RSS FeedJohn Miller’s Open Letter to Mark Steyn
John Miller, a journalism professor at Ryerson University, posted a series of open letters on the Maclean’s controversy. His most recent one, Open letter to Steyn, documents plagiarism and gross errors of fact.
See also his previous posts:
Will Canada’s only national news magazine continue to keep on an author of such poor journalistic integrity? What does this say about the editors that allowed this poorly researched material to be published?
h/t Big City Lib
Updates
The quote in question [as opposed to the book] is a proven hoax.
Aside from faulty translations by translators unknown even to the publishers, experts who were approached to do the intro refused on the basis of questionable authenticity and misrepresentation. The bulk of the work is not even authored by Khomeini himself, and the experts strongly advised against publication.
Tony Hendra, the Bantam Books editor who previously worked as a comedian and then an editor for National Lampoon, has said publicly,
I can understand why people might look at my background [and lack of familiarity in this area] and think that it’s a hoax. But if it’s a hoax, I am the one that has been hoaxed.
Hendra has gone on since to write The Great White Hype, and work as editor-in-chief for Spy magazine. Good entertainment, but not the stuff of well-researched peer-reviewed publications.
What’s even more interesting is that the quote in question doesn’t even exist in the Farsi original, according to the former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. There is good reason that this source has rarely been cited by credible scholars and academics in the field.
So much for responsible and accurate journalism by Canada’s only national news magazine. The responsibility for catching that journalistic blunder, 25 years after it has been discredited, falls squarely on the shoulders of the editors, who we’ve been told do read this site.
See the post at Big City Lib on the info we leaked to him.
We’re more interested in an apology by the publishers rather than Steyn himself, for the reasons expressed above.
Update 2
Steyn’s reponse best clarifies the need for responsible journalism.
We can’t blame him for his background as a high-school dropout, but it seems his education is based on a Persian girlfriend, and a right-wing radical who has violated the Swiss criminal code for racist content that he “adores.”
Steyn refuses to acknowledge it as a hoax because he is still unfamiliar with the source documents in their original language, no matter how many translations and jpegs he provides of books. We’re pretty sure he didn’t learn Farsi in high school. We still want a citation of the quote from a Western academic in a reputable journal, only because leading academics over a quarter of a century ago who do speak Farsi said the quote simply did not exist in the Farsi original (though may have existed in Farsi duplicates, i.e. the one Steyn cites, that may include unverified extraneous material).
This process is revealing enough, because Steyn has demonstrated that his (mis)information about this “very important issue” is not an informed one. He also conveniently ignores that all of his citations are deliberately taken out of context; nowhere is bestiality justified – it’s actually abhorred, and measures cited are punitive.
Citing factually inaccurate information as authoritative is actually just as bad as saying it yourself. He has yet to cite a single academic journal that uses the quote he references. He does go beyond simply citing Fallaci, suggesting that rising Muslim immigration would be accompanied by beastiality,
This, it seems to me, is the most valuable contribution of Oriana Fallaci’s work. I enjoy the don’t-eat-your-sexual-partner stuff as much as the next infidel, but the challenge presented by Islam is not that the cities of the Western world will be filling up with sheep-shaggers.
[emphasis added]
We expect this from high school dropouts, but not from Canada’s national news magazine.
He then tries to provide surrounding material to further lend credibility to his erroneous quote. Our response to that would be to again cite the original debunking listed above. Ivan Nabakov, director of the French publisher the Bantam book was based on, and who acknowledged their inability to independently verify the authenticity of the text, said,
The only unfair thing about the book, is that you could do the exact same thing with the Talmud if you wanted to. A 40-page extract from that could have people rolling on the ground with laughter.
We tend to afford world religions more respect than that on our site. Bantam’s chairman, Marc Jaffe, also cited in the same article, would seem to agree,
I wouldn’t want to put any religion up for ridicule.
Cheap jokes, even “en passant,” can lead to false prejudices and hate crimes when presented in this way. Physical security and workplace discrimination are not things we can lightly dismiss. The publishers of Canada’s national news magazine should know better, and the editors should be more vigilant when the best citations for their star author are right-wing blogs.
Update 3
It seems Steyn is still going on about this. Oh yeah, that’s what he does for a living.
Let’s clarify a few points:
- Steyn has yet to identify a reputable scholar writing in a peer-reviewed journal that he based his article on when doing the original research
- Not only did he not go to college, he did not finish high school either
- Nowhere above do we actually cite a green or blue little book (we only link to Miller’s assertions)
- We have academics stating in print over 25 years ago that:
- the specific quote he uses about sheep-shagging does not exist in their Farsi originals
- Farsi originals do exist that attribute quotes to him that are taken from other sources
- editors and publishers all relied on second hand sources and were unable to verify its authenticity
Our position of the quote being a hoax is based on the reluctance of these scholars at that time to either authenticate or uses these quotes out of their original context. Steyn took our bait and has indicated that when he wrote this piece he did not engage in any serious academic research. He relied on a) a convicted indicted hate criminal b) a Persian girlfriend. He finally suggests looking up experts now to verify his Farsi translation, and the veracity of his Farsi original.
The point, which he seems to miss, is that he should have done this before putting the quote into print. He seems unaware that the veracity of the quote was even questioned, despite the time lapse between this time and his article. We could care less if it’s true or not; there’s not much to laugh at when placed in context and when contrasted to other Abrahamic faiths. What we do care is that the editor’s at Canada’s national news magazine did not appear to provide enough editorial scrutiny at the time of publication. His showdown, ‘you pick someone and I’ll pick someone,’ should have happened with the editorial staff before any of this went into print.
As with so much of Steyn’s work, his approach is highly reminiscent of other racists in history who would denigrate religion by removing context, using faulty translations, and even fraudulent materials, to encourage hatred towards a domestic minority. His position that Western women should be the breeding grounds for his version of civilization is chauvinistic enough without him making reference to female undergarments towards a mixed gender team.
Perhaps these editors, and the Steyn fans, care to comment about all of this on his site. Oh that’s right, he doesn’t allow comments at all, anywhere.
Update 4
Steyn seems to have a difficult time reading, so we’ll spell it out for him, yet again.
We make no personal representations of the accuracy of any quote or book, anywhere here. We do cite reputable experts that note that the specific quote he uses has been forged in at least one copy. They note other Farsi copies include extraneous material, meaning someone else wrote it but they include it in the same book. More recently, we demonstrated that the specific Farsi translation Steyn claims to use is greatly flawed.
None of this matters, and is a distraction from the real issue at hand (even though he fails to address these points).
What we have pointed out is that Steyn did not do any real research before writing about this”very important issue” (or reproducing it) in Canada’s only national news magazine. We’ve noted repeatedly that he did not even finish high school. Not to belittle him the way he belittles others. But to point out that someone with that little formal education is hardly qualified to make accurate assessments about any global issues. Indeed, he has gone on the record a number of times and has been proven grossly wrong.
The problem here is with the editorial staff that afford him complete leeway to write absolutely anything he wants, unverified, unchecked, and without so much as a second thought. This is part of the reason that Prof. Moon suggests the creation of mandatory press councils, because there are times when the press themselves behave in an irresponsible way. Canadian readers depend on them for accurate and well-thought out information, not cheap laughs that can result in hate crimes.
And because we know you are reading this we say, “shame on you, editors of these publications.”
Liebeck v. Starbucks – The New Chapter of Hot Torts
We all remember the classic case of Liebeck v. McDonald’s. Well it seems other hot drink vendors didn’t learn this important lesson.
A woman in Manhattan is suing Starbucks for $3 million for her hot drink. It’s tea this time, not coffee, but it did result in some pretty nasty third-degree burns.
Tara Darrow, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said,
our customers enjoy our beverages hot, and unless we are asked otherwise, we serve them that way.
No explanation was available for why not a single Starbucks employee helped the 77 year-old woman as she shrieked in agony.
To make her ordeal worse, she fell out of bed while at the hospital and fractured several bones. However, hospital negligence is one cup of hot water Starbucks will likely evade.
Updates
In the meantime, McDonald’s might be making more ground-breaking law, this time in the area of privacy. Aaron Brummley, a McDonald’s manager, found a cell phone in his restaurant and the nude pictures of the phone owner’s wife somehow found their way on to the Internet.
After the wife received harassing and threatening text messages and experiencing “emotional distress,” the couple decided to sue McDonald’s for $3 million.
Welcoming Dany Horovitz and Darcy Ammerman
Law is Cool is forever growing and expanding.
We welcome our two newest contributors, Dany Horovitz of the University of Western Ontario, and Darcy Ammerman of the University of Ottawa.
Dany Horovitz is in his second year in the J.D./M.B.A. program at UWO. He writes for the Financial Post Executive Blog and cross-posts his entries here.
Darcy Ammerman is a second-year law student at the University of Ottawa, and the Fundraising Coordinator for the Health Law Student Association (HLSA). She will be posting about events and activities related to the HLSA.
7 Ways To Lose An Argument Before It’s Started
Jonathan Fields provides 7 things you don’t want to do if you want to win an argument. For most advocates, that’s usually an important thing:
- Don’t Attack
- Don’t fail to acknowledge and validate another person’s right to believe what they believe
- Don’t fail to anticipate and address objections
- Don’t skip building rapport, trust, credibility
- Don’t forget to to adequate research
- Don’t shut yourself down to being persuaded yourself
- Don’t say don’t
CUPE 3903 Strike Update from Osgoode
Disclaimer
The information I’ve compiled for this little blog entry may have come from CUPE 3903’s website, York’s press releases, updates from Osgoode staff and faculty, and random picketers on the picket lines as I make my way into school every day (two weeks into a strike and I’m still playing catch-up!). When heated disputes such as this one carry on, it’s important to keep in mind the extreme difficulty of finding unbiased information, no matter where it’s coming from.
Updates
As far as I know, CUPE 3903 has a scheduled meeting of its members to discuss all things strike-related today. Perhaps this means they’re willing to relax their demands a little bit in the hopes of bringing the university’s representatives back to the table to say anything other than, “Binding arbitration or the highway,” (I couldn’t think of a clever way to make that rhyme).
One worker informed me yesterday that if the union is willing to bring their demands down to a collective agreement valued at under $10 million, the university might be willing to negotiate. Perhaps the strike will come to an end sooner than later.
The reason I have been given for CUPE refusing binding arbitration, by the way, is that an arbitrator will likely apply industry standards in resolving the dispute which the union feels are significantly lower than what they’re bargaining for. A victory for the union, I think, might raise the standard and therefore have significant implications for similar workers and universities across the country.
Regarding Osgoode specifically, faculty and administration have to be commended for doing their best to explore as many options as possible in order to minimize the impacts of the collective action on students. However, the official policy of York’s senate states that no on- or off-campus activities are to occur during a strike and, while the staff are doing their best to convince the senate that this isn’t the best idea, CUPE 3903 will likely picket any off-campus location regardless.
So where do the students stand? According to a survey taken and released by Osgoode’s Student Caucus, the vast majority of students are in favour of classes resuming, which would likely require the school to either exploit a tiny little loophole (utilize the internet maybe?) and get away with it or go all out and frustrate the union.
A handful of students are enjoying the vacation, and a couple have insisted—including one personal letter to the Dean—that they will not cross a picket line no matter what the school’s status is. How such students will be impacted if the law school resumes classes is unclear.
People Negatively Impacted by the Strike
International students: These few students at Osgoode are guaranteed to have something better to do this December, such as, I don’t know, spending Christmas back home with their families. But an even more practical concern is the fact that they may have visas set to expire and plane tickets that can’t easily be changed.
Third-year students hoping to graduate: As far as I know, you have to have an LLB or JD before you can write the bar exam. Fortunately for these folks, though, Osgoode is not going to budge the original end date of the second semester next year so they should be alright.
First- and second-year students with summer jobs: A lot of people are ecstatic about the fact that they will be gainfully employed at law firms in the summer months. These students are also lucky that the university is going to hold onto the semester’s original end date. If the strike goes on long enough to force the school’s hand on that matter though, which is very unlikely, they face the frustration of renegotiation start dates with their employers.
Osgoode support staff and merchants: Support staff and merchants are bound to be equally affected across the entire campus. Custodial staff need filthy law students to clean up after and cafeteria staff need hungry law students to feed. I never thought I’d say it, but there aren’t enough filthy, starving law students at this place any more to keep Osgoode’s excellent support staff busy. Some of my favourite cafeteria workers have already been laid off until further notice.
Students Positively Impacted by the Strike
Me.
As nice as it is to have a little time to catch up on my readings, however, and although it’s even nicer to be excluded from those aforementioned groups, I have to sympathize with them because they, unlike myself, will have various aspects of their lives significantly interrupted by the strike.
I am a full supporter of collective action for workers to ensure fairness, equity and the like. I’m also a full supporter of an employer’s right to protect its own interests in the hopes of maximizing efficiency and productivity. The closest I’ve come to disapproving of either side in this dispute is my negative sentiment towards CUPE insultingly analogizing themselves to people suffering under the poverty line. For more on that, see an excellent post by a colleague of mine.
Even to date, I don’t lay blame or harvest ill will towards either side of this dispute. But it can’t be forgotten that parties are suffering, and will suffer, who aren’t party to the dispute at all, and both sides are as responsible for students being screwed over as two warring factions are for civilian casualties. And like warring factions, both sides will likely point their fingers at the other for it.
Why You Should Never Steal a 1L’s Laptop
You might end up looking like this:
The laptop contained four months of case notes. In a frantic frenzy, the law student ripped the bat from the attacker and retaliated to retrieve his “baby.”
h/t Torwoli Dzuali at UofO Law
Law is Cool Podcast: Human Rights Commissions (Episode 17)
If you have been following magazines and blogs for the past year, you are probably aware of the human rights and free speech controversy involving Mark Steyn and Maclean’s. Starting in 2005, Maclean’s ran a series of articles by Steyn and Barbara Amiel which, according to a group of Osgoode Hall law students, cast Muslims in a dangerously negative light. Frustrated, the students asked the magazine to provide space for them to write a 5,000-word rebuttal article. After the Editor-in-Chief refused, the students filed a human rights complaint against the magazine with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
What came next can only be described as a firestorm of controversy in the media. A number of journalists and media outlets cried foul, arguing that Human Rights Commissions were being used to impose political correctness on the media creating a chilling effect on free speech. Former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant took up the cause, as did a number of editorial boards across the country. The intense media criticism of Human Rights Commissions soon caught the attention of federal politicians, with Liberal MP Keith Martin calling for the repeal of hate speech provisions from federal human rights law. A vicious war has erupted on the blogosphere; several prominent figures in the controversy have received death threats via email and in blog comments. Neo-Nazi websites have openly advocated for the execution Richard Warman and other human rights lawyers.
In this episode of the Law is Cool Podcast, Omar Ha-Redeye attempts to cut through the media spin to find out what Human Rights Commissions really are and how they work. Omar interviewed two experienced human rights lawyers to get their views on the current controversy.
The first is Montreal-based international human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis. She argues that the media coverage of the Human Rights Commission controversy has been unbalanced. She claims that Canadians are being “lied to” about the role of Human Rights Commissions and the character of freedom of speech in Canadian law. She recently wrote an article in Montreal’s Maisonneuve magazine called “The Controversy Entrepreneurs”. In that article, she seeks to dispel seven “myths” surrounding the controversy, including:
- Free speech is an absolute right.
- Human rights laws were not made to restrict speech.
- Human rights laws only apply to discriminatory conduct, not discriminatory speech.
- Human rights laws do not apply to the media.
- Human Rights Commissions dispense “parallel justice,” “prosecuting” and “convicting” people outside of normal legal channels.
- Human Rights Tribunals are rabid, out-of-control bastions of political correctness with 100% conviction rates.
- Free speech is under attack by frivolous, expensive, time-consuming complaints.
Eliadis deconstructs each of these myths and argues that Human Rights Commissions play a valuable role in the protection of all human rights, including freedom of speech. In her interview with Omar, she notes that it is unfortunate that many involved in this controversy have sought to paint the law students who brought the original complaint with the same brush as radical Islamists. In this sense, she says, an equality-seeking group has become further marginalized by bringing forward its complaint. She notes that the Commissions have characterized Mark Steyn’s writing as inaccurate, fear-mongering, and lacking in objectivity.
Ultimately, Eliadis believes that journalists such as Steyn and Levant who attack Human Rights Commissions are doomed to fail. Since some of the people who support the abolition of these Commissions have links to white supremacy groups, Eliadis believes that any such project will likely fail.
Next, Omar interviewed Donna Seale, former Co-Counsel for the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. Seale currently runs a consulting business in Winnipeg that provides educational seminars for employers on human rights issues relating to employment and the workplace. Her blog, generally updated on weekly basis, is clearinghouse of workplace human rights information.
Seale notes that Human Rights Commissions serve in a “gatekeeper” capacity to try to resolve complaints before they proceed to an expensive and time-consuming tribunal process. She believes that the Commissions are valuable because they are less adversarial than tribunals and their goal is to resolve conflicts quickly and amicably between the parties.
Seale also argues that it is a mischaracterization to portray the Commissions as guardians of political correctness that have a chilling effect on speech. Indeed, she claims that hate speech-related cases are extremely exceptional. She says that most of the cases heard by Provincial Human Rights Commissions relate to discrimination in employment, services, and housing. She rejects the argument that Human Rights Commissions should be abolished because they “do no good.”
In Seale’s consulting business, she seeks to help both employers and employees understand their roles and responsibilities in terms of meeting their human rights law obligations in the workplace. She believes that litigation can be avoided if both parties work together to understand their respective roles in terms of human rights.
Building Careers in Health Law
Building Careers in Health Law: Inaugural Event of the HLSA at UofO
by Natasha Danson and Darcy Ammerman of UofO Law
Health law is an emerging and exciting field in Canada. The Health Law Student Association at the University of Ottawa (HLSA) grew out of the observation that, unlike other Canadian law schools, Fauteux Hall did not yet have a student organization for those students specifically interested in health law. So far, the student response to the HLSA has been fantastic.
Our first jam-packed HLSA event took place on November 12, 2008 when Mary Jane Dykeman, a Toronto-based lawyer, delivered an informative lecture entitled “Building Careers in Health Law”. Ms. Dykeman is a guru in the health law field; she regularly advises health care clients on a broad range of issues including mental health, consent and capacity, health privacy, governance, and hospital risk management, and she is active in the health law community through her academic posts at Osgoode Hall Law School.
At the event, Ms. Dykeman shared her varied experiences in the health law field and imparted students with valuable career advice. In particular, Ms. Dykeman recommended that students strive to gain recognition and expertise in the health law field by participating in public speaking events and by publishing case comments and papers as soon as is practicable.
Building upon our “Careers in Health Law” theme, we plan to host a panel of Canadian health law experts to share their experiences in the field next semester.
In February, the HLSA will also co-host the “Health & Human Rights Conference”, a day-long conference in collaboration with the UofO chapter of CLAIHR, Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights. As part of this conference, the HLSA will review paper submissions and invite international and local speakers to speak in Fauteux Hall. We believe that this collaboration will prove invaluable for those students seeking to explore the connections between health, human rights and the law internationally.
In the winter semester, the HLSA Charity Committee will also host an evening event to fundraise money for a local charitable organization addressing health care issues.
If you’d like to get involved in the HLSA or have any questions, please contact us via email.
Natasha Danson is the Co-Chair of the HLSA
Darcy Ammerman is the Fundraising Coordinator of the HLSA
ABA Journal Survey on the Economy
The ABA Journal asked us to post a survey on the state of the economy and the current job market for lawyers. The results will be posted in their January issue.
You can help them out here.
Early Release for Weight
Earlier this year we raised the question of how the justice system will deal with the obesity epidemic.
We just got what might be our first test case.
Michel Lapointe, aka Big Mike, got early release last Tuesday because he couldn’t fit in any of the furniture in his cell. To make things worse, or better in the case of Mike, two other facilities refused to receive him.
Although he received a five-year sentence for conspiracy, drug trafficking and gangsterism, the authorities told him,
You have been detained for more than 25 months and your prison conditions are difficult because of your health.
He will be required to follow some conditions, including finding a job, staying away from bars and checking in with a parole officer.
Should prisoners get early release simply because facilities have failed to consider accommodation of different body types?
Is early release an adequate exemption from their duty to provide an equitable system to rehabilitate criminals?
My Race to the Finish
By Dany Horovitz
Whenever anyone asks me what the difference is between an MBA and a JD for a joint degree student, I tell them that an MBA is more much more intense, and a law degree is far more stressful. This summer, while in the MBA program, I probably spent 3 hours everyday on homework, but the grade curve is kept pretty tight; as long as I kept on top of the work I would do well.Law school is very different. For the first 8 weeks of a semester, you just need to show up to class and do readings (a week’s worth of readings can usually all be done on a Saturday). The last 4 weeks of the semester are spent in a mad-dash, trying to consolidate your understanding of the law, to make sure that you get how all the pieces of the legal puzzles fit together. At the end of the process, you should have a brief summation that you can refer to during the open book final exam.
In reality, summaries are rare brief. To return to an old favorite, in the movie The Paper Chase, one student praises his property law summary as being “800 pages long and fantastic.” To give you a real world example, a friend of mine who graduated and now works at a top Toronto law firm showed me her corporate law summary of 150 pages.
The theory goes that law professors are given more leeway than undergraduate professors to create tricky and specific questions because students have access to all of their notes. In reality, the problems are so many and complex that if you have to check your summary during an exam, you’re already in trouble. The invention of the computer has, I suspect, made law school tougher, not easier. Someone who copies and pastes a case summary from the Internet can be just as competitive in an exam situation as someone who has actually read all of the cases. Competition is fierce, and professors are under pressure to hand out a certain amount of each letter grade that the difference between a B+ and a C+ may be as many as a single multiple choice question (a recent Civil Procedure mid-term at UWO law had exactly that result). And, as I have mentioned before, getting a job as a lawyer is all about grades.
I am not here to criticize the process – after all, with so many applicants, comparing trascripts seems to be the most efficient way to discriminate between prospective new hires. But it also means that the last month before exams is a blur of 12 hour work days, every day including weekends; for those who suggest that real lawyers work just as hard, I counter that real lawyer gets paid for it. Law students get marked, and perhaps poorly, depending on the temperament of the marker on a given moment. Exams are nothing more than legal fiction, but studying for them is more stressful than real work.
Of course I cannot change the way it is, and I will not try. I don’t have the time anyway. Yesterday I ran out of food but didn’t have time to go grocery shopping, so I started eating the basics of food. For dinner tonight I ate chicken broth and peanut butter.
It is currently the first semester of my second year. It is also the only semester that I have at law school before next summer because I will go back to Ivey in January. I need to have a good average this semester, because when you only have four classes, even one bad mark will stand out as some student recruiter look at my transcript. If I don’t get good marks, it becomes much harder to find a job. In a nutshell, that’s why I say that an MBA is more intense but law school is more stressful.
I can’t wait for this semester to be over, to go back to Ivey to that every day grind reading and solving problems on a case-by-case basis. It is intense, difficult, and you have to keep up with the workload; no doubt about it, the MBA experience far more accurately mimics what work as a lawyer will be like. Yes, I can’t wait for this semester to be over, and more than anything else I can’t wait to be a lawyer.
Posted: November 16, 2008, by Dany Horovitz LLB JD MBA Ivey UWO Western. Reproduced from the Financial Post Executive Blog with the author’s permission.
Batman, Turkey Sues Warner Bros.
It’s not the first time a city or location is suing for intellectual property in its name. But it’s probably the first time a major blockbuster has been the target of the lawsuit.
The city of Batman, located in eastern Turkey, is named after the river by the same name that flows into the Tigris. Both the river and the oil-producing city derive their name from the adjoining Bati Raman mountains.
Batman is known around the world for a much more popular comic book character, turned into blockbuster film. The $1billion box office sales for the Dark Knight, the second highest ever, is probably what prompted the suit.
Huseyin Kalkan, the Kurdish mayor of the town, is preparing an interesting statement of claim, including psychological damages. He attributes a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the film’s success.
The town is not without controversy, as many of the suicides are attributed to honour killings. Kalkan himself has been jailed for support of the Marxist-Kurdish terrorist organization also operating in northern Iraq, the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). The Caped Crusader would probably have his hands full in the town that shares his namesake.
Vehbi Kahveci, head of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Commission of the Istanbul Bar, stated that Batman (the character) and its related logos are already registered around the world. Kalkan’s claim is also limitations barred, probably by several decades.
Jonathon M. Seidl of Patrol Magazine said,
…do all the Springfields in the U.S. get to sue FOX and The Simpsons? Or do all the Springfields get to sue one another? Or maybe Hell, Michigan should sue the Devil. Or what about Garfield, New Jersey, Archie, Missouri, or Henry, Illinois?
The case would have a difficult time making a claim at common law (just for fun). It’s unlikely that a character first created in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939 could reasonably foresee any risk of nervous shock to a small obscure town on the other side of the world founded only two years before.
In addition to lack of temporal and spacial proximity, the recent SCC case of Mustapha v. Culligan suggests that a suddenly sensitive, or thin-skulled plaintiff, is not likely to be successful. Yet, Kalkan somehow received damages last year from D.C. Comics for the use of the Batman name.
But s. 61(2) of the Family Law Act does allow an action for loss of companionship. Let’s just hope that Kalkan’s wife is not one of the recently deceased in the town of Batman.
Cross-Posted from Slaw.ca.
