courtroom drama

No, I wouldn’t have thought it either. Still, it turns out that when travelling, Brucie loves nothing more than settling down with a legal thriller (when he's not playing golf or doing those famous daily stretches of his).

Despite growing up against a backdrop of my Father constantly proclaiming that Brucie’s ‘dead but won’t lie down’ whenever he appeared on TV, Brucie’s still going strong. Anybody who witnessed his performance with Alesha Dixon last night on Strictly Come Dancing can certainly testify to that: he was waggling those hips like a 17 year old!!! (And yes, they were his own hips, before you ask).

Thankfully, unlike previous years, both myself and my GF have been far too busy for her to insist that we watch much of Strictly – a show which has traditionally held about as much entertainment value for me as watching paint dry.

But I actually really like Brucie – if only for his imitable style, cheeky demeanour and thirst for life. Plus, with a wife some 30 odd years his junior, and ahem, a full head of hair at his age, the chap’s an undoubted legend!

Oh – and if you’re interested, it turns out some BBC news guy won Strictly over some other dude I vaguely recognise as being on TV (and, rather more to the point, being infamously involved in a hit and run a few weeks ago).

‘Good game, good game’ as Brucie might say.

What to get the law student (or graduate) who has everything?

Hat tip to Katie Luper for this one but her post got me thinking.

What would make a good Christmas gift for a law student/grad?

Ideas so far:

- Post it notes?  Statute books, or a bumper collection of biros? 

- An expensive, pretentious pen?  An expensive and pretentious moleskine notebook or diary to go with said pen? 

- A DVD boxset of This Life, or Ally MacBeal etc. ..... funny how you don't hear those mentioned much now!  Thank God they seem to have finally died their death.

- I should imagine that a pupillage or training contract (or a means of fast-forwarding your way through your law degree and into a job) is at the top of a lot of our lists.

- For the more traditional or conservative, what about legally-themed ties or socks or maybe something a touch more frivolous?   For instance, for that special legal lady in your life, what about legally-themed lingerie - perhaps not with horsehair wigs, though.

Any other ideas?

Demise of the Christmas card?

This is a call for the distinguished and learned members of the blawgosphere to share with me their Christmas card sending/receiving experiences: have you sent or received any this year and if so, are the numbers lower than in previous years?  I'm itching to know.

Not so much because I'm nosy, but more that I'm wondering whether I'm alone in sensing that the sending of Christmas cards just seems to be a tradition that edges closer towards extinction as each year passes. 

I was going to order myself another bunch from the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company again, as I have in previous years. Still, I'm kind of glad I didn't bother; no one at work seems to be exchanging them, though there is a Secret Santa organised for later this week to coincide with the works Christmas do - so I hope everyone doesn't start exchanging them with one another then. It also coincides somewhat awkwardly for me with a flying trip up to London for meeting, and I'm only due to arrive back just in time for the unwrapping and the trip to the restaurant.

Let's hope the Secret Santa doesn't go the same way as that in the US version of the Office which degenerated into a somewhat cruel, bizarre and painful game called 'Yankee Swap'.

As an aside, I've recently placed my first order with Moonpig.  For as much as they’re talked-up though, I didn’t think their range of cards was fantastic.  Let’s see how I feel once they arrive and I see them first hand.

How was it for you?

I was amused to see on Friday that the poll, “2009: Was it good for you?” on the Junior Lawyers site recorded a greater number of negative than positive responses. I’ve just checked again and the same proportion of yeses and noes holds sway:

BTW: two of the yeses are mine so I guess there’s quite a lot of misery out there.

How’s that for an explosive court case?

From The Times Online – Weird Cases 04/12/09:

The principal weapon of advocates is language. Sam Kepfield, however, recently sought to extend his options in a Kansas courtroom when he put a hand grenade on the jury box ledge and pulled out the pin.

Kepfield, a defence attorney, was representing a woman charged with forgery and theft. Her defence was duress. She claimed that her co-defendant had forced her into committing crimes by threatening to kill her pet dog and hurt her daughter unless she cooperated.

In an effort to convey to the jurors what it feels like to face an imminent threat, Kepfield took the view that simple verbal descriptions would not suffice and that something dramatic was required. So he acquired a dud grenade and then, during a speech about fear and the experience of being intimidated, without notice to the judge or the prosecutors, he brandished the grenade, pulled the pin, placed it on the jury ledge and asked the jurors, “Are you afraid now?”

This was certainly a novel approach to capturing the attention of a jury. But “hand grenade” does not appear in the index of most books about how to be a successful advocate. After leaving the grenade on the jury ledge for a moment, Kepfield moved it on to the prosecutors’ table. Judge Richard Rome ordered him to remove the it immediately. Both the judge and the state prosecutor referred the incident to the local sheriff’s office.

The jurors were not impressed with Kepfield’s explosive ploy and took just 15 minutes to convict his client.

Wow.  Call me a cynic but this surely could only have ever occurred in a US court.

But seriously:  A hand grenade?!!?  Juries are notoriously difficult to get ‘on-side’.  Did the lawyer, Mr Kepfield, really think that making the jury believe a live grenade was about to detonate right in front of their faces would help his client’s cause?

Perhaps it was one of those ‘it-seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time’ kind of things?

“Only in America”, eh?!