Law Ammusement
Surreal law facts
The truth is always stranger than fiction.
The Sudoku Will
In Québec, where holograph wills are valid, Fernande Aubé first had a proper will done up by a notary. Discovering that she had terminal cancer, she then wrote up a second, subsequent will in the margins of a Sudoku magazine.
Scribbled here and there amongst the numbered grids of the popular game, was a discernible last will and testament, albeit holograph, redistributing her assets - no signature but all in her handwriting, and the magazine sealed in an envelope which she carefully stored.
Amongst her last words at the hospital were "give my Soduku magazine to my daughter".
After Madame Aubé's death, the Sudoku will was contested by those who would of been advantaged by the pervious, notarized will.
In 2009, Justice Bédard of the Québec Superior Court held the unusual will as valid and the assets were distributed pursuant to the Sudoko terms.
Litigation obsession
Dr. Harrison Wagner was one crazy, paranoid dude. He may have been the world's most successful barrator (instigator of frivolous lawsuits).
The small sleepy town of Woodsboro, Maryland only had 500 inhabitants circa 1888. Wagner was an eccentric loner who started the trouble when he didn't pay a local supplier who, when presented with a bill from Dr. Wagner for medical services, deducted what Wagner owed him.
Wagner sued and lost when the supplier showed up in Court with nine character witnesses.
Wagner then started a litigation campaign the likes of which had never been seen before. He filed almost 11,000 claims for debt from various townspeople in a span of a few months, many receiving multiple claims.
The townspeople tried to get Wagner declared a barrator but without success.
Wagner somehow managed to obtain default judgment against a defendant William Shank who died soon after. Wagner pressed on against the estate, in an amount of $13,230!
After that, in mysterious circumstances, he was thrown in jail for five years. In 1899, the Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the lot of the writs because they were "fatally defective".
Source: www.duhaime.org.
