Farmer Brown decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court. In court, the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning Farmer Brown. "Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?" asked the lawyer.
Farmer Brown responded, "Well I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the..."
"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'!"
Farmer Brown said, "Well I had just gotten Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road..."
The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."
By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Brown's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule Bessie."
Brown thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side."
He continued, "I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans."
"Shortly after the accident a highway patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and looked at me."
Finally, farmer Brown came to the end of the story. "The patrolman looked at me and said, 'Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her. How are YOU feeling'?"
"Mr. Clark, I have reviewed this case very carefully," the divorce court Judge said, "And I've decided to give your wife $775 a week,"
"That's very fair, your honor," the husband said. "And every now and then I'll try to send her a few bucks myself,"
AT A court hearing where a woman was handling her own divorce, the presiding judge went
through the petition with her step by step, filling in whatever information she had failed
to include. Having covered the basics such as address, employment, earnings, they were
faced with a blank the woman had neglected to fill in. "Are you pregnant at this
time?" he asked. "No," she answered. "Don't worry," the judge
said. "I'll take care of that."
I'M A bailiff and have heard many suspicious reasons why prospective jurors can't
serve. One woman, however, was really concerned that her problem would prevent her from
being a good juror. She wanted the court to know she was taking medication that could
interfere with her ability to concentrate on the testimony. "What's the medication
for?" asked the judge. "It's a fertility drug, Your Honour. I'm trying to get
pregnant." "And what side effects are you experiencing?" pursued the judge.
"It gives me a headache."
JEAN had been a receptionist in our law office for about a month and was still learning
the legal lingo. One day she came to me with a puzzled look on her face. "Your
husband called while you were out," she said, "and I don't remember whether he
said 'equity' or 'inequity,' but you're to meet him in the den of it."
WHEN I was a new assistant crown prosecutor working on a case, I ran across the unusual
name of Fnu Lnu. I tried to check Mr. Lnu on the computer for any previous record, and was
presented with pages and pages of Fnu Lnus to pick from. I told my chief prosecutor that I
couldn't figure out which Fnu Lnu to pursue — there were too many to check them all.
Was I embarrassed when he told me that Fnu Lnu meant "First name unknown; Last name
unknown"!
JUDGE Henry Clay Agnew of Seattle, Wash., was known for his conservative courtroom. One
afternoon I had to relieve a fellow reporter who had become ill while covering a trial in
Agnew's court. As luck would have it, I was wearing a bright-red, Scotch-plaid jacket. All
eyes, especially the judge's, converged on the press table, where I stuck out like a
peacock in a chicken coop. Midway through the afternoon session, Agnew beckoned me to the
bench. In a whisper that carried the length and breadth of the courtroom, he suggested
that the next time I wear something less loud in court. "But, Your Honor," I
replied, "I thought Justice was blind." "She is, young man," he said.
"But not by any stretch of the imagination is she deaf."
IT had been a long day in traffic court, and the judge was
listening to the final case on the docket. The police officer stated that he had observed
the defendant traveling significantly above the posted speed limit. In response, the
defendant went on and on about the road conditions, the amount of traffic and his
innocence. Then, certain he had won his case, he melodramatically proclaimed, "Why,
Your Honour, I'll even take a lie detector test." "Son," the judge wearily
replied, "I am the lie detector."
A New Yorker was forced to take a day off from work to appear
for a minor traffic summons. He grew increasingly restless as he waited hour after
endless hour for his case to be heard. When his name was called late in the
afternoon, he stood before the judge, only to hear that court would be adjourned for the
rest of the afternoon and he would have to return the next day. "What
for?!?!?" he snapped at the judge. His honor, equally irked by a tedious day
and sharp query, roared out loud: "Twenty dollars contempt of court! That's
why!" Then, noticing the man checking his wallet, the judge relented:
"That's all right. You don't have to pay now." The young man
replied, "I know. But I'm just seeing if I have enough for two more
words."
A small town prosecuting attorney called his first
witness to the stand in a trial — a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her
and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I've known you since you
were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat
on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think
you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to
anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and
asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a
youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real
disappointment to me. He's lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can't build a
normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire
state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors
to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with menace, "If either of you asks her
if she knows me, you'll be in jail for contempt within 5 minutes!"
An escaped convict broke into a house and tied up a young
couple who had been sleeping in the bedroom. As soon as he had a chance, the husband
turned to his voluptuous young wife, bound up on the bed in a skimpy nightgown, and
whispered, "Honey, this guy hasn't seen a woman in years. Just cooperate with
anything he wants. If he wants to have sex with you, just go along with it and
pretend you like it. Our lives depend on it." "Dear," the wife
hissed, spitting out her gag, "I'm so relieved you feel that way, because he just
told me he thinks you are really cute!"
AUTHORITIES in Fort Madison, Iowa, are still blushing over
their so-called escape-proof jail. After it was completed - at a cost of $1.8
million - Lee County sheriff Don Arnold dared a group of 18 reporters, local officials and
dignitaries to escape. They did. In less than 20 minutes.
NO ONE had told our new court crier that I would use Latin in
adjourning the New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench "sine die" - "without
day," or indefinitely. He announced in a loud solemn voice, "The Court is
adjourned to a sunny day!"
IT WAS midnight in the ornate law offices. The guard, at the
foot of the stairs, saw a shadowy figure. He drew his gun. Shadowy figure did
like wise.
Guard fired, destroying a valuable antique mirror. "But I'll tell you one
thing," said the guard to his boss the next morning. "I out drew him!"
DURING a trial, the prosecutor was in the midst of a spirited
legal argument when the building was suddenly shaken by an earthquake. After several
seconds the vibrations stopped. Without missing a beat, the prosecutor said,
"Someone agrees with me, Your Honor." Replied the judge, "Earthquakes
emanate from below, don't they?"
"YOUR HONOUR," the accused hit-and-run driver's
lawyer pleaded, "that man who was injured must have been careless. My client is an
experienced driver of more than twenty years!" "If experience is the issue
here," the other attorney countered, "my client has been walking for over fifty
years."
A WOMAN went to a lawyer and said she wanted a divorce.
The lawyer got out his note pad, and proceeded to ask her some questions.
"Do you have any grounds?" "Oh, yes," she replied. "About
three quarters of an acre." The lawyer paused for a moment, then
proceeded. "Do you have a grudge?" "No," the woman
answered quickly. "But we do have a lovely carport." Again the
lawyer paused and then asked, "Does he beat you up?" "No. I get up
before he does every morning," the woman reported. Finally the lawyer blurted,
"Lady, why do you want to divorce your husband?" "It's because,"
she exclaimed, "that man can't carry on an intelligent conversation."
MY HUSBAND received a new credit card in the mail,
incorrectly imprinted "Donald." Since his first name is Harold, he
returned the card, having carefully marked the "Change of Information" section.
A few days later, he received a reply: "Please send us documented proof that
your name has been legally changed."
WHILE I was serving as a juror, I chanced to share the
elevator one morning with a visiting judge. He asked me where the jurors parked, and
I informed him that we had our own lot several blocks away. Then it occurred to me
that he might be having a problem finding a place for his car, so I continued, "But,
Your Honor, they have a special place reserved for judges down below."
"Yes," he said dryly, "I'm sure they do."
A MOTORIST cursed his luck when his car broke
down in a no-parking zone in Chichester, England. He left the vehicle to go into a
store to buy a pen to leave an explanatory note for the traffic warden, but when he got
back to the car, the pen would not write. He went to buy another pen but the
saleswoman had no change for his £20 bill.
What happened next is related by Patrol, the Sussex police newspaper:
"So he went to the bank to change the note to buy the pen to write on the paper to
put on his car to tell the warden that his car had broken down.
"As he left the bank, he saw a telephone box and decided to ring the
Automobile Association, but the number was engaged. So he went back to the
car." And stuck on it was the ticket he had sought so strenuously to avoid.
However, the motorist's explanation moved even the police and they withdrew the
ticket.
THE man had hit his lawyer, and the judge asked him to
explain. "Your Honor," replied the defendant, "that man represented
me in a divorce suit. One day he said my property settlement hearing was about to be held.
The judge would decide that afternoon what I would get and what Rose would get.
My lawyer told me I didn't have to be present and not to worry." "I
can't see why you'd punch a man for that," interrupted the judge. "Wait,
there's more. When I asked my attorney later about the settlement, he told me to
look on the bright side. I asked why. Then he said, "Because everything's
coming up Rose's." That's when I hit him."
APPEARING in court to dispute a traffic ticket, I explained
to the judge that I had been unable to stop the car as it slid through a stop sign at a
snowy intersection. In my defense, I emphasized the severity of the weather.
The judge leaned back and asked, "Sir, how many really bad stormy days do you believe
we have experienced this winter?" "Three or four," I replied.
"Well," said the judge, "all winter I've been listening to people tell me
how bad the weather is and how it is the main cause of their getting a ticket, so I marked
down those days on my calendar. Would you like to see it?" I knew I was
sunk when he turned it around to show each day circled in bright red!