Lying Down on the Job

Random thoughts on assorted topics.

RECOGNIZING THE SYMPTOMS. I see an awful lot of disability discrimination lawsuits and sometimes I think the problem is that the bosses don't realize the employee is disabled as opposed to stupid and incompetent.

On the other hand, sometimes it should be obvious.

The following is from a Los Angeles Superior Court disability discrimination complaint against, of all things, The Judge Judy Program:

"Despite her superiors being aware of her need for a new chair and of her back problem, nothing was done.... Plaintiff is informed and believes that (the superiors) would see her lying on the ground in pain."

That should have been a tipoff that something was wrong.

WE ARE FAMILY. I know practically nothing about gangs, so I've often wondered why people join them. I now have a theory: the cool names.

I don't know why I never noticed this before, but when I looked at one of those nuisance suits filed against gang members by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office the other day, I was fascinated by the aliases of the defendants. They included Flash, Ghost, Loco, Tiny, Toro, Looney, Face, Scrappy, and Bam Bam.

I'm beginning to see why the seven dwarves formed a gang.

This is the sort of insight that do-gooders who want to get kids to avoid gangs should be using to their advantage. Find the kids productive, non-violent groups to join and then let them have cool nicknames. It makes the whole experience so much more fun and attractive.

Don't believe me?

Imagine going to work in your law office - along with Jumbo, Closer, Whiner, Perrymason, Inquisitor, the Discovery Kid, Objectionable, and, of course, Looney.

It's enough to make you love your gang (or firm).

WHAT'S IN A NAME? OK, I know I'm demented but surely I can't be the only one absolutely dying to read the briefs and then watch some elderly, straight-laced judge (and, later, appellate panel) have to seriously consider the key issue in the suit brought the other day by The Red Hot Chili Peppers against Showtime Networks, Inc.

In case you missed it, the key issue is the right to the name "Californication."

Tee hee.

Is this name so obvious that it's in the public domain?

What exactly, dear legal scholars, is meant by this title and will there be confusion?

Picture a couple of the more, um, straight-laced judges you know dealing with this.

It's going to be fun.

MARLON WHO? Litigation does indeed have power - the Brando is now the Sequelle.

In case you missed it, the trustees of The Marlon Brando Living Trust sued Palliser Furniture for selling a home theater chair called the Brando without their permission.

When the trustees asked them to stop, the suit said, they got a letter saying they like to name furniture after tourist areas. The chair wasn't named after Marlon Brando, but instead was named after "a tourist centre of Corsica in the Meditteranean Sea."

OK.

The chair has now been renamed and, by a strange coincidence, the Cagney Home Theater Seat is now the Camio and the Eastwood Home Theater Chair is now the Flashback.

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