Courts

Sometimes It's Fine To Use Humor In Judicial Opinions

It is undeniable that comedy can be a welcome treat in some legal opinions but should not be used by judges in other contexts.

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Every couple of months, this website and other legal news outlets cover a judge cracking jokes or using some other kind of humor in a judicial opinion.  Since legal decisions are usually tedious to read, it is typically a welcome treat to find humor when reading this otherwise serious content.  However, it sometimes seems inappropriate for judges to use humor in their opinions, since this could demean the legal process, and this might be unfair to the parties involved in a case.

The codes of judicial conduct do not seem to explicitly cover humor in judicial decisions, so I thought I would provide some opinions on this topic based on my own experiences.  Although I contributed to the Georgetown Law Weekly’s humor column, and I had a short-lived career as a stand-up comic in law school, I am no expert on legal comedy.  As such, I would really appreciate any feedback from judges or other legal practitioners about when they think humor is appropriate in legal opinions.

Funny Facts

The subject matter of the case is probably the most important factor to determining if humor is appropriate in a legal opinion.  For instance, many legal practitioners are familiar with the famous New York haunted house case involving purchasers of a house suing the sellers for not notifying them that the house was haunted.  In ruling on the matter, the court made a number of ghost jokes and references to pop culture.  Of course, the subject matter of the case was kind of silly.  Although the issue of latent defects in real property is a serious matter, it is somewhat funny that attorneys would try to apply those standards to the context of a haunted house.  Since the subject matter of the case was funny in nature, the court did not really shatter the dignity of the legal profession by making some “Ghostbusters” references and using language associated with ghosts.  If anything, the court showed that judges are real people that have a sense of humor, and in this context, humor was appropriate in the judicial opinion.

References to the PARTIES IN a Case

Sometimes, it is funny when courts reference people or things associated with a case, and this is appropriate in a number of contexts.  For instance, many judges when deciding cases involving musicians cite to lyrics of the musicians involved in the lawsuit.  One such case that I stumbled upon a few months ago involved a plaintiff trying to assert hearing loss from attending a concert.  The judge in the opinion rather skillfully included lyrics of the subject musician’s songs, which was pretty funny.  Of course, it is not good that a plaintiff appears to have suffered from hearing loss, but the subject matter of the case opened the matter up for humor.  More recently, a judge used Taylor Swift lyrics in a case involving this singer.  This humor also seemed appropriate, since the court was merely making references to the parties in the case.  As these examples show, humorous references to the subject matter of a case can be appropriate in a number of contexts.

Judges Shouldn’t Use Comedy to Ridicule Lawyers

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One inescapable fact of being a lawyer is that you sometimes need to make silly arguments for the benefit of the client.  Sometimes, lawyers make silly arguments on their own volition as a last-ditch effort at promoting the client’s interests.  Other times, clients put their lawyers up to making silly arguments, since they might not know about some legal issues.  In any cases, judges should understand that this is a reality of our adversarial process, and cut attorneys some slack about silly arguments they might need to make.

In law school, I had to read the Texas jackrabbit decision, an opinion that involved an effort to change the location of a given matter.  The judge uses colorful language and comedy to excoriate the defense lawyers for filing the motion to transfer the case to a different judicial division.  However, there must have been some reason why the defense lawyers wanted to transfer the division of the matter.  Perhaps it was truly out of convenience for the individuals involved in the case, and perhaps there was some deeper legal significance to this motion.  In any case, I always felt bad for the lawyers who were on the receiving end of this comedic “benchslap” and judicial humor should probably not be used to ridicule lawyers.

Subject Matter

Sometimes, the subject matter of a case is so serious and so grave that any use of humor by a judge seems to be in poor taste.  When I was in law school, I read one such case involving a serious situation in which one of the parties needed to use a bow and arrow to fend off an attack.  The court cited a Shakespeare quote from “Hamlet” about the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and made other Shakespeare references.  However, the parties in this case were seriously injured, so this use of humor seems misplaced.  If a court is charged with reviewing a serious criminal law matter, it might not make sense to use comedy in a judicial opinion.

In the end, I am no expert on what judges should and shouldn’t do in their decisions, and I am also no expert on comedy.  I look forward to hearing from legal professionals, and hopefully some judges, about when they think it is fine to use humor in judicial decisions.  However, it is undeniable that comedy can be a welcome treat in some legal opinions but should not be used by judges in other contexts.

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Jordan Rothman is the Managing Attorney of The Rothman Law Firm, a New Jersey and New York litigation boutique. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jrothman@rothmanlawyer.com.

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