WIT AND WISDOM FOUND IN THE PAGES OF SOME LEGAL JUDGMENTS

Saskatchewan judges craft rulings that make delightful use of language

In the oft-dry tomes of Saskatchewan legal judgments, every now and then I stumble across a creative flourish that does my writer’s heart proud.

In a rather dull-sounding Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act case lurked the line: “The harsh calculus of modern farming does not lightly grant fortune to producers with a small land base.”

Or consider this one from Saskatoon’s criminal courts. “There are, no doubt, a fortunate few in this world to whom a quarter of a million dollars is mere pocket change,” it intriguingly opens. Accused of cheating the taxman, the accused maintained he didn’t notice he’d made the extra money, so didn’t realize he’d failed to report it.

In speaking about some paperwork the accused claimed went astray, the judge added, “even the long arm of coincidence can only stretch so far.”

From the dog-eat-dog world of litigation comes this offering: “Dogs are said to be our faithful companions. Not always. Sometimes dogs revert to their inherent nature and act like dogs. They attack. They bite. They are, after all, dogs. For some reason many humans are surprised by this.”

At issue was whether or not the dog in question was dangerous. Much like a criminal trial, identity was at issue, and which of the two look-alike, sibling dogs was the culprit.

The same Saskatoon judge found himself adjudicating another dogfight, a canine custody battle that landed, to his dismay, in the Family Law courts.

In arguing dogs are property and shouldn’t be treated like children, he noted, “In Canada, we tend not to purchase our children from breeders. In turn, we tend not to breed our children with other humans to ensure good bloodlines, nor do we charge for such services ... When our children act improperly, even seriously and violently so, we generally do not muzzle them or even put them to death for repeated transgressions.”

With Solomon-like wisdom, he added: “Am I to make an order that one party have interim possession of (for example) the family butter knives but, due to a deep attachment to both butter and those knives, order that the other party have limited access to those knives for 1.5 hours per week to butter his or her toast? A somewhat ridiculous example, to be sure, but one that is raised in response to what I see as a somewhat ridiculous application.”

Speaking of children and scraps, I love this case involving two “kids” squabbling over their mother’s assets. She was 94; they were nearly 80. There was a fiveday trial, seven witnesses, and two out-of-town lawyers with mounds of files.

“The Encarta Dictionary defines ‘hardscrabble’ as: ‘yielding or earning very little in return for hard effort’ … Although there was no direct evidence going to the value of the real property, tidbits of evidence here and there lead me to estimate that the total of that which is at stake to be in the neighborhood of $65,000 to $80,000. Hardscrabble,” wrote the judge.

This fine example is about two men with a beef, literally. “There’s a certain romance about the cattle industry, and its role in the history and development of the prairies. Images of livestock silhouetted against a glowing sunset abound with the cheerful refrain of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing Happy Trails To You in the background,” the decision begins. It’s a lawsuit between a cattle breeder and a farmer who met through an ad in the Western Producer. “Things soon soured between them. Their trails were clearly not happy from that point on,” wrote the judge.

The last word goes to this gem from the Family Law courts. The judgment opens: “During the Cold War, the opposing sides relied upon the principle of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ to ensure peace. This policy was premised on each side possessing enough intercontinental ballistic missiles to ensure that if war broke out, everyone would be killed and everything would be destroyed. Too scared to wage war on such a scale, each side frequently rattled their respective sabres but kept them firmly in their scabbards.

“In family law matters the parties sometimes forget this, drawing their swords and launching their rockets, thus ensuring the destruction of every family member. The case at bar is a sad and cautionary tale of what happens when Mutually Assured Destruction becomes a goal, not a fear.”

The law’s gain was clearly literature’s loss. Next time you’re looking for a good read, consider curling up with a page-turner of a legal judgment.