Cordas v. Peerless Transportation Co. (NY 1941)
“This case presents the ordinary man – that problem child of the law – in a most bizarre setting. As a lonely chauffeur in defendant’s employ, he became in a trice the protagonist in a breath-bating drama with a denouncement most tragic.”
I think I just read the worst written opinion ever. The language is so ridiculous that it’s awesomely bad. The case itself is hilarious. Here is a rundown with quotes from the court’s opinion.
1. A man was mugged by two men at gunpoint.
“[a man] was feloniously relieved of his portable goods by two nondescript highwaymen…they induced him to relinquish his possessions by a strong argument ad hominem couched in the convincing cant of the criminal and pressed at the point of a most persuasive pistol.”
2. Man chases the muggers, and the muggers split up. The man (of course) follows the mugger with the gun.
“…and he, shuffling off the coil of that discretion which enmeshed him in the alley, quickly gave chase…”
3. The armed mugger jumps into a waiting cab,
“…[the driver] states that his uninvited guest boarded the cab…while it was at a standstill waiting for a less colorful fare…”
4. Mugger tells the cabby to step on the gas or “I will cap thine ass.” The cab starts moving, but then the cabby hears the mugger’s chaser,
“The chauffeur in reluctant acquiescence proceeded about fifteen feet when his hair, like unto the quills of the fretful porcupine, was made to stand on end by the hue and cry of the man despoiled…”
5. Mugger senses drama, so he presses the gun against the cabby,
“The hold-up man, sensing [the driver’s] insecurity, suggested to the chauffeur that in the event there was the slightest lapse in obedience to his curt command that he, the chauffeur, would suffer the loss of his brains, a prospect as horrible to a humble chauffeur as it undoubtedly would be to one of the intelligentsia…”
6. Cabby says, “F-this!” and jumps out of the cab.
“The chauffeur, apprehensive of certain dissolution from either Scylla, the pursuers, or Charybdis, the pursued, quickly threw his car out of first speed in which, he was proceeding, pulled on the emergency, jammed on his brakes, and, although he thinks the motor was still running, swung open the door to his left and jumped out of his car.”
7. The mugger jumps out of the cab too.
8. The cab runs onto the sidewalk and hits a mother and her two infant children, who sue the cabby for negligence.
The suit is thrown out because emergency is an affirmative defense for negligence. The language of the opinion keeps getting worse. Examples:
“To hold thus under the facts adduced herein would be tantamount to a repeal by implication of the primal law of nature written in indelible characters upon the fleshly tablets of sentient creation by the Almighty Law-giver, “the supernal Judge who sits on high.” There are those who stem the turbulent current for bubble fame, or who bridge the yawning chasm with a leap for leap’s sake…”
And,
“Returning to our chauffeur. If the philosophic Horatio and the martial companions of his watch were “distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear” when they beheld “in the dead vast and middle of the night” the disembodied spirit of Hamlet’s father stalk majestically by “with a countenance more in sorrow than in anger,” was not the chauffeur…”
Um. Yeah.
Luckily this opinion is the exception (rather than the rule) for my textbooks.
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Can you tell I got behind in my blawg reading? L wrote about this very case last week!