Got Adjourned.

It's a beautiful day here on Long Island.  Too beautiful to spend the day in court.

But I had a case on the court calendar.   Past tense is used because it turns out that it got adjourned for a week.  And I didn't know about it because the website for the New York courts was down for maintenance until mid-morning today.  And, it turns out, neither did my adversary.

But my drive to the court was not a total loss because I had other things to do in the vicinity, and the weather was and is beautiful.  And, best of all, the Judge's clerk confirmed that because neither I nor my adversary requested oral argument, there would be no oral argument and Hizzoner will decide the case on the papers alone.  So the adjourned date presents no conflict in my schedule.

[A number of years ago I had made the mistake of presuming that there would be no oral argument in a case in Brooklyn.  I did not go, and I defaulted for my client.  Fortunately, a co-defendant's attorney was there, the adversary was denied summary judgment in most respects, and the case settled among all parties a week later.  Turns out that the judge in question had, shall we say, ethical issues of a magnitude to warrant his removal from the bench, so he conveniently retired and pulled his pension (but not for long -- he had the pension terminated by The Judge on an Even Higher Bench not long thereafter.).  Unlike the late judge in Brooklyn, the judge I have on the current case doesn't like to play games, and doesn't like to call attorneys into court for unnecessary waits if such can be avoided.].

As for the current case, it is a civil matter, but the judge's courtroom and chambers are on the same floor as the criminal parts, so all kinds of low-rent riff-raff crowds the hallways awaiting trial.  It doesn't particularly cause me any fear (though my client was concerned for his personal safety when we went in for a conference a few months ago) because the defendants in the hallways are out on bail or on their own recognizance, and, crude as they may be, they usually know not to pull any shtick to warrant revocation of bail pending their trials.  The ones who are really dangerous are usually brought into court under Sheriff's escort, so they aren't problematic either as far as personal safety goes.

And because I have an official Attorney Secure Pass, I don't have to stand in line with them for the metal detectors.  My clients are usually not so lucky.

In any event, I am now back home, doing paperwork, and ready to take a break to do a little yardwork.

It's a beautiful day here on Long Island.  Too beautiful to spend the day in court.

Choosing Brains over Assholes

Piss poor parenting has been around for quite some time, but it seems to be on the upswing of late.  Not that anybody is a perfect parent.  A child does not need a 100% perfect parent, only a suitable parent.  Indeed, individuals with significant character flaws have been found to be quite suitable parents.  The example that comes immediately to mind is Mia Farrow, who, for all of her many flaky quirks, was found, hands down, to be quite suitable as a parent of nine children at the time (she subsequently adopted six more).

Some people are not suitable as parents.  Like Melody M.  Melody's son has various mental health issues, which are not helped by Melody's refusal to participate in his therapy.  Melody "does not participate in the child's counseling because she does not like the therapist or agree with the recommendation that the child needs structure and should follow the same routine in both households." Melody "utilized Facebook to insult and demean the child, who was then 10 years old, by, among other things, calling him an 'asshole.' She testified without remorse that she did so because that is what '[h]e is,' and she thought it was important for her Facebook friends to know this."

Res ipsa loquitur!

On the other hand, the kid's behavior and scholastic performance have improved since Robert, Melody's ex, attained sole custody.

This isn't just another dispute between spiteful exes, but rather, the stacking up of a totally clueless and irresponsible airhead against a rational, stable and competent parent. 

But multiply Melody by the number of totally clueless and irresponsible airhead parents (term used advisedly) in this country, hazard a guess as to the percentage of such cases which never even come before the courts (and therefore never get rectified), project the career paths of the kids whose situations are never judicially scrutinized, and it then becomes somewhat easier to explain why we live in a country where the population elects and re-elects public officials who are so inimical to the public interest.

Inside and Outside

Here is the first paragraph of Judge Joan M. Genchi's decision in A.B. v. C.D., 2011 NY Slip Op 51404(U) (Family Court, Suffolk County):

"In this proceeding brought pursuant to Article 8 of the Family Court Act, the petitioner, A.B., filed a Family Offense Petition on April 7, 2011 which alleges that the respondent, C.D., her husband, committed the following family offenses: Harassment in the first or second degree; Aggravated harassment in the second degree; Menacing in the second or third degree; and Reckless Endangerment approximately between December 2009 and January 2010 and again in October 2010 during conjugal visits at the Elmira Correctional facility where the respondent was incarcerated. The petition alleges numerous attempts by the respondent to communicate with the petitioner, either by mail, telephone, texting, or through third-party contact with the petitioner. The respondent has since been transferred to Southport Correctional Facility where he is serving a sentence of 28 years to life for the murder of his deceased former wife's husband, and for other convictions. The parties had a child on August 31, 2004, and they were married on January 14, 2006 at the Clinton Correctional Facility. On April 4, 2010, the respondent had divorce papers served on the petitioner."

So here we have a woman who marries a man who is doing an indeterminate sentence of 28 years to life on a murder conviction. Don't let the number 28 throw you; it is the theoretical date when the inmate can start with the biennial petitions to the Parole Board. And in New York, it is very rare that those convicted of a violent offense get paroled the first time before the Board.

Then this woman decides to divorce the guy. Not a bad move, given the predicament she got herself into. But then, after filing the divorce papers, she continued with the conjugal visits at the State Penitentiary.

And now, she wants an order of protection from the guy who is incarcerated (and apparently in solitary confinement).

Judge Genchi declined to award an order of protection, inasmuch as the incarcerated husband does not present a danger to the estranged wife (estranged, that is, when she's not up at the State Pen on a conjugal visit).

So what do we now have? (A) A violent felon who is now confined behind bars for the next 20+ (and perhaps 30+) years; (B) A ditzy bimbo who doesn't want said violent felon to bother her, but who is not above going up to the Big House for a conjugal visit with him; and (C) a seven-year-old child who has two piss-poor role models in his/her life, one on the inside and the other on the outside.

State Courts, Federalist Principles

New York City is now faced with a budgetary crunch. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as CEO of New York City, is now doing what any other CEO would and should do in such a situation -- he is looking for ways to cut expenditures. One such cost-cutting measure contemplated by the Bloomberg administration is the demotion and/or layoff of some Deputy Sheriffs. The Deputy Sheriffs, what with their union representation, went to court to attempt to keep their jobs.

And Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman (in New York, the Supreme Court is the LOWEST court of general jurisdiction, the trial court) issued a Temporary Restraining Order prohibiting the demotions or layoffs until a hearing is held and the TRO is lifted.

Bloomie didn't like the Judge's decision, and he was not reticent to express his mind, in relatively strident terms, on his weekly radio program. Specifically, he called upon Judge Jonathan Lippman, the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals (the Highest court in the State of New York), to step in and give Justice Goodman a talking-to.

For those unfamiliar with court procedures, this would constitute a significant circumvention of the normal order of things (and in fact would be highly illegal). According to the duly legislated procedures, Justice Goodman will hold her hearing, and then, if any party is dissatisfied, they can appeal to the Appellate Division. Then, and only then (and only if the statutory conditions for appealability pertain), can the case go to the Court of Appeals and be heard by Chief Judge Lippman.

And now, the New York County Lawyers Association has come down very hard against Bloomie's judge-bashing remarks.


I have mixed feelings about this all. On one hand, the Mayor should be able to control the NYC budget, and cut back on expenses. On the other hand, the Deputy Sheriffs have the right to fight to keep their jobs. And yes, Bloomberg's remarks were very high-handed, and I'll even go so far to say that they were unbecoming of a man who is supposed to set the public tone for law and order. But he does have certain freedoms of expression.

The NYCLA does have credibility, and has long occupied the moral high ground. After all, in the early 1950's, NYCLA admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion or gender when the other leading lawyer's professional organization in New York City, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, effectively discriminated against Jews, Irish, Blacks and women (though ABCNY has certainly distanced itself far beyond that mindset during the ensuing years).

And Justice Goodman, whose accomplished career as a journalist did not come to an abrupt halt at her robing ceremony, does not seem to be fazed by Hizzoner's strident remarks.

What is now happening is precisely what "Publius" (it is uncertain whether it was Alexander Hamilton or James Madison) expounded in Federalist Paper No. 51, which was specifically addressed to the People of the State of New York and published in the New York Packet on 8 February 1788:


"To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places."

In other words, the various branches of the government must provide checks and balances upon one another so that no one branch oversteps its bounds.

Those Deputy Sheriffs may well be cut from the public payroll, or they may continue to burden New York City's budget (and being that the New York City budget is heavily subsidized by infusions from Albany, the burden will fall more upon the taxpayers of the State than upon the City). Whichever way the matter is ultimately resolved, it will be done so in a manner that keeps too much power from being concentrated in the hands of too few. It may not be the most efficient way in the world, but given Mr. Bloomberg's proven propensity to play the nanny in the personal lives of his constituents, I'll take a little inefficiency over an unchecked appetite for tyranny.

Dog-gone House Rules.

Our family lifestyle is not currently conducive to pet ownership (though, as mentioned in the posting of 12 September 2010, we do, from time to time, pet-sit). We do, however, appreciate the salutary role of pet ownership, and are all in favor of it if the pet is reasonably well behaved.

Such is the case of Charlie, the dog owned by Donata Forman. Charlie is a Chihuahua-type breed, small enough to be carried in Donata's handbag, and, as all involved agree, extremely well tempered and behaved. But the Board of Managers of the Village View Condominium in Queens, where Donata lives, insisted that Charlie's presence violates House Rule No. 1, "Positively no pets are allowed in the building for any reason."

House Rule No. 1 was enacted by the Board of Managers. The Board of Managers sued Donata Forman. Judge Lane of the Queens County Supreme Court agreed with the Board that the Board had the authority to regulate the presence of pets on the premises, and, on account of other issues of law and fact, set the case down for trial.

But Michael Mauro, Donata's attorney, noted that under New York's Condominium Law, (1) whether or not a condominium can allow or disallow pets on its premises is a subject that must be addressed in the condominium's by-laws; and (2) the by-laws require a vote of at least 66% of the condominium unit owners, at a duly noticed meeting, in order to be enacted or amended. Moreover, the Village View's own by-laws impose an 80% threshold vote for amendment.

And so, on appeal, the Appellate Division reversed Judge Lane, ruling that the Board of Managers could not enforce House Rule No. 1.

Charlie is now legally at home in Donata's condo apartment.

This is a big win for pet owners.

Not mentioned in any of the judicial opinions is the fact that Donata Forman is a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. If a letter carrier keeps a dog for a pet, then chances are that the dog is very well behaved!

A Matter of Degree

I've got to run and make final preparations for the Festival of Sukkot tonight. My wife has just e-mailed me some more items for the shopping list. We are having guests.

And so, I wish everyone Chag Sameach Sukkot!

But before signing off, I feel inspired to post my thoughts on a recent legal development:

Ayal Rosenthal, a CPA with PriceWaterhouse Coopers (for the uninitiated, PwC is a major accounting firm), copped a guilty plea on some insider trading charges, and got a 60-day sentence. Rosenthal was enrolled in New York University's MBA program at the time, and had even worked there as a Teaching Assistant in a Professional Responsibility course.

NYU decided that Rosenthal was unworthy of an MBA degree, so Rosenthal sued. And Judge Lewis Kaplan, sitting on the bench of the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York, upheld NYU.

I am no great fan of NYU. They do get quite snotty from time to time (and I have been professionally involved in a case in which questionable ethics on the part of certain key players in the upper reaches of the NYU hierarchy played a role). NYU, then, does not have the firmest standing to deliver the morality lecture.

But Rosenthal is no better than NYU. He, too, has a nefarious arrogance about him, and he needs humility more than he needs an MBA degree.

In my book, Rosenthal and NYU are in pari delicto (Latin for equally at fault). And where parties are in pari delicto, the courts tend to leave the parties as they stand. The pari delicto theory did not play any role in Judge Kaplan's rationale, but the result is the same.

NYU's denial of Rosenthal's MBA has, in a broad sense, ever so slightly prevented my own MBA (not from NYU) from cheapening in value.

Two Judges Get It Right

When I first came across the story of the Suffolk County, NY judge who completely canceled the mortgage debt of a financially troubled homeowner, my initial instinct was to back up the bank. After all, my wife and I have made our own mortgage payments, and are wondering where our own free ride is in that regard. Where is the purchaser's responsibility here?

But now that I have read the actual judicial opinion, I'm with Judge Spinner all the way on this one. If the mortgageholder had only been hardnosed, then I would not feel so bad about the delinquent homeowner's feet being held to the fire. But here, the bank couldn't even give the Judge a straight answer as to just how much was outstanding, due and owing on the debt. This is abuse of the judicial process at its worst.

And so, the Judge has reduced that elusive figure to an even, round and definite figure: Zero!



And, westward a few miles in New York County, Judge York (no relation to the city or county) has put a whining loser in his place. It seems that Timothy Keefe, who couldn't stick it out with the first law school he attended (Hofstra), transferred to New York Law School, and then, after receiving a grade of "C" in a legal writing course, sued NYLS, demanding that NYLS change its grading system from letter grade to Pass/Fail.

It is oft stated that the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Keefe's foolish client was sent back to the showers.

And, having been involved in professional matters that also involve New York Law School, I would, all else being equal, tend to defer to the school's faculty in determining a grade for any student.



[A number of years ago, I went to court pro se, and I won the case for my foolish client. He has yet to pay me for it, though.].

Imprudent Prude, or Incompetent Employee?

I'm back, after 3 weeks that have included an unusually heavy workload, religious holidays, and personal/household concerns.

This posting will comment on some ongoing litigation to which I have no direct personal or professional connection. Susan Seybert, whose employment was terminated by The International Group, Inc., has filed suit against her erstwhile employer for sexual harassment.

Let me state, out front, that sexual harassment in the workplace should not be tolerated. When I held a supervisory position in that great U.S. Government bureaucracy, I was personally compelled on a number of occasions to deal with the issue. I had to deal with one of my subordinates being stalked by some nutjob who worked upstairs. And, in the absence of both a co-equal supervisor of mine and our mutual Division Chief, it fell into my hands to most strongly admonish on of my co-equal's guys who persisted in making unwanted comments of a sexual nature to one of his co-workers (who later, by way of advancement in grade, transferred over to report to me). My personal experience confirms that sexual harassment in the workplace is deleterious to morale and productivity, and therefore avails no advantage to America's economy.

But in our litigious society, unhappy former employees (and their attorneys) are quick and loud with their cries of discrimination and sexual harassment in the lawsuits that seem to inevitably follow an employee's involuntary separation. And no one group has any monopoly on such litigation tactics. It thus falls upon the judicial system to sort out the meritorious claims of discrimination and sexual harassment from those that are baseless, frivolous and/or irrelevant, but asserted in attempted retaliation.

A sexual harassment claimant must prove in court that he or she (yes, men can be and have been sexually harassed) (A) was actually offended by the alleged conduct; and (B) a reasonable person in a similar situation would be offended by such conduct.

While Ms. Seybert was employed by The International Group, she used her company computer, on company time, to exchange with company employees some e-mails containing humorous prose and illustrations of a sexual nature. And so, over the objections of Ms. Seybert's attorney, Judge Pratter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has ruled that those e-mails may be presented as evidence at trial because they would be relevant to determining both the subjective and the objective standards of just how offended Ms. Seybert was and/or should have been offended by the conduct of which she now complains.

I know nothing about the case other than what I read in Judge Pratter's opinion. But, having litigated discrimination cases, I am calling it as follows:

Firstly, there is the distinct possibility that the parties will reach a settlement before the actual trial (or, if trial begins, before the jury returns a verdict). Most employment discrimination cases do settle (and sexual harassment is a species of employment discrimination).

Secondly, if the ex-employer does not have totally clean hands, and Ms. Seybert has evidence of this, then this might induce the ex-employer to settle. See "Firstly" above. If Ms. Seybert was wise, she kept documentary evidence of her ex-employer's foibles, and she began to keep such documentary evidence back when the employer-employee relationship was a positive one. The first day on the job is not too early to start keeping such evidence. In an employment discrimination case I handled, my client's discrimination claims were not all that clear cut, but the ex-employer moved over to settlement mode when its attorneys became aware of the documents my client had kept over the years. Though not direct evidence of my client's claims, they could have been worked into the evidence, and they would have been quite embarrassing to show to a judge or to a jury. Had my client not inserted certain dubious statements on his resume, the settlement amount likely would have been significantly higher.

[Packrat that I am, I still have, after 30 years, some documents that a former employer of mine would not want to see on the front page of any newspaper. I could probably shitcan them by now, but they contain evidence that is germane to my ex-supervisor's tendencies towards veracity (or, rather, the lack thereof). After 30 years, my ex-employer has been acquired by a Fortune 500 company and my ex-supervisor is out of there more than 20 years. But I, along with so many of his ex-subordinates from his various workplaces, while too involved with our own lives to waste our breaths even to tell the man to go to hell, would not want to be caught shorthanded in the unlikely event that the opportunity for revenge would ever arise.].

Thirdly, given the facts of the case, particularly the evidence Ms. Seybert allowed to accumulate on the hard disk of the company computer she was using, I am not too sure that Ms. Seybert was all that wise.

Ms. Seybert would have the courts and the world believe that she is a prude. Genuine prudes can be tolerable, and can even be pleasant company (my wife's sister and brother-in-law come immediately to mind in the latter regard). What I and so many other people absolutely detest is prudishness of convenience. And Ms. Seybert's trafficking of off-color humored e-mails suggest that she is a prude when it is convenient for her to be a prude, and goes along with humor of a sexual nature when that is convenient. The way I call it, she was probably fired for job competence reasons.

Trial By Jury

I was in court today, only this time it was to discharge my jury duty obligation. Since 1996, there have been no automatic exemptions from jury duty, which I think is a good thing. Everyone should be able to serve.

Inconveniences to my law practice and teaching notwithstanding (I don't go back to teaching for another 2 weeks anyway), I considered myself ready, willing and able to serve on a jury panel. I had been given a month's notice, and was able to arrange my law practice schedule accordingly.

This was the third time in my life I reported for jury duty (not counting some of the telephone standby years where I never actually had to show up). The first time, when I was in law school, all cases settled and they sent everyone home early. The second time, I knew one of the attorneys at voir dire, so we exchanged the pleasantries and I was sent back to the Central Jury room, where, about 2 hours later, everyone was sent home.

This time, the telephone message posted Friday evening (a few minutes before Shabbat) told me that a range of juror numbers in which mine fell was to show up today. I planned my schedule accordingly.

They now have an orientation video narrated by Ed Bradley from "60 Minutes," which showed a few clips from the old Perry Mason TV series I enjoyed when I was growing up. Bradley explains that these were overdramatizations of the real thing. But I liked them anyway. Much of the video consisted of various people, obscure and famous, telling us all how great the jury system is (which was the main purpose of this "orientation"). And then, the HDTV monitor in the Central Jury room shifted to the CNN News (the big story today, of course, was Bernie the Goniff Madoff). Interestingly, there were several commercials for law firms. I wonder what the implications of this would be if one of those law firms were actually involved in one of the cases heard by a jury that day.

They finally called us, so a Court Officer escorted us to the courtroom on the 5th floor (I walked the stairs, and beat most of the people taking the elevators). Looking at the judge's calendar outside the courtroom, I realized that this was a criminal case.

One of the jurors was an Assistant DA (who also seemed to know the defense attorney), so she was immediately excused. After some general discussion of the case by the Judge (criminal misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident case, trial scheduled 2 - 5 PM, estimated trial time 5 days), His Honor asked if anyone would be unable to serve. Several people came forward (child care, self-employed tradesman, etc.), most of whom were excused.

Then the first 15 jurors on the list, myself included, were called up for individual voir dire. His Honor asked the usual questions, such as whether we were able to decide the case objectively; whether, if the evidence were sufficient, we could vote to convict without regard to the sentence to be imposed; whether we were willing to consider all of the evidence; whether we could attach no significance to the fact that the defendant doesn't testify if she so elects; et cetera.

Then came the question of whether we would be able to apply the law as instructed by the judge. So I raised my hand and said, in substance, the following:

"Your Honor, I have been admitted to the bar for more than 20 years. My practice does not entail criminal law, so I don't have too many preconceived notions as to what the law is here. However, Your Honor, in what I believe to be the unlikely event that Your Honor were to give a legal instruction that differed from my understanding of what the law is, then, Your Honor, I would have significant problems with that!"

One of the Court Officers seemed to suppress a grin, while His Honor took a second or two to compose himself. The Judge then asked me (and not without a tinge of anger) "Are you saying that you would not apply the law as I instruct you if you disagree with me?"

"Your Honor," I replied, "I stress that I consider such an eventuality quite unlikely. But if Your Honor's instruction as to the law in New York were, perchance, to differ from my understanding of it, then I at least would want to know the legal authority, and look up the legal citation, for such an instruction. On account of my training and experience."

I could almost detect little wisps of smoke emerging from His Honor's ears. He called the ADA and Defense Counsel to the bench, and, after about 10 seconds, glared at me and said, "You are excused!"

I can empathize with His Honor. He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't. On one hand, he had asked, nay, put us all under oath, to be honest and candid. I was honest and candid. And judges are not infallible; indeed, on any given business day, a trial judge who misapplied the law is overturned by an appellate tribunal in the State of New York. If he were to chew me out, then none of the other prospective jurors would have been honest and candid.

[Also playing into the equation, I suspect, was the fact that I have been admitted to the bar about 9 years longer than His Honor (and, apparently, longer than either the ADA or the defense attorney). I have had 9 more years than His Honor has had to develop an understanding of the law.]

On the other hand, if he were to excuse me (which he did), then wouldn't such a precedent effectively serve to reinstate the automatic exclusion of attorneys from jury duty (remember, the other attorney in the jury pool had been excused, right before everyone's eyes, just a few minutes earlier)?

Note that if the Judge did not wish to make a wholesale practice of excusing attorneys, I did give His Honor an out. I stated and restated that I considered the odds of a conflict between His Honor's instructions and my understanding of the law to be rather long. His Honor could, with the agreement of counsel, gone ahead with me anyway. And, His Honor could have seated me, and instructed me to pass him a note if my understanding of the law differed from his instructions, so that he could apprise me of the legal authority for his instructions.

And, perhaps, there may have been the fear of a kingpin juror (though my personality is definitely not that of a kingpin juror).

And so, I am not subject to jury summons for another 6 years.

While it's good to get my schedule back, I'm a little bit disappointed. A major part of me does want the experience of serving on a jury panel.

We'll see what happens when I get called up the next time.


Ironic Postscript: En route back home from the courthouse, I stopped at a nursing rehab facility to visit a member of our congregation who incurred a nasty foot fracture. Other than his depressed mood, he's doing fine medically. And he is a retired physician (with a daughter who has been admitted to the bar a few years longer than I have been). It kind of made his day that there he was, doctor in the patient's bed, was being visited by a lawyer who sat in the jury box.

What's in a Name?

The absurd cases that appear with some frequency in America's courtrooms never cease to amaze me.

The law in New York is that anyone has the right to use any name of his or her choosing, unless there is some motive for fraud or other nefarious purpose. In order to change one's name, one can take either or both of the following legal paths:

A. File a petition in the court to obtain a court order allowing the change of name; and/or

B. Simply adopting the new desired name (with or without the court order).


The Appellate Division, Third Department, has overturned a trial court's denial of a petition for a name change. The case is Matter of Earl William Golden III, ___ A.D.3d ___, ___ N.Y.S.2d ___, 2008 NY Slip Op 9333, 2008 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8983, N.Y.L.J., 12/9/2008, p. 30, col. 1 (3d Dept. 2008). The uncontested contentions in the petition are that the person who was born a baby boy and named Earl William Golden at birth now identifies with the female gender, and accordingly, seeks to change the birth name to Elisabeth Whitney Golden. The trial court noted the likelihood of confusion in the change of name from the male to female gender, but the Appellate Division panel found that this alone was not sufficient reason to deny the name change.

What is so absurd about this case? Apparently, "[i]ncluded in the submission was an affidavit from petitioner's spouse indicating that she supported the name change request and had no objection thereto."

So has Golden transitioned from a man to a lesbian? Is his "spouse" a real woman? A former woman? What's going on here?

The court can only go by the evidence before it. I cannot help but wonder, however, whether there might not actually be some sort of ulterior motive based in fraud or confusion. Either that, or this guy/gal is just plain wacko after all.