Law School Math ...

My previous complaining about indecipherable cases now seems premature, as the law school gods (a.k.a. my professors) recently assigned a case obviously directed towards those of us who regularly check People.com.

In Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox, Shirley MacLaine sued the movie studio for not paying her for a role she never actually had to perform because the studio cancelled the movie. (I am sure she really needed that money, too.) The judges kindly acquiesced to her request (yes, in keeping with my theme, I did steal that line from a movie, but luckily those script writers so worried about copyright violation have other concerns this week) and awarded her both money and this little ego-inflating nugget in their opinion: "The female lead as a dramatic actress in a western style motion picture can by no stretch of imagination be considered the equivalent of or substantially similar to the lead in a song-and-dance production." Oh, the important matters of justice.

I should also note that dear Prof. M, who brings us the aforementioned legal entertainment, also brings us law school math. My People.com skills once again proved helpful in deciphering this equation from a case we discussed in class today:

[promised nose - old nose] + [old nose - disfigured nose] - doctor's fees = damages

Now this shows how law school should really be. Disfigured noses and celebrity gossip. And math with no numbers involved ...