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Judge Carton Rules: Tennis Pros and Kookaburras
Today I kick off what could turn into an ongoing series of posts here at Legal Blog Watch, assuming the continued future clueless-ness of litigants: "Judge Carton Rules."
No, Judge Carton is not a real judge and, like Judge Wapner, my rulings are not "technically" binding on the parties. But that has never stopped me from ruling before, see, e.g., MacStupid, aka MacGyver v. MacGruber, and it certainly won't stop me here. Moving on.
My mission? To spare the parties to cases in which the outcome is obvious the time and expense of further litigation. Here is today's docket:
Case 1: British tennis pro Robert Dee has sued the UK's Daily Telegraph for describing him as "the world's worst tennis pro." He says the slam has ruined his professional reputation. The newspaper is ready to call Boris
Becker and John Lloyd, the former British great, in its defense.
Judge Carton's ruling: Dee reportedly admits he indeed lost 54 successive matches in international contests, including 108 sets in a row. Tell Becker and Lloyd to stay home. The Daily Telegraph's future motion to dismiss is hereby GRANTED.
Case 2: Record company EMI has appealed a recent court ruling that the Australian band Men at Work copied a flute riff from the children's song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree" in their 1980s song, "Down Under." EMI claims that similarities to two bars of the Kookaburra song might be noticed by "the highly sensitized or educated musical ear" but were unlikely to be noticed by the ordinary listener.
Judge Carton's ruling: Wrong! As I wrote here after listening to the two songs, the key bars from those songs sound just alike. And while I am a fake judge and many other things, I most assuredly do not have a "highly sensitized or educated musical ear." The appeal is hereby DISMISSED, and the verdict in favor of "The Kookaburra Who Sits in the Old Gum Tree" is AFFIRMED.
Court is dismissed.
Posted by Bruce Carton on February 26, 2010 at 03:20 PM | Permalink
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