...7...

Yes, I skipped 8. I think last week was seven, so six is begining, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I have it written as a count down on my calendar and I believe that 7 was the number for this week.

As mentioned in my last post, we're into the doldrums of the quarter - it isn't quite the maelstrom of additional intensity that happens on a quarter's downward trajectory, but it isn't that giddy exciting part of the quarter where you really believe that this time you will memorize every case and take practice tests on the weekends... or whatever people theoretically believe they will do in their most optimistically virtuous minds.

Employment Discrimination has had a nice finger-on-the-pulse sort of aura this week as we celebrated Schnapper's favorable Supreme Court decision and discussed the one in which oral arguments were heard, but a decision hasn't been issued yet.

 Just so you know - if you're an employer and you want to punish somebody who made a discrimination claim under Title 7, it's actually now pretty clearly illegal to fire her fiance. And he can now sue you too. And well, we're not really sure what happens if a subordinate supervisor with major discriminatory motives lies and underreports and skews information in a way to make a completely non-discriminatory upper supervisor fire them. 

But it will be interesting to see what theory will be applied - there are many, the favoritest name being the "catspaw doctrine" which is named for La Fontaine's story about a cat getting its paws burned removing chestnuts from a fire at the encouragement of a monkey who eats all the chestnuts... Like duh, chestnuts are like employees and fire is like uh "firing" and eating chestnuts... uh would then be like eating employees... wait. Let's just say when this happens the employer might be on the hook, but the specific circumstance of when and how are a little up in the air until Staub is resolved.

You will fire the African-American Disabled Muslim Woman

Also, we learned in Transmission of Wealth that Bodyheat may not have been the most accurate representation of estate planning issues. I mean, yes, you can marry somebody, seduce your lawyer to kill him, doctor up a new will that changes the disposition leaving half to the niece into a trust that might violate the Rule Against Perpetuity, but as it turns out if you do it in Florida, that won't void the faux will until the entire span of time listed in the RAP and even if it does, that would likely just de-revoke the original will and the niece would still get half. Darn it. Much easier just to hire the lawyer to kill the niece too or really commit to the fake will and leave everything to yourself outright.

Joke about The Fertile Octogenarian
 "vesting" her "future interests" goes here. 

This weekend, I took some time from my studying to huddle in a car in the middle of Renton near a bike trail called - I kid you not - Tapeworm. Andrew was doing a biking event that could loosely be called "a race" and in fact ultimately was a race, but was also a "time trial" which means different start times and the clocking and registration etc. was fairly ad hoc. Also, it was COLD. I am not sure why 40ish felt so damned COLD, but I did lose sensation in many fingers and toes during the waiting. Andrew flew his new team colors today, making it far more difficult to actually identify him. His last uniform was a striking red, while his Blue Rooster jersey is pale blue and white. Quite comely but not quite as eye-grabbing.

I returned home quite blue, myself, with the weather as it was. Imagine my delight to realize that the water was entirely off in the entire building, voiding my initial plans of hot showers and warm tea. Eventually a few hours in front of the space heater and some tinkering by other co-op members brought the core temperature back up to speeds not quite matching those of the time trialers earlier in the day.

At any rate, having regained a more pinkish hue. I move onto number six! Whoooo baby.