Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

It’s Too Easy

Go down Moses ... Let my whale pod go.

Writing a pre-Internet five-day-a-week column used to be a lot easier than writing this weekly column. Now the easiest punchlines are taken and I have to dig deep.

I hope I'm up to the challenge because last week saw the filing of one of those rare lawsuits that gets a lot of public attention and is pure straight line.

I'm talking, of course, about the suit filed on behalf of a group of orcas against Sea World for enslaving them. You can write the punchlines in your head instantly and a lot of good ones got taken right away.

I just Googled "Sea World orca lawsuit jokes" and got 274,000 results.

I haven't read all of them. Suffice it to say that it has been pointed out that if corporations are people, certainly orcas must be. Allow me to add - if it's not already in that 274,000 - that I can't wait for the next Republican presidential debate at the zoo.

After all, it's primate vote season.

I wonder if anyone else has pointed out that this may be a result of gay marriage.

Think back to the people who, apparently with straight faces, claimed that if you could marry a human of the same sex, this might lead to marriages with dogs or turtles. (NOTE: Google just returned 6.2 million results for "marrying an animal.")

A killer whale that can marry surely has the right to sue.

Hmm. If my dog leaves me, could there be palimony litigation?

Check out page five of the lawsuit where we learn that the stress of captivity can cause "hyper-sexual behavior (towards people or other orcas)."

Now imagine the results of this behavior. Is society equipped to care for unwanted orca/humans? How long will it take before we're advanced enough to elect our first whale/human president? (No, William Howard Taft doesn't count.)

The lawsuit, by the way, is also a little embarrassing for orcas and I don't understand why they let their lawyers write some of this stuff. On page six, we learn that they normally live with their mothers and never move out. (Read it if you don't believe me. You're not getting this from comedy writers who haven't gotten beyond page two.)

You'd think that living with mothers would make the marriage argument irrelevant, but they do manage to reproduce somehow. I guess there's hope for everyone.

And then there's this buried on page 9: "He is conditioned to roll over and present his penis to trainers who masturbate him repeatedly to collect his semen."

Google came up with 845,000 results for "masturbate orca." And, yes, there is a YouTube video.

I have to note here that there's a serious part to this lawsuit. If you get beyond the slavery stuff, there are descriptions of the conditions the orcas live under and it's not pretty. The lawyers who drafted this unfortunately buried their lead and put the straight lines up front. The suit should have been for personal injury, assault and battery, false imprisonment and cruel and unusual punishment and, (well, duh!) animal cruelty.

I can't wait for the malpractice litigation.

COURT FUNDING. Here's another way for the strapped judicial system to raise money: naming rights.

If schools and sports teams can sell the rights to label buildings and rooms, why shouldn't courts do it? Consider the possibilities:

The Grand Theft Auto Criminal Courthouse.

Trix Juvenile Court (it's for kids).

Viagra Family Law Court.

PSP Traffic Court. (You need something to play while waiting in those long lines).

And, my favorite, the Mafia Justice Center.

OK, that last one could cause a conflict of interest, but they can't buy naming rights to every courthouse. Or can they?

This may be a way to keep every court in business.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...