Squirrelly Court Case in Chicago

Those readers who have been around long enough may remember that the Lighthouse Patriot Journal (2001),  Lighthouse Journal (2000) aka Keifer’s Korner (1999) was a website with a series of web pages, all according to the subject material at hand: Kritter Korner, On Camera, On Stage, Weird Science, Time Capsule, Theologium, Bibliotheca, Spotlight, From the Desk, From the Foxhole, Fright Night (Halloween only page), Peninsula News, Our America and Court Jesters. The latter page concerned advocacy for judiciary reform. Now, with the advent of the Blog, the reader just chooses categories/subjects from a list and has access to the posted articles — “citizen journalism” as Mick Gregory calls it. Information organization is better, but some readers miss the photo/graphics, but don’t miss the time it took to load the pages.

The Center for Individual Freedom has a section that tells true stories enacted in our courtrooms (Jester) that defy reasoning. Here is one of them (via Chicago Sun Times):

A dangerous squirrel is the impetus for a lawsuit by a Chicago-area woman against a shopping center. Shopper Marcy Meckler claims she was attacked by a rogue squirrel while walking through a grassy courtyard area of the Old Orchard Shopping Center. According to her lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Meckler claims that she suffered severe injuries after the squirrel jumped up and attached itself to her leg and she fell while trying to escape its grasp. Meckler is seeking in excess of $50,000 in damages (no details of the alleged injuries are given in the lawsuit), along with an award of costs. She claims that employees of the shopping center knew of the presence of the squirrel, encouraged it to stick around by feeding it, and were negligent in failure to remove it.

Well, Court Jester is no longer published, but it seems that silliness still remains in the American courtroom.