Category: Politics & Law
“A home mortgage is the most common example of secured debt in our society, but practically any valuable possession can secure a loan. We really do mean anything, tangible or intangible—a car, a collection of tattered law books, a debt that a third party owes to the borrower, the borrower’s rights under an esoteric contract (such as a musician’s right to receive royalties from a song each time it gets downloaded to an iPod), or a plaintiff’s rights to collect money from a lawsuit. Even a tenant’s interest in a lease or a farmer’s grazing rights on land can be pledged as collateral for a loan. Once you learn the legal power that a lender gets from having collateral, you’ll wonder why lenders ever loan money without taking a security interest.” – Nathalie Martin and Ocean Tama, Inside Bankruptcy Law (emphasis in original)
“The limits on defamation actions for statements made about public figures exist because of concerns for free speech. False statements are bound to be made in the course of vigorous public debate. One of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures. Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures will be subject to vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks. While false assertions have little value, imposing liability for all false statements relating to public figures would have a chilling effect on speech about public figures, and freedoms of expression require breathing room. Without limitations on defamation actions, destructive self-censorship would occur limiting free speech. Given the importance of the free and open exchange of ideas, a public figure is prohibited from recovering damages for defamatory criticism unless there is clear and convincing evidence the defamatory statement was made with actual malice.” – Justice Crothers, Riemers v. Mahar (internal quotes and citations omitted)
“I am guilty of the most serious crimes you can be guilty of in America: I was born poor and black” – Ralph Poynter (as quoted by Jean Stevens in “In Defense Of”)
“The original judicial approach [to products liability law] had favored the corporation under the theory that fledgling manufacturers needed time and resources to develop their products. The theory was that this ‘breathing space’ would help the United States develop economically, and this increase in overall economic health would essentially work its way down to every member of society. In practice, exactly the opposite occurred. The manufacturers and corporations, like spoiled children, indulged themselves and failed to apply their profits toward improved safety and better design of products. In an environment in which profits are the only yardstick, all other considerations, even those concerning injuries to consumers, take a back seat.” – Neal R. Bevans, Tort Law for Paralegals
“The rescue doctrine is a rule of law holding that one who sees a person in imminent danger caused by the negligence of another cannot be charged with contributory negligence in a non-reckless attempt to rescue the imperiled person. The doctrine was developed to encourage rescue and to correct the harsh inequity of barring relief under principles of contributory negligence to a person who is injured in a rescue attempt which the injured person was under no duty to undertake.” – Justice Murray, Ouellette v. Carde
“In the end, for military people, it’s the family that makes a lot of the sacrifices. They are intrinsic to military members being successful.” Admiral Michelle Howard, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy
“The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed, and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension.” – Chief Justice Cardozo, Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co.
“The term ‘proximate cause’ is applied by the courts to those more or less undefined considerations which limit liability even where the fact of causation is clearly established. The word ‘proximate’ is a legacy of Lord Chancellor Bacon, who in his time committed other sins. The word means nothing more than near or immediate; and when it was first taken up by the courts it had connotations of proximity in time and space which have long since disappeared. It is an unfortunate word, which places an entirely wrong emphasis upon the factor of physical or mechanical closeness. For this reason ‘legal cause’ or perhaps even ‘responsible cause’ would be a more appropriate term.” – William Prosser, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts
“Regardless of the occasional exception, the fact remains that planless action is an open invitation to disaster.” – George C. Marshall, Infantry in Battle
“Texas common law is fundamentally premised on individuals’ responsibility for their own actions.” – Justice G. Alan Waldrop, Carter v. Abbyad
“Even if information be lacking, the leader must produce decisions. In most cases a poor decision will be better than no decision at all. Negligence and hesitation are more serious faults than errors in choice of means. No rule can tell us how to time decisions correctly.” – George C. Marshall, Infantry in Battle
“At law, an ‘accident’ refers to some event that did not involve human fault. When a bolt of lightning strikes a house, that is an accident. When a car rolls down a hill because the parking brake was not set and the car hits a pedestrian, that is not an accident; that is negligence.” – Neal R. Bevans, Tort Law for Paralegals
“As a general rule, it is not duress to threaten to do what one has a legal right to do. Nor is it duress to threaten to take any measure authorized by law and the circumstances of the case.” – Judge McCord, Spillers v. Five Points Guaranty Bank
“When you are up against the enemy in close combat, you want smoking boots on the other end. You don’t want a fair fight.” – Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster Jr., U.S. Army Capabilities Integration Center
“Riches take to themselves wings, and in a moment least expected elude our grasp.” – Sallie Brock, “The Fall of Richmond”
“In an assault, actual fear is not a requirement. The victim must simply be apprehensive of the contact. Because awareness is a requirement, a victim cannot be assaulted if he or she is unconscious.” – Neal R. Bevans, Tort Law for Paralegals
“On any given day in a courthouse anywhere in America, you are far more likely to see a civil trial that involves a car wreck or a divorce than a trial involving intentional torts. This is not because people do not intentionally injure each other. Unfortunately, people hurt, maim, and kill each other every day.” – Neal R. Bevans, Tort Law for Paralegals
“The law is nothing more than a means to a social end and should never, for all the law schools and law firms in the world, be treated as an end in itself.” – Fred Rodell, Yale Law School, “Goodbye to Law Reviews”
“There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content. That, I think, about covers the ground.” – Fred Rodell, Yale Law School, “Goodbye to Law Reviews”
“The minute you read something and you can’t understand it, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer. Then if you give it to another lawyer to read and he don’t know just what it means, why then you can be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer.” – Will Rogers (as quoted by Judge Mark P. Painter in “Legal Writing 201”)
“Do not start writing your brief or memo until you have a succinct statement of what the case is about. And you must do this in 50-75 words. If you can’t explain the case in 75 words, you do not understand it very well, and neither will your reader. Too often I have seen cases go all the way to appeal and still the lawyers haven’t figured out what the case is about.” – Judge Mark P. Painter, “Legal Writing 201”
“A litigation system must be workable. It does little to advance underlying policy goals to have a system that is too complex for trial courts and jurors—who in the last analysis are linchpins in our litigation system—to implement.” – Kenneth S. Abraham and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., compilers, A Concise Restatement of Torts
“Self-help may be resorted to, not only to reveal the falsity of the defamatory statement and to vindicate the reputation, but also to punish the defamer and retaliate against him. In earlier times the principal method of this type of self-help was the clan or blood feud. It was supplanted for a time by the challenge to a duel or the horsewhip. One of the primary reasons for developing the tort law of defamation was to induce the defamed person to resort to the courts for relief instead of wreaking his own vengeance.” – Kenneth S. Abraham and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., compilers, A Concise Restatement of Torts
“Defamation actions have not infrequently been brought—or jury verdicts have been rendered, irrespective of the plaintiff’s motivation in bringing the action—not to compensate for actual pecuniary loss or to vindicate the plaintiff, but instead to cudgel the defendant and to mulct him for substantial damages that may be like a windfall to the plaintiff.” – Kenneth S. Abraham and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., compilers, A Concise Restatement of Torts
“Totalitarian systems preclude civil society by withdrawing the right to privacy that is the foundation of liberal citizenship.” – Robert Huddleston, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen”
“For many years after 1945, the democracies found it gratifying to perceive the Second World War in Europe as a struggle for survival between themselves and Nazi tyranny. Yet the military outcome of the contest was overwhelmingly decided by the forces of Soviet tyranny, rather than by Anglo-American armies.” – Max Hastings, Winston’s War
“I believe in aristocracy, though—if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.” – E. M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” – Ecclesiastes 9:11
“Clear leadership, violent action, rigid decision one way or the other, form the only path not only of victory, but of safety and even of mercy. The State cannot afford division or hesitation at the executive centre.” – Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, Vol. 2
“Men should always be difficult. I can’t bear men who come and dine with you when you want them.” – Benjamin Disraeli (Max Hastings, Winston’s War)