Well done to all those brave enough to enter our Weird Law quiz.
We had 34 entries, but only one was entirely correct.
So congratulations to Matthew Keeler from Rainham in Kent who wins a camera and a copy of Professor Gary Slapper's book More Weird Cases.
Below are the questions again, and underneath, the correct answers.
1. As consumer litigation has become prolific, companies have taken extraordinary steps to cover themselves. Which, if any, of these product warnings is fabricated?
(a) Household iron - “Never iron clothes while they are being worn”;
(b) Cocktail napkin picturing waterways of South Carolina - “Caution: not to be used for navigation”;
(c) Digital thermometer - “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally”;
(d) Toilet brush - “Do not use for personal hygiene”.
2. Drivers have been prosecuted for doing some unusual things while driving. One of these is fictitious, which?
- (a) A lawyer was caught driving to Exeter while highlighting passages in Archbold, the 3,000 page tome on criminal pleading, on his lap;
- (b) A safety expert was caught driving to Dundee at 60mph while shaving;
- (c) A one-eyed man from Renfrewshire was caught driving while reading a newspaper;
- (d) A man with no eyes was caught driving on the wrong side of the road in the West Midlands.
3. Who said this in furtherance of a lawsuit? “I agreed to go with him, and on the walk to a private area, he told me he wanted to make love to me. [He] found a place where we could be alone – a bathroom.”
(a) Ruby the Heart Stealer, a belly dancer who was a guest at a party Silvio Berlusconi hosted at his home last year;
(b) Mariah Yeater, who brought a paternity suit against Justin Bieber;
(c) Mike Jones, masseur, referring to Rev Tom Haggard, former leader of The National Association of Evangelicals;
(d) Ginger White, referring to the origin of a 13-year affair with Mr Herman Cain.
4. Match these offences with the number of times each appears in the law reports of the higher courts (i) benefit fraud (ii) shoplifting (iii) robbery (iv) corporate crime
(a) 1,367
(b) 1,044
(c) 11
(d) 255
5. Human rights are often misreported. Three of these headlines were published by newspapers, which wasn’t?
- (a) Police can’t put up ‘Wanted’ posters of dangerous criminals on the run because of their human rights;
- (b) How a suspected car thief was granted his human rights to a KFC bargain and a 2-litre bottle of Pepsi;
- (c) Cat has human right not to be chased by neighbour’s dog;
- (d) Human rights laws cost Britain £42bn.
6. All these court declarations were made by angry judges. Three were from the US. Which one was from an English judge?
(a) “Give me a gun; I’m going to shoot his balls off and give him a .38 vasectomy”;
(b) “I don’t care if either one or both of you win this case. I have shot and killed better men than both of you”;
(c) “I’m going. It’s a f---ing travesty”;
(d) “Keep that mouth of yours shut or I will...strangle you, you b—tard”.
7. Denying legal aid to a man charged with trying to hire a prostitute, Judge Eamon O’Brien said “If you can pay for the services of the oldest profession, then you can afford to pay for the services of the second oldest profession”. Which, if any, of the following prostitution cases is false?
(a) In Ottawa, Laura Emerson, employed as a cleric at the courthouse, was accused of using it as the headquarters of her prostitute business;
(b) In Vancouver a court ruled that a brothel business’s payments to bribe police weren’t tax deductible but payments to lawyers to defend its girls were tax deductible;
(c) An English law of 1162 treated lawyers and prostitutes in the same category as service “vendors of mind or body”;
(d) A Brooklyn tax lawyer claimed as part of his tax-deductible “medical expenses” $111,000 for “therapeutic sex” with prostitutes.
8. Here are some figures on law in the American system. Match the descriptor with the figure: (i) annual number of bankruptcy filings in US federal courts; (ii) the number of dollars Judge Judy earns for a day’s work; (iii) the number of lawyers in the US; (iv) the number of people in American prisons.
(a) 1,596,355
(b) 865,000
(c) 1,225,452
(d) 2,300,000
9. Match the authors with the quotations: (i) Jonathan Swift; (ii) John Mortimer; (iii) Oliver Wendell Holmes; (iv) Karl Marx
(a) “Judges commonly are elderly men, and are more likely to hate at sight any analysis to which they are not accustomed”;
(b) “Crime takes a part of the superfluous population off the labour market and thus reduces competition among the labourers”;
(c) “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through”;
(d) “No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean fingernails”.
10. Leaders and legislators don’t always shine. Match the quotations with the years in which they were said (i) 1985 (ii) 1992 (iii) 1994 (iv) 2007
(a) “Is the West Bank a publicly or privately owned financial institution?” Enzo Scotti, Italian Foreign Minister during a briefing on the Middle East;
(b) “Ah, I must have been reading it upside down. I thought it was 81, which did seem most unfair”. Member of House of Lords, asked if he would accept 18 as homosexual age of consent;
(c) “There are more crimes in Britain now, due to the huge rise in the crime rate”. Neil Kinnock MP;
(d) “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, referring to the US.
ANSWERS:
1 None are fabricated, all are true; 2a; 3b; 4 (a)iii robbery (b)ii shoplifting (c)iv corporate crime (d)i benefit fraud; 5c; 6c Judge Beatrice Bolton, after being convicted of an offence at Carlisle magistrates’ court in 2010; 7c, the 1162 law governed only prostitutes; 8 (a)i annual number of bankruptcy filings (b)ii number of dollars Judge Judy earns for a day’s work (c)iii number of lawyers in the US (d)iv number of people in American prisons; 9 (a)iii Oliver Wendell Holmes (b)iv Karl Marx(c) i. Jonathan Swift (d)ii John Mortimer; 10 (a)ii 1992 (b)iii 1994 (c) i 1985 (d)iv 2007.
