Passing Strange
Two links that will assure our listeners that truth is curiouser and that the law continues to move in wonderfully strange ways:
The first is an ICANN arbitration brought by Morgan Stanley (“Complainant”), represented by Baila H. Celedonia
It’s a dispute over a domain name, in which the panel comments:
Registration and Use in Bad Faith
Respondent maintains that it is a cat, that is, a well-known carnivorous quadruped which has long been domesticated. However, it is equally well-known that the common cat, whose scientific name is Felis domesticus, cannot speak or read or write. Thus, a common cat could not have submitted the Response (or even have registered the disputed domain name). Therefore, either Respondent is a different species of cat, such as the one that stars in the motion picture “Cat From Outer Space,” or Respondent’s assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect.
If Respondent is in fact a cat from outer space, then it should have so indicated in its reply, in order to avoid unnecessary perplexity by the Panel. Further, it should have explained why a cat from outer space would allow Mr. Woods to use the disputed domain name. In the absence of such an explanation, the Panel must conclude that, if Respondent is a cat from outer space, then it may have something to hide, and this is indicative of bad faith behavior.
On the other hand, if Respondent’s assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect, then Respondent has undoubtedly attempted to mislead this Panel and has provided incorrect WHOIS information. Such behavior is indicative of bad faith.
See Video Direct Distribs. Inc. v. Video Direct, Inc., FA 94724 (Nat. Arb. Forum June 5, 2000) (finding that the respondent acted in bad faith by providing incorrect information to the registrar regarding the owner of the registered name); see also Quixtar Invs., Inc. v. Smithberger, D2000-0138 (WIPO Apr. 19, 2000) (finding that use of false registration information constitutes bad faith).
Respondent cites Morgan Stanley v. Michael Woods,
FA 604103 (Nat. Arb. Forum Jan. 16, 2005). in which the Panel found that Complainant had failed to prove bad faith registration and use. But that case must be distinguished from the present case, because in that case the Respondent was Mr. Woods, and not a cat or someone who has misled the Panel by pretending to be a cat.
The Panel finds that Respondent’s assertions that it is a cat provide sufficient evidence to conclude that the Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain name in bad faith. And this despite the fact that the Panel, unlike Queen Victoria, is amused.
Followed by a review of Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases:
Judges get help with language of everyday life
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Judges are being offered help on the legal meaning of common words and phrases that can trip them up in court.
In the latest edition of the standard legal dictionary for judges and barristers, modern definitions are provided for a loudspeaker, a police truncheon and a main road.
Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases defines a loudspeaker as an “apparatus electrically driven for the purpose of reproducing sound over a wide area”.
And for judges who need to be told, a main road is a “medium of communication between two towns”. A police truncheon is defined as an offensive weapon, although wearing one at a fancy dress party is a “reasonable excuse for having it in a public area”
Courts down the years have been reduced to mirth by judges’ blissful ignorance of people, events and even inanimate objects. The High Court judge Sir Jeremiah LeRoy Harman made a string of famous remarks including asking: “Who is Gazza?” Justice Oliver Popplewell amazed the High Court by asking: “What is Linford Christie’s lunchbox?”
The judicial dictionary has a long way to go before these terms are given any legal meaning. It has taken more than 400 years for the first mention of the humble potato, introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 16th century. Stroud’s publishers, Sweet and Maxwell, say: “No longer will judges and barristers need to scratch their heads over the meaning of one of the nation’s most popular vegetables.”
While the dictionary is clear about what is a potato, “any tuber or true seed of Solanum tuberosum
Judges might also like to know that a common prostitute is a woman who “offers herself commonly for lewdness” but that “the performance of a single act of lewdness with a man did not make her a common prostitute”.
The dictionary may be useful outside the courtroom, too. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, a trained barrister, might wish to take advantage of its neat definition of Britishness in his recent disagreement with the findings of a report commissioned by the Runnymede Trust. A British subject, says the dictionary, is someone of “British descent, which includes a naturalised British subject”.
On other terms the dictionary is less helpful. For example, “wives, for the purposes of the Immigration Act 1971, can not be construed as “husbands”. In some ways the dictionary is ahead of its time – a “railway passenger service” does not fall within the meaning of the Railways Act 1993 if it is “unlikely to benefit the travelling public”.
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