Moritz Legal Information Blog

Defendants requested a continuance due to the fact that the wife of one of the attorneys was due to give birth in Texas shortly after the trial was set to begin in Kansas. Such a motion might have gone unnoticed by the rest of the world, were it not for the fact that plaintiffs opposed it, claiming (among other things) that defendants should have known of the due date at the time of the scheduling conference last fall. In his order, the judge stated: For reasons of good taste which should be (though, apparently, are not) too obvious to explain, the Court declines to accept Plaintiffs' invitation to speculate on the time of conception of [the attorney's] child. The order granting the continuance can be found here . Hat tip to Lowering the Bar .

An outdoor reading "room" is scheduled to open at the end of May as part of downtown's Columbus Commons park (where City Center mall once stood). Columbus Metropolitan Library will provide free Wi-Fi while the non-profit Friends of the Library organization will provide free reading material from a selection of overstock and discarded books. See the story from the Dispatch . Maybe this is a good relaxation option for those working downtown this summer.

Recently-introduced Ohio S.B. 140 would require engine coolant and antifreeze sold in Ohio and containing at least 10% ethylene glycol to also contain a bittering agent. This "aversive agent" would make the solution unpalatable to animals and children. A growing number of states have passed or are considering similar legislation. Comparable federal bills have been introduced in each of the last four Congressional sessions, though none have come to a vote. See the Ohio Legislative Service Commission's initial analysis of the bill.

In honor of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the Ohio History Service Corps is offering free digitizing of two-dimensional Civil War objects, such as photographs and letters. The items will then be included in the Ohio Memory Community Collection, and participants will receive their own archival digital image of their objects. The program runs through July 31, 2011. More here and here .

Want to know what exams Harvard law students faced in 1876? The answer is now only a couple clicks away. Harvard Law Library has digitized nearly all of the law school's exams through 1998. Only 1995/1996 is missing from the set.

El-Jai Devoureau was born physically female, but has identified as male for years. His driver's license and birth certificate (re-issued by the state of Georgia) also identify him as male. Mr. Devoureau was fired from his job as a monitor at a drug treatment center and told that only a man could monitor other men. Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund says that this is the first employment case to deal with the question of the sex of a transgender person. New Jersey, where Mr. Devoureau worked at the treatment center, is one of a handful of states to ban discrimination based on transgender status. New York Times ABA Journal

A recent Texas Bar Journal article reviews interesting and unusual case titles from across the country. Some of the cases included are: Schmuck v. United States , Death v. Graves (in which motorcycle accident victim Alan Death lives), Easter Seals Society for Crippled Children v. Playboy Enterprises , United States v. Vampire Nation , and United States v. 2,116 Boxes of Boned Beef, etc. The author provides citations for curious readers.