An Ordinary Man ...

I am too tired, and evidently too ordinary, to think of any stories of my own today, but I did read a gem of a lawsuit in my Torts book yesterday ...

In Cordas v. Peerless Transp. Co., Justice Carlin tells the tale of an ordinary man in New York City, 1941. The judicial opinion begins: "This case presents the ordinary man - that problem child of the law - in a most bizarre setting. As a lowly chauffeur ... he became in a trice the protagonist in a breach-bating drama with a denouement almost tragic."

Believe me, most cases do NOT include such dramatic writing. (And unlike Justice Carlin, most judges do not include references to Shakespeare in their opinions.) The basic plot of this one has the "lowly chauffeur" being sued, basically, for being ordinary. After a gun-wielding thief jumped into his taxi, the man jumped out and the taxi subsequently injured a mother and two children. They only sustained minor injuries, but sued him, claiming he negligently saved his own life, rather than thinking of the interests of any possible people on the street.

And now, back to Justice Carlin:

"There are those who stem the turbulent current for bubble fame, or who bridge the yawning chasm with a leap for the leap's sake or who ‘outstare the sternest eyes that look, outbrave the heart most daring on the earth, pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear, yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey’ to win a fair lady and these are the admiration of the generality of men; but they are made of sterner stuff than the ordinary man upon whom the law places no duty of emulation. ... The chauffeur - the ordinary man in this case - acted in a split second in a most harrowing experience. To call him negligent would be to brand him coward; the court does not do so in spite of what those swaggering heroes, ‘whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard’, may bluster to the contrary."

Just feeling ordinary (instead of completely inept, as school makes me feel these days) sounds good right about now ...