Articles
Note: HeinOnline is a UW Restricted source.
Thomas E. Baker, A Compendium of Clever and Amusing Law Review Writings, 51 Drake L. Rev. 105 (2002). HeinOnline
Thomas E. Baker, A Review of Corpus Juris Humorous, 24 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 869 (1993). HeinOnline
JudgeJohn G. Browning, Saying it with Style, Tex. B. J., Feb. 2011, at 152.
Funny case names (e.g., Schmuck v. United States, Batman v. Commissioner, Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang, Death v. Graves).
Laura Lucas K. Hori, Bons Mots, Buffonery, and the Bench: The Role of Humor in Judicial Opinions, 60 UCLA L. Rev. Discourse 16 (2012)
Adalberto Jordan, Imagery, Humor, and the Judicial Opinion, 41 U. Miami L. Rev. 693 (1987). HeinOnline
Mary Kate Kearney, The Propriety of Poetry in Judicial Opinions, 12 Widener L.J. 597 (2003). HeinOnline
Judge Alex Kozinski & Eugene Volokh, Lawsuit, Shmawsuit, 103 Yale L. J. 463 (1993). HeinOnline
Stephen Kruger, A Packet of Purported Legal Humor, 16 J. Jurisprudence 589 (2012).
Laura Krugman Rey, Laughter at the Court: The Supreme Court as a Source of Humor. 79 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1397 (2006). HeinOnline
Steven Lubet, Bullying from the Bench, 5 Green Bag 2d 11 (2001)
Marshall Rudolph, Judicial Humor: A Laughing Matter? 41 Hastings L.J. 175 (1989). HeinOnline
Susan K. Rushing, Student Essay, Is Judicial Humor Judicious?, 1 Scribes J. Legal Writing 125 (1990). HeinOnline
Michael Saint-Onge, Legal Levity, Law Libr. Lights, Jan./Feb. 1992, at 9. HeinOnline
George Rose Smith, A Critique of Judicial Humor, 43 Ark. L. Rev. 1(1990). HeinOnline
Mary B. Trevor, From Ostriches to Sci-Fi: A Social Science Analysis of the Impact of Humor in Judicial Opinions, 45 U. Tol. L. Rev. 291 (2014). HeinOnline
Books
Judges Say the Darndest Things by
A collection of humorous, surprising, and otherwise uniqueexcerpts from American legal cases. Divided into 22categories -- such as "But I Digress," "Hyperbole, Anyone?,""Metaphorically Speaking," "Personal Injury Law," andTongue Twisters" -- it presents some of the most memorablestatements ever made by U.S. adjudicators, culminating withtwo appellate decisions written entirely in poetic verse.
Publication Date: 2004
Corpus Juris Humorous
This highly-acclaimed & entertaining volume contains over 280 authentic judicial decisions, extracted directly from the official records & presented exactly as the judges wrote them. The book is the first of its kind--a truly comprehensive collection--& the cases are all the more amazing & humorous because they are real! The cases include the saga of "Blackie the Talking Cat," the travails of a blowtorch-wielding hairdresser, the arrest of a disorderly mule, a man whose religion forbade him from consorting with attorneys, a steer falling through a roof & into a woman's lap, an asparagus accident on a dance floor at a wedding feast & a man's lawsuit against Satan for deliberately placing "obstacles" in his path & ultimately causing his "downfall." Other delightful & hilarious cases include SEARIGHT V. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, a $12 million claim by a former patient of a medical clinic that the State of New Jersey unlawfully injected him in the left eye with a radium electric beam, thereby causing someone to talk to him on the inside of his brain; the case of LODI V. LODI, in which a man sued HIMSELF to terminate a non-existent charitable trust; as well as a number of stern "frontier" rulings by Judge Richard C. Barry of Tuolumne County, California during the 1850's, who on one occasion sentenced an ATTORNEY to jail for 5 days for continuing to "jaw back" after being told to "shut up" & for "bringing my roolings & dississions into disreputableness end as a warning to unrooly persons not to contradict this COORT." CORPUS JURIS HUMOROUS is available by Mail Order, for $28.95 plus $3.55 shipping & handling, from MAC-MAT, P.O. Box 2025-131, Tustin, CA 92680.
Publication Date: 1991- Supreme Folly by Publication Date: 1990
