January 2013 Archives

Ah, the LSAT. Reading comprehension. Logical reasoning. Logic games. Some of us look back on that dear test with fondness. After all, who needs Sudoku when you've got ordering games or, gasp, limited options. Yeah, limited options. Good times.

Do you remember your first time fighting through one of those games? Did you try to force your way through it without drawing diagrams? You probably got somewhere around 20 percent of the questions right on odds alone. We all did.

Anyone here familiar with 1950s game shows? Yep. Thought so.

An otherwise ordinary tax dispute was made slightly less ordinary by the inclusion of a pop culture reference to the "$64,000 Question" a 1950s game show.

(A quick note to clerks and judges everywhere: if your pop culture reference requires a footnote, it's probably too obscure. Stick to Bieber Fever.)

It's not often that we get to say "Duh" to a court opinion but the ruling in this case seemed pretty obvious from the beginning.

The Stricker Family called 911 to request help for their overdosing son. The mother, Susan Stricker, was unable to tell the dispatcher what her son had taken. When the paramedics arrived, per department policy, they waited for police to arrive and secure the scene before entering. A local officer radioed ahead and told the dispatcher that he had previously arrested two heroin-addicted occupants of the house.

"The force" was with Randy Alman one October afternoon in Westland, Michigan.

Unfortunately, that "force" was a cruiser-combating task force staffed by officers from the Westland Police Department and the Wayne County Sheriff's Department. Based on what was likely a misunderstanding, those officers arrested Alman in Westland's Hix Park and charged him with criminal sexual conduct, solicitation or accosting, being a disorderly person, and battery.

Enter Luke Skywalker. Yes, the assistant county prosecutor assigned to the case was actually named Luke Skywalker. Which means we get to fill this post with "Star Wars" references.

“To recite the facts of this case is nearly to decide it.”

Rarely does the first sentence of an opinion so glaringly declare a state of hopelessness for the appellant party. But in this case, the first sentence was just the beginning.

Universal Health Group demanded payment from Allstate Insurance Company for services allegedly rendered to 36 insured persons. Allstate maintained that the services were never rendered, denied payments to Universal, and in exchange, received a summons and complaint.