Real law vs. pseudo law

[nancylebov]

In recent comments, sethg_prime said:

The people who care are out of their minds. I wouldn't say they're as crazy as the ones who claim the Constitution distinguishes between "citizens" and "Citizens" and make pseudolegal hay out of it. But it's the same kind of obsession--arguments based on some vision of "The Law" that has little resemblence with how real lawyers and judges interpret real laws.

Now, this is interesting. I've read a few very dubious looking legal arguments-- frex that somehow it makes a crucial difference if there's a gold fringe on the flag in the courtroom, or that the income tax is illegal because (iirc) one of the people who made the majority voting for it didn't technically represent whatever state he was supposed to represent. The former doesn't seem to be the way normal people think (it almost turns the law into a conspiracy theory) and even if every premise in the latter is true, I can't imagine the government overturning the income for that reason.

On the other hand, actual law can look very odd to normal people. For example, was the destruction of the WTC one event or two? Ordinarily, no one would care, but a lot of insurance money was riding on the distinction. (Did it ever get decided, and if so, how?) What's worse, there's no objective way of determining whether it's one event or not. It's not like counting the cookies on a plate.

Are there general principles for distinguishing crank law from the real thing?

Comments

[madfilkentist]

That's what precedent is all about. It doesn't mean that "the real thing" makes any more sense, just that it's what's been done before, so at least there's some sense of consistency.

Your mention of "dubious law" made me think of a draft of its Terms and Conditions which LiveJournal presented to users at one point. It used the expression "intrinsically illegal" in a couple of places, including a claim that "hate speech" was intrinsically illegal, even though it's unquestionably legal in the United States. Fortunately, it dropped that notion before the final version. I don't think I've heard of "intrinsic" law elsewhere.

[redbird]

If someone claims that "the law says this, but nobody including the government knows it" (as with those flag fringe claims), they're probably cranks. (Alternatively, they've spotten something interesting and should find a good lawyer/bring a lawsuit.)

Beyong that, it's often useful to ask people for chapter, section, etc. of the law. That is, if someone says "The law says xxxx," ask them which law. That might help you identify the people who are working from old memory (for example, I have read the NY State Penal Code, but that was at least 22 years ago, and I'm aware that memory is fallible and laws change). It's also useful for figuring out if, say, someone is invoking "the law says" when what's actually the case is that the law in some state other than the one you are currently in says something. And if they do give you a citation (even an approximate one) you can check for yourself and try to figure out if it says what they claim it does, and if it applies. (For example, if they say "Ninth Circuit, case thus-and-such, 2006," it doesn't apply to you, because federal court decisions at that level are binding only for the part of the country that court is for, and the Ninth Circuit often disagrees with other federal appeals courts.)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

9/11 at WTC was both one event and two (http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2006/10/19/73411.htm), depending on the insurer against whom claims were being made:

A federal court has upheld the jury verdicts that recognized the two-plane terrorist attacks on the towers at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 as a single event for some insurers and two events for others.
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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York found no fault with letting jurors decide the meaning of "event" for insurance purposes.

As a result, it let stand an April verdict that held the attacks to be one event under the insurance binder used by major insurers. Under this verdict, WTC developer Larry Silverstein and his Silverstein Properties became entitled to about $4.6 billion.

The decision also affirms a separate jury verdict for nine other insurers that found the event was two claims under a different binder they used while negotiating final coverage terms.

The case is SR International Business Insurance Company Ltd. versus World Trade Center Properties, LLC, et al.

In this case, not a matter of law, per se, but of existing contracts. But yes, there seems to have been no pre-existing general objective method of determination.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

For example, was the destruction of the WTC one event or two? Ordinarily, no one would care, but a lot of insurance money was riding on the distinction. (Did it ever get decided, and if so, how?)

It was determined to be two. I didn't bother to read the opinion though (and I should have, given my area of expertise.) :-)

As for distinguishing "crank" law from legitimate law, it can be done, but you need to know more about the history of relevant legal principles in the particular legal area than the media is likely to give, and nonlawyers are likely to wade through.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

See redaxe's comment: the WTC verdicts were more complex than that.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm aware they are more complicated, but you asked "how many events" and I was trying to answer that.