Transcript
March 15, 2010. Click here for a slightly bigger version unobstructed by the bunnies.
It's not quite Jackson Pollock, but it's getting there. Most legal cases are a lot simpler than this, but a common nucleus of operative fact can yield a variety of different claims, many (but not all) of which the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow (in the oxymoronic name of judicial efficiency) to be resolved as a single long drawn out case.
Also, whoever is working on this case is probably billing by the hour.
Everyone was Lawsuit Fighting
Brown Rabbit and Tort Bunny stand in front of a large colorful diagram.
Brown Rabbit has a dry erase marker in his paw.
The diagram is a little too much to describe with text -- so I apologize to the blind, but it
shows, inter alia:
* Multiple plaintiffs suing multiple defendants on both federal law claims and > $75,000 diversity claims.
* Plaintiff aggregating smaller < $75,000 state law claims claims with other claims federal courts have subject matter jurisdictions
* Parties counter-claiming and cross-claiming against each other
* Defendants impleading third-party defendants
* The I.R.S. and the U.S. Department of Justice bringing federal criminal charges against some of the parties
* Other parties intervening as plaintiffs, defendants, and "other"
* A state raising a constitutional question against the federal government
* A possible class action case
* Overlapping plaintiff and defendant classes
* A future constitutional question waiting to happen between class action plaintiff and defendants
* A malpractice claim and two Rule 11 sanctions, one sua sponte
* Parties suing both the federal and state court as part of an interlocutory appeal
* Mr. Henderson threatening to shoot if those damn lawyers trample over Mrs. Henderson's petunias again
* A state criminal charge by the State Attorney General against Mr. Henderson.
* And in rem actions against 314 pounds of pie.
Brown Rabbit: I think we should settle.
Tort Bunny: I think we should pass this off as
a Jackson Pollock piece and sell it.
End of comic.
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