legal-cases

"Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement."

"Many of the old cases are strange and absurd : so also are some of the modern ones."

"Some modern cases have in my opinion gone too far."

"In our law every case hath its stand or fall from a particular reason or circumstance."

"Every case stands upon its own bottom."

"I have the strongest disinclination, as I believe every other Judge has, that any case should be decided otherwise than upon its merits."

"The Court has not time to indulge in the discussion of imaginary cases."

"We are obliged to follow settled established rules already fixed by former determinations in cases of the same kind."

"We must not overturn, the cases."

"The use of cases is to establish principles; if the cases decide different from the principles, I must follow the principles, not the decisions."

"Pray let us so resolve cases here that they may stand with the reason of mankind, when they are debated abroad. Shall that be reason here that is not reason in any part of the world besides?"

"The reason and spirit of cases make law; not the letter of particular precedents."

"The case in Levinz was about an hundred years ago: Put a marginal note, and it will serve an hundred years hence."

"Never trust any note cited, when not consonant with the general principles of law, justice, and equity. It must be wrong."

"A case may not be the less doubtful because I entertain no doubt on the subject; but that is doubtful concerning which learned men differ."

"This is an English case, which it is my duty to decide according to the principles of English law."

"I can only regret that I am obliged to give a decision which conflicts with the justice of the case, and wrongs those to whom I would rather that justice should be done."

"I confess that when I am sought to be driven to a conclusion which appears to me unreasonable and unjust, I at once suspect the validity of the premises, even if I can detect no flaw in the reasoning from them."

"Without an express authority, so strong as not to be gotten over, we ought not to determine a case so much against reason, as that the Parliament should be obliged to interfere to set it right."

"For several reasons we should not depart from these adjudged cases ; but chiefly, from the inconvenience of altering and overturnirig settled determinations. It is best, stare decisis. The overturning settled determinations would be of very bad consequence: they ought not to be shaken."

"Whatever might have been my opinion, had this been a new case, I must hold myself bound by decided cases."

"The only use of authorities, or decided cases, is the establishment of some principle which the Judge can follow out in deciding the case before him. There is, perhaps, nothing more important in our law than that great respect for the authority of decided cases which is shown by our tribunals. Were it not for that, our law would be in a most distressing state of uncertainty, and so strong has that been my view, that when a case has decided a principle, although I myself do not concur in it, and although it has been only a decision of a tribunal of co-ordinate jurisdiction, I have felt bound to follow it when it is of respectable age and has been used by lawyers as settling the law, leaving to the Appellate Court to say that case is wrongly decided if the Appellate Court should so think."

"I like Muslims, I've been to mosques. . . . And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview because what I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

"It is indeed protected speech -- and the arbitration panel in this case did believe that the site fit the necessary descriptions."

"We are definitely accusing Glenn Beck of using questionable tactics in order to spread his message and garner higher ratings. You see, we believe Beck uses tactics like the top part of this site … and he uses them with no disclaimers, with all apparent seriousness."

"As you are aware, this firm represents Mercury Radio Arts, Inc. and Glenn Beck. Despite our letter yesterday demanding that you delete the Defamatory Domain, suspend and/or terminate your provision of WhoisGuard privacy protection services to the unknown individual who sought to register the domain, and provide us with information identifying the unknown individual, we note that as of Friday, September 4, 2009 at approximately 6:35 EDT, the Defamatory Domain remains active."

"Beck’s skin is too thin to take the criticism, so he wants the site down. Beck is represented by a learned and respected legal team. Accordingly, it is beyond doubt that his counsel advised him that under the First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution, no action in a U.S. Court would be successful. See, e.g., Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Accordingly, Beck is attempting to use this transnational body to circumvent and subvert the Respondent’s constitutional rights."

"While there is absolutely nothing humorous or amusing about the statement made by Respondent in his domain name that 'Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered a Young Girl in 1990,' the average Internet user finding the domain name GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlin1990.com ("Disputed Domain Name") in a search would have no reason not to believe that they will be directed to a website providing factual information (as opposed to protected criticism or similar protected speech) about Mr. Beck."

"Glenn Beck is the butt of a viral joke. He may not get the joke, but this does not make the joke likely to confuse or subject the domain name to transfer under the UDRP. Glenn Beck’s failure to understand these basic principles of law does not make the joke any less humorous, and does not make him any less of the butt. The First Amendment protects Respondent’s right to make Glenn Beck the butt, and his hypocritical attempts to squelch legitimate free speech criticism do nothing to portray himself in a more flattering light. Because his arguments do not satisfy Section 4(a) of the Policy, his request should be denied. Because he has attempted to silence a critic by circumventing (and thereby devaluing) the First Amendment — which he publically (and in this proceeding) claims to love — he should be deeply ashamed."

"Respondent appears to the Panel to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that Respondent appears genuinely to believe is employed by Complainant in the provision of political commentary, and for that reason Respondent can be said to be making a political statement. This constitutes a legitimate non-commercial use of Complainant’s mark under the Policy."

"I chose to criticize you using the well-tested method of satire because of its effectiveness. But, humor aside, your rhetorical style is no laughing matter. In this context of this WIPO case, you denigrated the letter of First Amendment law."

"As for why it's not particularly smart -- whether he wins or loses -- is because he just called a whole bunch of attention to some silly internet meme that clearly wants attention. Beck would have been better off just ignoring it. Instead, in legitimizing it by trying to take it down, many more people become aware of the meme -- and may start calling attention to situations where Beck (and others) make use of such tactics."

"At the bottom of the homepage is this [disclaimer] … But that hasn't stopped Beck's lawyers from trying to shut down the site -- resulting in more blowback and another manifestation of the dreaded Streisand Effect!"

"I'm not sure of any case where someone has claimed that a domain name was defamatory."

"Now Glenn Beck's trying to shut down their web site, ensuring that people will write about it."

"In what looks like a first in cyber law, Beck's lawyers are arguing that the the very domain name itself is defamatory."

"Beck is only making matters worse for himself by threatening legal action against the website. Before, it was just another idiot meme among the oceans of idiot memes online. Now, it's creeping through the blogosphere toward the mainstream news."

"As you might imagine, Beck is not amused. And he did the one thing guaranteed to garner the greatest amount of publicity for the site, and not coincidentally, for himself: He lawyered up, claiming the site violates his trademark."

"It's not often that I would recommend reading a World Intellectual Property Organization legal brief for its entertainment value, but today is going to be an exception."

"Although the mainstream media has avoided any mention of this rumor, Mr. Beck has quite a task ahead of him. Shutting down one web site is like trying to eradicate Pueraria lobata the dreaded Kudzu vine that is eating the South."

"For those of you with a purely legal bent, the papers offer some interesting trademark and First Amendment issues too. The latter revolve around the idea that given this dispute is between two Americans, it should be handled with respect to the First Amendment. As for the former, is Glenn Beck's trademark merely Glenn Beck? Or is it anything that includes the words Glenn and Beck?"

"The decision appears to mark a significant win for digital rights advocates because a ruling in Beck's favor could have encouraged other subjects of online parodies to take their complaints directly to the WIPO rather than U.S. courts, which are bound by the First Amendment. Some U.S. courts have ruled in other cases that parody sites don't infringe in trademark, even if they use a famous name in the URL."

"It's good to see that this WIPO arbitrator had no interest in allowing Beck to circumvent the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution."

"Ironically, Beck never did respond to Marc Randazza's motion for a stipulation that the panel would have to apply American law in deciding the case, but it didn't matter. He never really had a case even under the standards applicable by this international tribunal."

"So, perhaps one lesson here is: live by the Constitution, put up with Internet by the Constitution."