The Snickers Order

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/23921678/1765602800/name/MWB-11-CV-4111,+Sak+v.+City+o

Somehow I get the feeling this judge might not be a fan of BSL

Just a little bit.

Good for that judge!

so glad to see this...

i didn't get that feeling. i felt more like he was saying that Saks will likely win his lawsuit & that there was no reasonable alternative to Snickers. i get the strong feeling that if Snickers was a 6 month old pup beginning training he would have ruled the other way.

I got the feeling that this was a sound legal ruling based upon interpretation of the existing laws on the books. I didn't get the feeling the judge himself felt one way or the other about the BSL law itself.

The last bit in his final written ruling said something about it being both a win for Sake and a win for Pit Bull service dogs. He's definitely anti-BSL.

We are an hour from Aurelia. There was a scathing pro BSL editorial in the Cherokee paper. I was going to write a response, and decided instead to write a piece for my blog with our paper.

http://www.spencerdailyreporter.com/blogs/1480/entry/45532/


Added: here is the Cherokee piece - http://www.chronicletimes.com/story/1799484.html

And Sak not Sake. Case had nothingto to dodrag with fermented rice beverages. Stupid autocorrect.

Oh, it was definitely a sound legal ruling based on good case law and precedent. I'm impressed with the ruling as written -- he's made certain he's on strong legal ground but makes it clear at the end, as well as in his opening remarks with his choice of quotes, how he feels. He did a good job of making sure he absolutely had the law down though. No judge likes being overturned, especially if he does have strong feelings on a subject.

The opinion is good, solid, sound law. Actually one of the better briefs I've read from a lower court judge.

You can often tell in an opinion what the judge really thinks, even if the opinion is well written and has solid legal grounding. Often, the judge lets you know . . . and in this case through his choices of quotes and comments he made in dicta, he's definitely signaling that he not only thinks the law is against them but that this dispute is absurd and that the city needs to remove its cranium from its anus. Its also clear that he thinks discriminating against service dogs on the basis of breed is illegal and, moreover, pointless. As for his view on BSL . . . that's not reallly so clear, but my guess is that he's inclined to think its overbroad (and is even more likely to think so after hearing this case and the totally irrationality underlying the law)

Its perfectly kosher for judges to signal like that . . . they aren't machines, and moreover, that sort of signalling plays its own part on establishing precedent. We now know that at least one federal court judge has not only ruled on solid legal grounds that a BSL ban on service dogs is likely to fail on the merits, but from his tone has revealed that he doesn't even think this is a hard question and also that there may be other issues here as well . . . perhaps not under the ADA, but the moral and ethical issues might implicate other laws as well. Its subtle, but its there.

Perhaps weirdly, I'm fascinated by reading opinions. You can tell in a few paragraphs -- sometimes a few sentences -- if the judge is one who fits the old joke, "what do you call an attorney with an IQ of less than 70? Your Honor," or is one of the considering thinkers who is truly establishing precedents through intelligent understanding of the law as it is written and the spirit of the law.

And then there is the subtlety of thought, irony and even humor found in the best of them.