Showing posts tagged law

Charles Dickens: Six things he gave the modern world

  • A white Christmas
  • “Dickensian” poverty
  • Modern character comedy
  • The cinema
  • Meaningful names
  • Our view of the law

Judge turns to Dickens' Bleak House to solve Shenley land dispute

A judge turned to the writing of Charles Dickens to help resolve a legal dispute over land in Shenley.

Legal battle for father's largesse sparks a row straight out of Dickens

Four years after Toronto real-estate developer John Jocobes Kaptyn died of cancer, his $75-million estate remains enmeshed in a Dickensian struggle that has devoured millions of dollars in legal fees.

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The latest in a series of court rulings was written last week by an irate judge who compared the Kaptyns to Charles Dickens’s feuding Jarndyce clan, from the novel Bleak House.

A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent

In Dickens world, the patent applicant was forced to walk through 35–stages and spend the equivalent of $15,000 in order to obtain a patent.

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The British government was apparently quite moved by the essay and quickly passed the Patent Law Admendment Act of 1852 that established a single office to control patenting.

From the archive, 12 January 1921: The woman juror's new sphere

The summoning of the first women to serve on the juries at the Central Criminal Court is an event of considerable importance in England’s judicial history, and it seemed appropriate that the man before whom they made their first appearance to answer to their names or to offer pleas for exemption should be the son of Charles Dickens.

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Though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.
The Old Curiosity Shop, chap. 66
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Though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.
The Old Curiosity Shop, chap. 66
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We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.
Little Dorrit, book 2, chap. 12
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The whole jury was as a jury of dogs empanelled to try the deer.
A Tale of Two Cities, book 3, chap. 9 
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My aunt regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time.
David Copperfield, chap. 23
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Mr. Samuel Briggs was a mere machine, a sort of self-acting legal walking-stick.
Sketches by Boz, chap. 7
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Highly important; very important, my dear sir,” replied Perker. ” A good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman, is a capital thing to get hold of. Discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear sir, always find for the plaintiff.
The Pickwick Papers, chap. 34

Angry Supreme Court cites Charles Dickens in Bhopal gas case

Well, it’s Jarndyce and Jarndyce, but the idea still works: 

The Bench cited a Charles Dickens novel where a reference is made to a civil dispute involving two families, Jarndis Vs Jarndis that dragged on for over a century.

“In that case, the matter dragged on for 100 years, several generations had died. The descendants, the advocates and the judges were not aware what was the case about but they were fighting it. India is also becoming like that. Cases keep dragging,” the apex court said.

(source)
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The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings.
Bleak House
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Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words.
David Copperfield