Love and the Legal "Person"

POFP's latest column has caught the notice of the New York Times. The weekend Times featured a round-up of interesting articles in other publications, including the article by yours truly in the February Corporate Counsel magazine.

The article -- "Love, Corporate Style -- takes a Valentine's Day look at the question: Can corporations fall in love? After all, corporations are legal "persons"; they can earn income, own property, and pay taxes. Why can't they fall in love, if the right tender offer comes along.

Read the full article here.

"Genital Integrity"

Got your attention?

"Genital Integrity" may be the new buzz phrase for plaintiffs' lawyers looking to cash in on botched circumcisions. The movement suffered a setback, as New York Lawyer reports, when the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that a mother who didn't like the way her baby's circumcision looked could not sue the hospital for medical malpractice. Sure, and they laughed at tobacco suits at first! The woman's lawyer vowed to battle on in the fight for "genital integrity."

Here at POFP, we're planning a campaign against errant apostrophes -- we call it the battle for "genitive integrity."

Word of the Week

Companion Animal

Under various state animal cruelty statutes, a "companion animal" is an animal that is commonly considered a pet. Under New York law, the crime of aggravated cruelty to animals applies only to abuse of domesticated animals. In the landmark case of People v. Garcia, it was finally settled that pet goldfish do indeed qualify as "companion animals" -- just in case anyone was considering taking away their little plastic castle.

Update!

In a cosmic coincidence, the very funny Supreme Court Jester has taken up the goldfish/companion animal theme. He has written a detailed post about the rights of goldfish -- including goldfish divorce law!

Word of the Week

Corruption of Blood

Disqualification from inheriting, retaining, or passing on to one's heirs any rank or title or any interest in land. (See Random House Webster's Dictionary of Law). Corruption was part of the punishment of "Attainder" -- attainder being related to taint, as in "tainting the blood" -- and was reserved for heinous crimes such as treason. Both Attainder and Corruption of Blood are prohibited by the Constitution. So the good news is that you're free to pass on any title to your heirs, but then, the Constitution also prohibits the government from granting titles.

Put that in Plain Tetun!

A big -- but often overlooked -- issue in legal language is "what language is legal?" In East Timor, the news agency AKI reports that the Asia Foundation is working on translating the laws into the local language, Tetun. Until now, most of East Timor's laws were exclusively in Portuguese, a holdover from Portugal's colonial rule, which ended in 1975. That may seem like a small matter, but it has been estimated that only about 5 percent of East Timorese are fluent in Portugese; the other 95 percent have no access to the country's statutes. Until now, that is.

To all those Tetun speakers out there: welcome to the world of legalese!

Word of the Week

Grandfather Clause

The term is generally used to describe a clause in a statute that exempts a class of persons or entities from whatever new requirements are being imposed by the statute. For example, when states raised the drinking age to 21, people who had been able to drink under the old law (that is, people aged 18 - 20) where generally "grandfathered in." Although the phrase is innocently used today, its origin lies in the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws. Laws passed in Southern States imposed literacy tests on new voters, but exempted any person whose grandfather had voted. Naturally, the exempted class was entirely white. (See "A Hereditary Perk the Founding Fathers Failed to Anticipate," New York Times, January 15, 2008, A12).

More on the Second Amendment Comma War

As we reported recently (see "Holster that Comma," below), there's a comma war brewing as the Supreme Court gears up to hear its first Second Amendment case in nearly 70 years.

In today's New York Times, yours truly weighs in on the punctuation and grammar of the most tortured sentence in the Bill of Rights. Take a look - if you like the article, please email it on to a friend! (At the time of posting, the column is #4 in the "most emailed" category at NYT).