Word of the Week

Grand

As in Larceny, or Jury, it simply means "big" (it comes from the French grand). A Grand Jury, for example, traditionally has 24 jurors, making it much more grand than the Petit Jury.

Under Medieval common law, Grand Larceny referred to the theft of any property worth 13 pence or more; anything less was "Petit Larceny." The distinction mattered because Grand Larceny had a mandatory death sentence.

Common law courts refused to increase the 13 pence definition of Grand Larceny. That was all well and good in the Middle Ages but -- what with inflation and all -- putting a man to death for stealing 13 pence began to look a little extreme. One English wit noted that, while everything else became dearer, a man's life kept getting cheaper. The ancient definition held up in England, and in America, until the early 19th Century.

News Flash: Lost Trousers Not Worth $54 Million

Update on the great American pants-suit; which I reported on here.

DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff has tossed out Judge Pearson's $54 million claim against the Chung's dry cleaning business. The case was all about words.

Pearson claimed that the words "Satisfaction Guaranteed" posted in the dry cleaning shop means that the cleaner must satisfy the whims of each customer -- or faces massive lawsuits. But the judge held:

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands."

Which is, incidently, a great example of a tautology: a hypothetical reasonable consumer wouldn't use an unreasonable interpretation. Of course not, he would use the Judge's interpretation. No matter, it got the job done.

As for the Chungs, they say they have no hard feelings and that Pearson is welcome to patronize their shop any time. Come, come be reasonable!

Word of the Week

Force Majeure

It basically means an "act of God" but with a dollop of Grey Poupon mustard. The literal translation of the French words is "superiour force."

There are many French terms in Anglo-American law that date from the Medieval conquest of Britain by the Normans. But force majeure ain't one of them. Rather, the term was introduced into the Code Napoleon in the early 19th Century and didn't invade English law for another 100 years.

English legal dictionaries from the late 19th and early 20th centuries don't list force majeure. But the phrase started appearing in English contracts in the early 1900's with the first case discussing it in 1904. Common law courts have stated that force majeure encompasses more things than the phrase "act of God," but frankly, I don't see how that's possible.

There's No Business Like Small Business

What could be more inspirational than a young entrepeneur staying up late to . . . plow through Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations?

A new law requires federal agencies to publish plain-language compliance guides for all regulations that have a "significant impact" on small business. According to Kiplinger, the new law makes clear that the guides must be available to the public at the time the new rules take effect.

Just one question: why limit this to regulations affecting small firms?

Herein, Legalese Interferes with Suds

State-mandated legalese has caused an upstate NY town to make the ultimate sacrifice: it's gone dry. The NY Times reports that the town fathers of Potter, NY wanted to grant one restaurant the right to serve beer and wine with meals. But NY law requires that any expansion of a town's liquor license requires a referendum with five mandatory questions, all phrased in garbled legalese. The town voters got confused, voted "no" on all the questions and ended up banning all sales of liquor in the town.

Vote for the funniest law blogs

This just in: the folks over at Legal Antics are conducting a poll for the world's funniest law blogs (not much of a competition one might think - sort of like the tallest building in Wichita - but you'd be surprised). Entries are accepted through Wednesday, June 19th. So hurry up and vote - I'll be stuffing the ballot box all night.

And if POFP doesn't win, we will demand a recall: a term I explore in this column.

Word of the Week

Escheat

The forfeiture of property to the State when no other person has a rightful claim to the property. English lawyers took the word from the Old French eschete, which meant "inheritance" (because if the landowner had no rightful heirs, then the Crown would "inherit" the land). Over time, escheat became an English word, cheat, which degenerated into a general term of abuse. So the law stuck to the traditional French spelling, while cheat has become a legal word in its own right, as a synonym for fraud (see Black's Law Dictionary).