4 ms·

So that's what counts as good legal writing, huh? I see a lot of extraneous detail (e.g. "bound for another place", "a package of small size, about fifteen inc

by jfengel 8mo ago

So that's what counts as good legal writing, huh? I see a lot of extraneous detail (e.g. "bound for another place", "a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper"). The sentence "The fireworks when they fell exploded" is clunky. It's also missing the critical detail of who she is suing. The point of the story is to explain how she got injured, but gives no idea who is actually involved. The guards? The other man who got on the train and vanished from the story? (Turns out it's the railroad company, who is not mentioned in the story at all.) Wikipedia summarizes the relevant facts in one sentence: Two men attempted to board the train before [the plaintiff's]; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. Incidentally, can you set off fireworks just by dropping them? That sounds unlikely to me.

ectocardia 8mo ago
There's a bit of advocacy involved here-- the writer is trying to convince you that the sequence of events was so absurd as to be not "foreseeable". Other than that, I agree with you that it's a bit verbose; it's just how a lot of these judgments were written back then.
piker 8mo ago
> Incidentally, can you set off fireworks just by dropping them? That sounds unlikely to me. I understand there is speculation that Cardozo downplayed a suspicion that these were some kind of domestic terrorists carrying actual explosives.
NoboruWataya 8mo ago
Court decisions are often prosaic, even flowery; brevity is not the primary (or at least, certainly not the sole) metric by which they are judged. That said, I don't really see what is special about the quoted passage either. I have read many decisions and this seems pretty standard for a recounting of the basic facts.
singleshot_ 8mo ago
> story? (Turns out it's the railroad company, who is not mentioned in the story at all.) Palsgraf v. LIRR, it’s right there in the caption.
- jfengel 8mo ago
  It's in the caption but there's no indication of how they fit into the story. If this is a recounting of the facts of the matter, I'd expect LIRR to say "there is no suggestion that we were involved at all".
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by jfengel 8mo ago

ectocardia 8mo ago

There's a bit of advocacy involved here-- the writer is trying to convince you that the sequence of events was so absurd as to be not "foreseeable". Other than that, I agree with you that it's a bit verbose; it's just how a lot of these judgments were written back then.

piker 8mo ago

> Incidentally, can you set off fireworks just by dropping them? That sounds unlikely to me. I understand there is speculation that Cardozo downplayed a suspicion that these were some kind of domestic terrorists carrying actual explosives.

NoboruWataya 8mo ago

Court decisions are often prosaic, even flowery; brevity is not the primary (or at least, certainly not the sole) metric by which they are judged. That said, I don't really see what is special about the quoted passage either. I have read many decisions and this seems pretty standard for a recounting of the basic facts.

singleshot_ 8mo ago

> story? (Turns out it's the railroad company, who is not mentioned in the story at all.) Palsgraf v. LIRR, it’s right there in the caption.

jfengel 8mo ago
It's in the caption but there's no indication of how they fit into the story. If this is a recounting of the facts of the matter, I'd expect LIRR to say "there is no suggestion that we were involved at all".
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