Legal Juice

You might know the rest of the saying (“so shall ye reap”), and so might Pennsylvania dentist Thomas McFarland, Jr., but he paid it no heed. The “sewing” in this case was the dumping of about 300 used needles [and other medical waste] into the ocean, which washed up on the beach in Avalon, New Jersey – where McFarland owns a vacation home!

How did the authorities figure out it was McFarland? As reported in The Press of Atlantic City:

… using identifying codes on the medical debris, [investigators] zeroed in on a small number of dental practices where the debris could have originated… McFarland’s was one of them.

Bad things, at least in this instance in Brigantine, New Jersey. As reported in The Press of Atlantic City:

… Kevin Dorsey, 36, was visiting his girlfriend’s West Brigantine Avenue apartment and had the .40-caliber handgun out when he somehow shot it into the floor at about 12:40 a.m. It kept going through the ceiling downstairs, then grazed the right arm of a woman who was in the first-floor kitchen.

But that wasn’t the end of it:

“Then it hits a kitchen cabinet, hits the floor, deflects 90 degrees and strikes the refrigerator,” the detective continued. “That changes the trajectory again, and it winds up about 15 feet away, striking the boyfriend – who’s sitting on the couch.”

Freaky. What happened to the shooter?

They charged Dorsey with aggravated assault and several firearms violations, including unlawful possession of hollow-point bullets and illegal possession of a gun by a felon. They tacked on several drug charges because in a long search of the apartment, which the woman finally consented to, they found marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs. Police determined that the drugs belonged to Dorsey.

Yikes.

Lots of people have a cup of coffee before work. Some weed before work? Not so many. Among those who do so indulge, at least on the day in question, is Mr. Brock Hopkins. Based on the title of the post, you can probably see where this is going. Dude gets high. Dude gets mauled by bear. Dude’s employer blames the weed (and also says Dude was a “volunteer” not an employee.)(And yes, The Juice did recently see “The Big Liebowski”). On that last bit, said Mr. Kilpatrick, the owner of Great Bear Adventures [or misadventures] Park, per the AP,

Kilpatrick and the co-defendant in the case, the Uninsured Employers’ Fund, contended that Hopkins should not be eligible for workers’ compensation for those injuries because he was a volunteer acting outside of his duties and was not a paid employee.

Kilpatrick acknowledged giving money to Hopkins but it was given randomly and “out of my heart,” the owner told the court.

Interesting. So what did Judge James Jeremiah Shea of the Montana Workers’ Compensation Court have to say about that?

Shea ruled that Hopkins was a regularly paid employee and Kilpatrick’s claims were not credible.

“There is a term of art used to describe the regular exchange of money for favors — it is called ’employment,'” the judge wrote.

Snap! What about the weed?

Hopkins acknowledged smoking marijuana before arriving at work that day, the judge said. Hopkins worked on the park’s gate for about two hours, then prepared food for the bears.

Uh-oh.

After he stepped inside the bears’ pen with a bucket of food, one of the grizzly bears attacked him. Hopkins fled, managing to escape by crawling under an electrified fence. He suffered severe injuries to his leg and had to be hospitalized, according to the court.

The weed! The weed! What about the weed?

“I cannot conclude based on the evidence before me that the major contributing cause of the grizzly bear attack was anything other than the grizzly,” the judge wrote. “It is not as if this attack occurred when Hopkins inexplicably wandered into the grizzly pen while searching for the nearest White Castle. Hopkins was attacked while performing a job Kilpatrick had paid him to do — feeding grizzly bears.”

Bam! Eligible for workers’ compensation. Next case!

You may recall the case involving Nevada Judge George Assad, who jailed a guy’s girlfriend until he showed up in court. Problem was, she hadn’t done anything! (This innocent nurse had just come to court to explain that her boyfriend just started a new job, so he couldn’t make it.)

So, in June 2008, the Judge was ordered to apologize. But he didn’t send the letter to the Judicial Discipline Commission until over a year later – on July 24, 2009! How was it received by the wrongfully imprisoned girlfriend? We may never know! Per The Las Vegas Sun:

[Ms.] Chrzanowski could not be reached for comment, but her lawyer, Cal Potter, said Wednesday that the apology, coming so many years later, is “hollow” and now “meaningless” to his client. He said he hasn’t been able to locate Chrzanowski, who may have left Las Vegas, to send her a copy of the letter.

You can read more (a fair amount) here.

The Juice definitely doesn’t – and not just because it would reduce the amount of material out there. Anyway, talk about a harmless prank. And a damn funny one too … Check this out, as reported by khou.com:

What happens when you drop the C and the L from class? You get in trouble, that’s what.

Three Cypress Ridge High School students were suspended and fined $135 each for allegedly pulling a prank in the senior class photo.

Seniors posed for the panoramic photos last month. First, there was a formal picture with students in the front row wearing t-shirts that spelled out “Class of 2010.”

So far, no problem. But then …

The second panoramic was an informal shot. The students were allowed to move around so they rearranged themselves, leaving only “ass” on the front row.

“I heard C and L ran off. That’s not ass’s fault. That’s C and L’s fault, said senior Austin Knight. “It was funny and they shouldn’t have been punished.”

Right on, sir! You have just been awarded “quote of the month” – “That’s not ass’s fault.”

But it was the three students wearing A, S and S that got in trouble. Along with the fine and suspension, they lost their positions as officers for various clubs.

“S” man George Bermudez, who was the senior class secretary, said it was an accident.

Cy-Fair ISD officials didn’t buy that story.

In a statement, the district said: “Three students were disciplined in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct. ”

Uncool. Here’s the source, including the photo.

It boils down to this: If you want to tax paranormal practitioners in Romania, prepare to become a four-legged animal – if you’re lucky. So maybe that’s an oversimplification, but not by much. As reported by The Independent:

Everyone curses the tax man, but Romanian witches angry about having to pay up are planning to use cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the country’s government, which has introduced a new levy on those practicing the paranormal.

Superstitions are no laughing matter in Romania – the land of the medieval ruler who inspired the Dracula tale – and have been part of its culture for centuries. President Traian Basescu and his aides have even been known to wear purple on certain days, supposedly to ward off evil.

Romanian witches from the east and west went to the country’s southern plains and the Danube river yesterday to threaten the government with spells and spirits because of the tax law, which came into effect on 1 January.

A dozen witches hurled the poisonous mandrake plant into the Danube to put a hex on government officials “so evil will befall them”, said a witch named Alisia. She added: “What is there to tax, when we hardly earn anything? The lawmakers don’t look at themselves, at how much they make, their tricks; they steal and they come to us asking us to put spells on their enemies.”

So, at a minimum, don’t drink from the Danube for a while. And lawmakers, you might want to go all purple, all the time. Got any purple skivvies?

The new law is part of the government’s drive to collect more revenue and crack down on tax evasion in a country that is in recession.

In the past, the less mainstream professions of witch, astrologer and fortune teller were not listed in the Romanian labour code. People who worked in those jobs used their lack of registration to evade income tax.

Under the new law, like any self-employed person, they will pay 16 per cent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programmes. But the law may be hard to enforce as payments to witches and astrologers are usually made in cash and relatively small.

Okay, so it’s virtually unenforceable. For this, lawmakers are willing to give up their entire non-purple wardrobe?

Supporters of Mircea Geoana, who lost the presidential race to Basescu in 2009, blamed his defeat on attacks of negative energy by their opponent’s aides. Geoana aide Viorel Hrebenciuc alleged there was a “violet flame” conspiracy during the campaign, saying Basescu and other aides dressed in purple on Thursdays to increase his chance of victory. They continue to be seen wearing purple clothing on important days because the colour supposedly makes the wearer superior and wards off evil.

This isn’t new in Romanian politics.

Such spiritualism has long been tolerated by the Orthodox Church in Romania, and the late Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, had their own personal witch.

Queen witch Bratara Buzea, 63, who was imprisoned in 1977 for witchcraft under Ceausescu’s regime, is furious about the new law. Sitting cross-legged in her villa in the lake resort of Mogosoaia, just north of Bucharest, she said she planned to cast a spell using a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement and dead dog, accompanied by a chorus of witches.

Cat excrement and dead dog? It’s certainly not “a dog’s life” in Romania (at least not when the recipe dictates).

“We do harm to those who harm us,” she said. “They want to take the country out of this crisis using us? They should get us out of the crisis because they brought us into it.” She added ominously: “My curses always work.”

Got that, tax man? Always! Here’s the source, with a photo of the queen.