I posted this ages ago, and LabRat's recently remembered it and wanted to see it again...
As Dave Barry says, I am *not* making this up ... the following is an actual judge's decision in a case. Don't let the legalese at the beginning turn you off, keep on reading for the most scathing and hilarious piece of work I've seen in a long time. I'll put in a bolded note at the start of the funny part
And just for the obligitory L&C moment ... the judge's last name is Kent <g>
>>Submitted by Mark R. Levin, president, Landmark Legal Foundation
JOHN W. BRADSHAW, Plaintiff, v.
UNITY MARINE CORPORATION, INC.; CORONADO, in rem;
and PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, Defendants.
CIVIL ACTION NO. G-00-558
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS, GALVESTON
DIVISION
2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8962 June 26, 2001, Decided June 27, 2001, Entered
DISPOSITION: Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment GRANTED.
COUNSEL: For JOHN W BRADSHAW, plaintiff: Harold Joseph Eisenman, Attorney at
Law, Houston, TX.
For CORONADO, UNITY MARINE CORPORATION, INC., defendants: Ronald L White,
White Mackillop et al, Houston, TX.
For PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, defendant: Charles Wayne Lyman, Giessel
Barker & Lyman, Houston, TX.
For UNITY MARINE CORPORATION, INC., cross-claimant: Ronald L White, White
Mackillop et al, Houston, TX.
For PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, cross-defendant: Charles Wayne Lyman,
Giessel Barker & Lyman, Houston, TX.
JUDGE: SAMUEL B. KENT, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
OPINION:
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Plaintiff brings this action for personal injuries sustained while working
aboard the M/V CORONADO. Now before the Court is Defendant Phillips
Petroleum Company's ("Phillips") Motion for Summary Judgment. For the
reasons set forth below, Defendant's Motion is GRANTED.
DISCUSSION
Plaintiff John W. Bradshaw claims that he was working as a Jones Act seaman
aboard the M/V CORONADO on January 4, 1999. The CORONADO was not at sea on
January 4, 1999, but instead sat [*2] docked at a Phillips' facility in
Freeport, Texas. Plaintiff alleges that he "sustained injuries to his body
in the course and scope of his employment." The injuries are said to have
"occurred as a proximate result of the unsafe and unseaworthy condition of
the tugboat CORONADO and its appurtenances while docked at the
Phillips/Freeport Dock."
Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint, which added Phillips as a Defendant,
provides no further information about the manner in which he suffered
injury. However, by way of his Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary
Judgment, Plaintiff now avers that "he was forced to climb on a piling or
dolphin to leave the vessel at the time he was injured." This, in
combination with Plaintiff's Complaint, represents the totality of the
information available to the Court respecting the potential liability of
Defendant Phillips.
Six days after filing his one-page Response, Plaintiff filed a Supplemental
Opposition to Phillips Petroleum Company's Motion for Summary Judgment.
Although considerably lengthier, the Supplement provides no further
illumination of the factual basis for Plaintiff's claims versus Phillips.
Defendant now contends, in its Motion for Summary Judgment, that the Texas
two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims bars this action.
Plaintiff suffered injury on January 4, 1999 and filed suit in this Court on
September 15, 2000. However, Plaintiff did not amend his Complaint to add
Defendant Phillips until March 28, 2001, indisputably more than two-years
after the date of his alleged injury. Plaintiff now responds that he timely
sued Phillips, contending that the three-year federal statute for maritime
personal injuries applies to his action.
start reading here 
Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two
extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most
amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an
effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both
attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact - complete with hats,
handshakes and cryptic words - to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon
on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the
Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter
dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever
actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of
deciphering their submissions.
With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a
devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor's edge sense of
exhilaration, the Court begins.
Summary judgment is appropriate if no genuine issue of material fact exists
and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. When a
motion for summary judgment is made, the nonmoving party must set forth
specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. Therefore,
when a defendant moves for summary judgment based upon an affirmative
defense to the plaintiff's claim, the plaintiff must bear the burden of
producing some evidence to create a fact issue some element of defendant's
asserted affirmative defense.
Defendant begins the descent into Alice's Wonderland by submitting a Motion
that relies upon only one legal authority. The Motion cites a Fifth Circuit
case which stands for the whopping proposition that a federal court sitting
in Texas applies the Texas statutes of limitations to certain state and
federal law claims. That is all well and good - the Court is quite fond of
the Erie doctrine; indeed there is talk of little else around both the Canal
and this Court's water cooler. Defendant, however, does not even cite to
Erie, but to a mere successor case, and further fails to even begin to
analyze why the Court should approach the shores of Erie.
Finally, Defendant does not even provide a cite to its desired Texas
limitation statute. A more bumbling approach is difficult to conceive - but
wait folks. There's More!
Defendant submitted a Reply brief, on June 11, 2001, after the Court had
already drafted, but not finalized, this Order. In a regretful effort to be
thorough, the Court reviewed this submission. It too fails to cite to either
the Texas statute of limitations or any Fifth Circuit cases discussing
maritime law liability for Plaintiff's claims versus Phillips.
Plaintiff responds to this deft, yet minimalist analytical wizardry with an
equally gossamer wisp of an argument, although Plaintiff does at least cite
the federal limitations provision applicable to maritime tort claims.
Naturally, Plaintiff also neglects to provide any analysis whatsoever of why
his claim versus Defendant Phillips is a maritime action. Instead, Plaintiff
"cites" to a single case from the Fourth Circuit.
Plaintiff's citation, however, points to a nonexistent Volume "1886" of the
Federal Reporter Third Edition and neglects to provide a pinpoint citation
for what, after being located, turned out to be a forty-page decision.
Ultimately, to the Court's dismay after reviewing the opinion, it stands
simply for the bombshell proposition that torts committed on navigable
waters (in this case an alleged defamation committed by the controversial G.
Gordon Liddy aboard a cruise ship at sea) require the application of general
maritime rather than state tort law. See Wells v. Liddy, 186 F.3d 505, 524
(4th Cir. 1999) (What the ..)?!
The Court cannot even begin to comprehend why this case was selected for
reference. It is almost as if Plaintiff's counsel chose the opinion by
throwing long range darts at the Federal Reporter (remarkably enough hitting
a nonexistent volume!). And though the Court often gives great heed to dicta
from courts as far flung as those of Manitoba, it finds this case
unpersuasive. There is nothing in Plaintiff's cited case about ingress or
egress between a vessel and a dock, although counsel must have been thinking
that Mr. Liddy must have had both ingress and egress from the cruise ship at
some docking facility, before uttering his fateful words.
Further, as noted above, Plaintiff has submitted a Supplemental Opposition
to Defendant's Motion. This Supplement is longer than Plaintiff's purported
Response, cites more cases, several constituting binding authority from
either the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court, and actually includes
attachments which purport to be evidence. However, this is all that can be
said positively for Plaintiff's Supplement, which does nothing to explain
why, on the facts of this case, Plaintiff has an admiralty claim against
Phillips (which probably makes some sense because Plaintiff doesn't).
Plaintiff seems to rely on the fact that he has pled Rule 9(h) and stated an
admiralty claim versus the vessel and his employer to demonstrate that
maritime law applies to Phillips. This bootstrapping argument does not work;
Plaintiff must properly invoke admiralty law versus each Defendant
discretely. Despite the continued shortcomings of Plaintiff's supplemental
submission, the Court commends Plaintiff for his vastly improved choice of
crayon - Brick Red is much easier on the eyes than Goldenrod, and stands out
much better amidst the mustard splotched about Plaintiff's briefing. But at
the end of the day, even if you put a calico dress on it and call it
Florence, a pig is still a pig.
Now, alas, the Court must return to grownup land. As vaguely alluded to by
the parties, the issue in this case turns upon which law - state or
maritime - applies to each of Plaintiff's potential claims versus Defendant
Phillips. And despite Plaintiff's and Defendant's joint, heroic efforts to
obscure it, the answer to this question is readily ascertained.
The Fifth Circuit has held that "absent a maritime status between the
parties, a dock owner's duty to crew members of a vessel using thedock is
defined by the application of state law, not maritime law. Specifically,
maritime law does not impose a duty on the dock owner to provide a means of
safe ingress or egress. Therefore, because maritime law does not create a
duty on the part of Defendant Phillips vis-a-vis Plaintiff, any claim
Plaintiff does have versus Phillips must necessarily arise under state law.
Take heed and be suitably awed, oh boys and girls - the Court was able to
state the issue and its resolution in one paragraph ... despite dozens of
pages of gibberish from the parties to the contrary!
The Court, therefore ... applies the Texas statute of limitations. Texas has
adopted a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury cases.
Plaintiff failed to file his action versus Defendant Phillips within that
two-year time frame. Plaintiff has offered no justification, such as the
discovery rule or other similar tolling doctrines, for this failure.
Accordingly, Plaintiff's claims versus Defendant Phillips were not timely
filed and are barred. Defendant Phillips' Motion for Summary Judgment is
GRANTED and Plaintiff's state law claims against Defendant Phillips are
hereby DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. A Final Judgment reflecting such will be
entered in due course.
CONCLUSION
After this remarkably long walk on a short legal pier, having received no
useful guidance whatever from either party, the Court has endeavored,
primarily based upon its affection for both counsel, but also out of its own
sense of morbid curiosity, to resolve what it perceived to be the legal
issue presented. Despite the waste of perfectly good crayon seen in both
parties' briefing (and the inexplicable odor of wet dog emanating from such)
the Court believes it has satisfactorily resolved this matter. Defendant's
Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.
At this juncture, Plaintiff retains, albeit seemingly to his befuddlement
and/or consternation, a maritime law cause of action versus his alleged
Jones Act employer, Defendant Unity Marine Corporation, Inc. However, it is
well known around these parts that Unity Marine's lawyer is equally likable
and has been writing crisply in ink since the second grade. Some old-timers
even spin yarns of an ability to type. The Court cannot speak to the
veracity of such loose talk, but out of caution, the Court suggests that
Plaintiff's lovable counsel had best upgrade to a nice shiny No. 2 pencil or
at least sharpen what's left of the stubs of his crayons for what remains of
this heart-stopping, spine-tingling action.
In either case, the Court cautions Plaintiff's counsel not to run with a
sharpened writing utensil in hand - he could put his eye out.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DONE this 26th day of June, 2001, at Galveston, Texas.
SAMUEL B. KENT
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Carolyn J. Stevens
Post Office Box 999
Lolo, MT 59847-0999
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