OA30: Little Baby Jesus in a Manger

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. I'm Thomas Smith. How you doing, Andrew Torrez?

0:01:23 Andrew: I am doing fantastic. It is the day after Christmas as we record this. I had a terrific holiday. How about you?

0:01:29 Thomas: Oh, I had a great time. And I hope our listeners had a good time as well. Maybe if their families were terrible or something, at least they had a bonus little recording. I say little, two and a half hour recording of Opening Argument. We decided to release, as you no doubt know by now, our first Law'd Awful Movies free to everybody buddy to kind of give you an idea of what was going on over there, what we're doing. That's once a month. We're doing that every month. And as we speak, we already released the December one for Christmas, which was Miracle on 34th Street.

And that is to $2 patrons on patreon.com/law, $2 and up patrons. So I hope you enjoyed that. That was really fun. But that was just a little, maybe a little hint as to what you're missing over on patreon.com/law. So yeah, if you thought that that movie was, you know, legally sound, uh you know then A, you probably haven't been listening to enough opening arguments and B, you get to hear Andrew explain and well, really any rational person explain why it's not so it was a lot of fun.

0:02:05 Andrew: Oh, gosh. Yeah,

0:02:38 Thomas: And also just another little tiny piece of news just if you don't mind, Andrew, I changed my other show that which we always reference atheistically speaking, the name is now officially changed to Serious Inquiries Only. And I just wanted to point that out to anyone who happens to go googling for it. The old site will still be up and everything should redirect fine. But if you're looking for that, it's Serious Inquiries Only. So just

0:03:00 Andrew: And me plug your show for you. And I have been talking about your plans to change the name to Serious Inquiries Only, which, by the way, I think is a fantastic name. And we've been talking about that for several months because I think it really does reflect the in-depth topics and interviews that your show is doing. It's a terrific show. If you like Opening Arguments, you'll really enjoy Serious Inquiries Only. So

0:03:11 Thomas: Thank you.

0:03:29 Thomas: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

0:03:31 Thomas: And my logo guy came up with such a good logo that But I think it really ties the room together and makes the show name make sense. So yeah, and it wasn't like a light decision, by the way, like you referenced. It's been months that I've been going back and forth with you and with others about this and trying to get it right. But I think it's a good move. So you may notice that Andrew sounds just absolutely stellar today. That he just sounds incredible. You can hear just the sexiness of his voice really coming through the airwaves. Well, he's got a new mic. I just, I'm sorry, I can't not address it, you got a new Mike. It was just as probably more a Christmas present for me than you, you. I liked your Facebook post about it. Uh,

0:03:34 Andrew: It really is.

0:04:10 Thomas: So I'm really excited. Just another example of trying to make the show as good as we possibly can, uh, for you listeners. So enjoy. All

0:04:16 Andrew: Well, thank you. OK, so it is time for the answer to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam, question Question number three, you may remember this was a question about a man who sued the manufacturer of home theater equipment after his home theater exploded and started a fire and destroyed the equipment part of his home. In federal court, that was an important part of the question. The defendants filed a motion to preclude the report of the plaintiff's expert. Uh, and so the defendants were claiming that the plaintiff's expert, right, testifying that, uh, the equipment was faulty, uh was, biased and had a lack of scientific support. I think that's probably enough of the setup.

0:04:23 Thomas: Right. Sure.

0:05:00 Andrew: Our potential answers. Again, this Is the bar court's ruling under this fact, right? And the trial court's ruling was the court did a gatekeeping review as required by federal rule of evidence 702, and ruled that the expert was the plaintiff's expert was highly qualified and used accepted scientific methodologies at arriving in her opinion. And so our four options were a yes, because the charge of bias against an expert witness requires a quote, trial within a trial, and that was not done. B, yes, because whenever the expert does not back up her conclusion with experimental testing, an expert's opinion will be insufficiently reliable to be allowed.

0:05:54 Andrew: C, no, the court did the required gatekeeping inquiry and found that the witness was not only qualified and competent, but also used the accepted methodologies. Or D, no, the court has absolute discretion in deciding the competency of the expert for purposes of giving trial testimony and evidence that

0:06:12 Thomas: So I believe I picked D, but with the, the, this, the tough choice between C and D, is that right? Is that how you remember remember it?

0:06:19 Andrew: Is how I remember it, um, and

0:06:20 Thomas: Okay. Now this is a real turning point. I want to say, because like, this is question three. I'm, I'm 50, 50 right now. Like right now it could go either way. Okay. It really could. It's like when you, after the football game, you know, a close play, it goes one way, it goes the other, you knows the difference between you're talking about is the quarterback a hero or is he terrible? Well, if I get this right, Hey, I just, I got one wrong. I am two to one. I m doing great. You know, I m cruising. It s fine. Everything s fine, and I get those wrong. I, it's just, I, the question one was just a fluke clearly. So, uh, so that's the pressure I'm feeling with that said, how did I do?

0:06:57 Andrew: So with that said, uh, you answered D, uh, and the answer is C. So you came very very close, uh, you have, you've dropped a one and two, but you can, you can get back to 500 this week. Um, and I have every confidence that you will, you were, you were really, really close. Um,

0:07:03 Thomas: Gosh, man, how many points, hold on in the official bar exam, how any points do you get for your second answer that you thought in your brain being true? Is it, I gotta get something for that, right?

0:07:14 Andrew: Yeah, Yeah, Shockingly, You don't get any points for that. Yeah, yeah, you get, you get nothing, um, you get a little shout out here on the show, uh, because again, I mean, you got you got the answer

0:07:24 Thomas: No, I get nothing. Oh geez. That's the second time that's happened though. Like I'm, I really, I need to figure something something else out. Like either, what is it? Do I need to go with my first instinct or do I need to go as my second? I don't know. I'll figure something out. Somehow I need to recalibrate because I'm close. I'm right there. I just haven't quite gotten it two times in a row now. Dang it.

0:07:48 Andrew: Just a quick look at the answers, uh, you correctly ascertain that the answer was likely to be yes. The know answers, in my view, are at the level of attractive distractors. They have lawyery sounding stuff in them, but aren't really appropriate here. And, you know, in particular, the idea that in B, that the expert requires experimental testing is just, that's not correct, operative. The standard is Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which says, "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact and issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise," right?

0:08:35 Andrew: So that's the rule that allows expert testimony in. The case that governs that is a famous case that all the lawyers listening to this show will have heard of called Daubert versus Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals.

0:08:47 Thomas: Oh, that was going to be like Bill Nye the Science Guy versus something where he had to, they thought he had to actually do an experiment in the courtroom, but then they overruled that.

0:08:54 Andrew: Well, no, no, and the Daubert standard is designed to filter out people using junk science experts in the courtroom. I'm not going to go through, you know, just for time, that the sort of three-part test that the case sets out. But basically, you have to show that your expert is using acceptable scientific knowledge, knowledge that represents the, you know, consensus of the scientific community. So in looking at the answers, I think where you kind of went off the rails a little bit is you picked that the court has absolute discretion in deciding the competency of the expert. And that's not true, right? Like the court cannot say, boy, I really, really like that, you you know, yeah, right, right.

0:09:36 Thomas: Yeah. I should have known. God, God, I study so hard for this thing. You know, I put in the time I've got. I'm top five in my class at Harvard Law, and I just can't I can't believe I made such an obvious error like that. So, yeah, I'm sorry.

0:09:50 Andrew: Generally the idea is when you dig into the methodology that the expert uses that that's something that can come out in cross-examination at trial, right? Like if the expert hasn't done any testing, right, you know, you would on cross-examination you'd say, so Dr. Smith, you've been admitted here as an expert in in home theater equipment, I take it that that means that you've done extensive empirical testing of how home theater equipments fails, right? And he would say, well, no, really, you haven't done any empirical testing. Okay. And you've, you know, reached this conclusion, despite empirical testing, is that, you know, consistent with the best practices in your field?

You know, I mean, you know, you could sort of idea is you would draw the story for the jury by examining the expert rather than having the expert excluded in his entirety. Now, the court's gatekeeping function there is to say, is this a real expert? Is he really talking about science or is he talking about mumbo jumbo? That's really how courts deal with experts under 702. Thought it was a good question. You came very, very close, and we're going to do question four at the end of this segment,

0:11:01 Andrew: And I feel pretty good.

0:10:32 Thomas: OK, oh, man. Yeah, I really need to. I'm just so worried, you know, because one thing that occurs to me is that no lawyer at this firm has ever failed the bar. So I just I can'T believe I might be the first. Oh, man, all right. This week's winner for the correct answer is Ryan, and that's at R-Y-M-J-F, at RYMJF, Ryan says, ranked C-D-A-B, from an engineering standpoint, C makes the most sense, so I just kind of like, I picked, I picked that answer as our winner for The Week, because other people got it right, by the way, Charone Frankel, another right answer, she's, you know, seems to be right on most of the time, so she's on a roll, congratulations, everyone's so much better at the bar than me, I get it. I get it. Anyway, some

0:11:09 Andrew: That's true.

0:11:46 Andrew: You're going

0:11:47 Thomas: Other people got it

0:11:47 Andrew: To go, you're going up, you going to pull back to 500 this week. I'm rooting for you.

0:11:48 Thomas: Right. Okay. Okay, but but I like Ryan's answer the best just because it's it's another person who you know, isn't a lawyer and just using other insight in order to make the decision and they happen to get it right. So thanks Ryan and congratulations.

0:12:05 Clip: He who questions training, only trains himself at asking questions. What?

0:12:13 Thomas: All right. Let's go to our listener question for today and that that is Jim Sabatowski. Is there any legal basis to sue for damages? Someone that through negligence causes a traffic jam that causes thousands of people losses and gas, Lost time, missed appointments, lost wages, all of that from being stuck in traffic. So they're saying, can you be kind of liable if you cause a traffic jam through negligence for basically every problem that the traffic jam causes? This

0:12:43 Andrew: And I think that there was a video circulating in conservative circles about a certain kind of protest, and the protest caused a traffic jam, and the traffic jam caused an ambulance to be late. And then there was a Facebook post that said the ambulance didn't pick up a patient. And, you know, so there was this kind of long chain of events suggesting that, you know, people ought not to engage in peaceful protests because people get killed. So I think that was the genesis for the question. I picked it because, if I know, we have lawyers and law students, and Thomas taking the bar exam. And anybody who has had a year of law school will recognize, from their torts class, one of only like five or six cases you can name coming out of law school.

0:13:34 Andrew: It's a case called Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company. It is from 1928. And it is a fantastic case in torts, great, it's a great case just because of the fact. So you have a guy who is trying to board a crowded train, the Long Island Expressway and the Long Island Railroad. And there's a guard that's an employee of the train station on the platform trying to push this guy onto the train, which apparently was a, a thing they used to do back then, um, just like pack people in like sardines. And there was another guard on the train trying to pull this guy on the plane, and, um, he had a, a package which nobody knew was a package full of fireworks. Right, and so the

0:14:19 Thomas: Is A Made-up case I Don't believe

0:14:23 Andrew: Yeah No This Is a totally real case, and that's why every lawyer remembers it's one of the only funny cases you read in all of law School, um, so the guy's being shoved onto the train. He's being pulled onto the chain. It's kind of like a football scrum. There's a fumble. He drops the package. It hits the rails, right, that are electrified, and it explodes all of the fireworks. Right.

0:14:24 Thomas: Oh My

0:14:46 Andrew: The fireworks don't harm anybody, but the fireworks send out a shockwave that knocks over a standing scale, scale, uh, which I'm sort of picturing the kind of like old-timey carnival style scales at the end, which I assume they were using for like loading, uh, cargo or whatever, I don't know, like maybe people didn't have scales in their homes back then and you went to the train station to weigh yourself, and It was kind Of embarrassing And You Know

0:14:45 Thomas: Gosh Well Apparently You carried Your Box Of Fireworks wherever you went so who Knows what happened back then now

0:15:11 Andrew: Um So It, it, uh, it knocked down, uh, the scale. And the scale fell on a woman named Helen Palsgraf. And she then sued the railroad and said, look, if your guys weren't trying to cram this dude onto a full train, he wouldn't have dropped the package. It wouldn't have exploded. It would have knocked over the scales. And that wouldn't have fallen over and crushed me and caused all my injuries.

0:15:37 Thomas: My Instinct is, hopefully this is extra credit, we can factor it in, if I get this right, if I go wrong just forget I said anything, but my instinct is no, they can't be liable for that, because it's just, I mean, Howard, it's pretty unreasonable to expect that someone would have a box of fireworks and that it would drop on, right on the rail, and then, you know, like, I just, that my instinct is no, but we'll see.

0:15:57 Andrew: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And the case was the first case to really articulate the concept of today what we call proximate causation. And the idea is, there's sort of a zone around the acts that you do, where we could reasonably foresee the consequences of those actions if you're negligent, right, so like if you're outside, um, Yosemite Sam style shooting guns into the air, right, we, we can anticipate that like, you know, you might be shooting off your guns into the air, the bullets might travel on a parabolic trajectory and fall down and injure or kill somebody, right, but, you know, you could imagine another, like, sort of Rube Goldberg style contraption where it hits a weather balloon and the weather balloon, obscure, you know, falls, uh, onto a plane and obscures the surface of the plane, and the plane crashes, and on the plane Was a famous cellist, and, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's not reasonably foreseeable, even though it's dangerous and stupid to fire your guns into the air, it's not reasonably foreseeable that you would bring down, you know, an aircraft With With Your Crazy Guns

0:16:47 Thomas: Right Now Let Me Let Me ask you this Though, you cause a traffic jam, it's pretty reasonable to assume that some people are going to miss some stuff, so, yeah, how does that, that work, okay Yeah

0:17:37 Andrew: You know, the organ that's necessary for transplant, and that, you know, being delayed by an hour might be the difference between life and death. The more links there are in the chain, the further you get away from that sort of zone of proximate causation around the individual, the more the court is likely to say, no, that's not foreseeable. Right. Right. So I would say if you have your protest in the middle of the highway and you see an ambulance coming at you, right, that's that's different than your actions caused a 12 mile backup and 12 miles back out of sight is an ambulance containing, you the patient or the organ to be transplanted or whatever. So the further away it is, the more remote, the less foreseeable it's likely to be, the more likely it is to fail under this notion of proximate causation.

0:17:56 Thomas: Okay So I guess there's not like a direct easy answer, but it could be, if there's something that's like very closely related, it seems as though they could have foreseen, then maybe they would be liable for that, uh, but if, if, if it's all a bunch of extended causes that you can't really reasonably expect, then, uh, then no, sounds Like

0:18:44 Andrew: Right. But mostly, I just wanted to introduce all of our listeners who are sort of going through virtual law school with you to the case of Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company, because now if you go to a party, a cocktail party, and there are boring lawyers There, uh, who only want to talk about the law, you can say, ah, Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad, like how about that woman with the scale that fell on her, huh, and, uh And

0:18:45 Thomas: Okay Yeah Yeah Can You Believe that That guy was carrying fireworks. What a nut. Yeah. Okay. So that's how Andrew does it at parties. That's how he, yeah.

0:19:11 Andrew: Yeah Right Exactly And And you Will Have Yeah Well Yeah Uh, and so I have given you the opportunity to to chat with an uninteresting lawyer at a cocktail party For a couple of minutes, so

0:19:24 Thomas: Awesome. All right. Time for our main topic of the day. You know, it's the holidays, Andrew. We've mentioned several times. Everybody knows this. They're like, yeah, that's why I'm listening to your show. I'm trying to get away from my family during that. That's likely why people aren't listening. Maybe not. Maybe you're all listening together. I don't know. Opening arguments, family gathering. But as a result of being the holidays we thought we'd talk about holiday displays and what the law is there when it, as regards like public displays of maybe religious nature, you know, government buildings and that sort of thing. So Andrew, why don't you take us through that?

0:20:01 Andrew: Yeah The so first thing to remember when you're talking about a public display that may contain religious elements during the holidays is all of these cases get analyzed under the First Amendment's Establishment Clause prong, Right? And so the biggest thing is for the First Amendment to apply, right, it has to be government action, right. So there are lots of wonderful public holiday displays that can be as religious or as tacky as you want them to be that are on private property.

0:20:13 Thomas: Hmm. Right.

0:20:30 Andrew: And and there's absolutely no and no implication, no First Amendment considering nothing. Right. It's private property. You do what you want on private property,

0:20:39 Thomas: This is, this is that segment of the show that I need to maybe make an intro for where I talk about an onion article. Have you seen the one where it says like huddled family huddling in a basement celebrates Christmas, uh, despite the war, you know, something like that, where they're, they're all huddeling next to a Christmas tree, like they're refugees kind of. Yeah. I imagine that that's sort of the mentality that you're talking about when you talk about people being worried about their, their personal kind of Christian Christmas displays, you knows, those aren't threatened at all by what you're talking Mm-hmm.

0:20:44 Andrew: Right?

0:21:10 Andrew: Yeah. And and, you know, we you and I are both we are both atheists. We both celebrate Christmas and, you know, there is kind of a Fox News, you know, war on Christmas story that gets ginned up around this time of year. And I think it's important, you know, as our audience is expanding and may not, you know, share our background that, you when we're talking about the kinds of cases where the ACLU steps in, it begins with unambiguously public property. Right. And the and the issue there, you know, is, you goes back to the very founding of the country.

Right. Which with the idea that the First Amendment's establishment clause is meant to establish a wall of separation between church and state and that, just you as if you were not a Muslim, you would not want to go into a government building here in in this country and see, you open displays of, know, that seem to be endorsing Islam as a religion, because that suggests that a government that is supposed to be secular and open to everyone is in fact not open to anyone. Test I always use when I'm having that discussion is, you replace Christmas tree with, Muslim crescent.

0:21:42 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yep.

0:22:28 Andrew: And, you almost always will not go wrong philosophically if you do that. You may go wrong when it comes to some of these display cases, as we'll see. So what does the First Amendment have to say about the Establishment Clause? The operative case here, we have referenced this before, but I don't think we've gone through all of the prongs of it is a case called Lemon versus Kurtzman. And it is called the Lemon Test. I'm not going to go through the facts of the case because we don't have time for it. But the Lemon test basically says in order for a law to not violate the Establishment Clause, it has to pass all three of these tests. OK, it must, one, have a secular legislative purpose. Two, the principle or or primary effect of the law, must neither advance nor inhibit religious practice. That is, must be religiously neutral. And number three, and this is the most difficult one to apply, the statute must not result in, quote, an excessive governmental entanglement with religious affairs. Yeah,

0:22:57 Thomas: We talked about this

0:23:34 Andrew: Exactly. Because they make an establishment clause argument. That's exactly right.

0:23:34 Thomas: With the playgrounds, right? Ah, okay. Gotcha.

0:23:40 Andrew: Um, and so, uh, whenever, whenever you're asking the question, does a law violate the establishment clause? Uh, it must, in order to pass muster, it must meet all three of those criteria.

0:23:53 Thomas: And when you just said law, do you also mean like if we're talking about this display? Oh, okay, so yeah, if the DMV or something puts up some sort of display, it doesn't have to be a law. Just people could look at that and say, well, what's going on here and apply this test?

0:23:53 Andrew: Um. Action of a governmental agency. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right, right. Interesting thing here is that the first case to apply this test in the context of challenging a holiday display was case called Lynch versus Donnelly. And in that there was a little manger, baby Jesus, that was displayed on the grounds of a county courthouse. Right. So, Thomas, as an aspiring lawyer taking the bar exam, tell me what you think the secular legislative purpose is of sticking a baby Jesus on the front lawn of a courthouse.

0:24:37 Thomas: Uh-huh. Oh, man. I would venture to say that maybe there isn't one personally, but yeah.

0:24:55 Andrew: Well, I wouldn't think that there would be one because, right, it's a little manger with baby Jesus in it. And, you know, that's, that's great. You can tell that story, but it doesn't really seem to have a secular purpose. But as it turns out, the Lynch v. Donnelly case, this is 1984, thought differently. Differently.

0:25:14 Thomas: This is a very conservative court in 1984, right?

0:25:14 Andrew: Yeah it's Well, it's, it's a conservative court, it's not, uh, as conservative it's

0:25:17 Thomas: Yeah. I guess it hasn't, yeah, it doesn't have Scalia yet.

0:25:23 Andrew: Pre-Scalia, uh, but it, but it nevertheless has, has had, uh, seven Republican appointees, uh, since sort of the liberal heyday of the court, um, I would tend to agree with you. The Supreme Court disagreed. And in fact, what they said was the narrow question is whether there is a secular purpose for, in this case, the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island's display of the creche, which is the little baby Jesus. The display is sponsored by the city to celebrate the holiday and to depict the origins of the holiday. These are legitimate secular purposes. The, the District Court's inference drawn from the religious nature of the creche that the city had no secular purpose was, on this record, clearly erroneous. Just to expand on this, in her concurrence, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom we've talked about before, like to craft a lot of these balancing tests and was sort of a she

0:25:24 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Wow, Yeah. Well,

0:26:15 Andrew: Was sort Sort of the Anthony Kennedy of the 1980s. Right. She was seen as a right of center swing vote in a lot of these cases. And her concurrence had a lot of effect going forward. So I just want to read a little bit of it in describing the secular purpose here. She says these kinds of governmental acknowledgments of religion, including legislative prayers, government declaration of thanksgiving as a public holiday, printing of In God We Trust on coins, opening court sessions with God Save the United States and this Honorable Court, serve in the only ways reasonably possible in our culture, the legitimate secular purposes of solemnizing public occasions, expressing confidence in the future, and encouraging the recognition of what is worthy of appreciation in society.

0:27:06 Andrew: For that reason, and because their history and ubiquity, those practices are not understood as conveying governmental approval of particular religious beliefs. The display of the creche likewise serves a secular purpose, celebration of a public holiday with traditional symbols. It cannot fairly be understood to convey a message of government endorsement of religion. So that's 1984. That's Lynch versus Donnelly. It's okay to have little baby Jesus in the manger because that's solemnizes the holiday shows its origins, everything else. Right. Now I want you to fast forward to 1989. Okay? Five years later, Scalia on the court, and we have the exact same question, right? Public display in Allegheny County of little baby Jesus in a crash. First was there are two. I'm going to ask you about the first one first was a creche placed on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse. And why don't we tackle that aspect of this case first? Knowing what I just read to you in Lynch versus Donnelly, how do you think the court came out on?

0:28:10 Thomas: I'm pretty confused that five years later there's the exact same case. I mean, isn't that weird? Why would that be? I can't. And it's more it's a more conservative court. So I don't I mean I can imagine that they would have gone the other way. But at the same time, I don't know why you'd be bringing it up and why it would have gotten all the way to the Supreme Court. So that's weird. I don't know what to think, to be honest with You. I mean, over, obviously, my overall opinion is why do we need this crap in courthouses, but I don't, I just don't know that that, uh, you know, how the, how the, the Supreme Court has looked at it.

0:28:15 Andrew: It is kind of weird.

0:28:35 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:45 Andrew: So I think all of your instincts are exactly correct on That. This, this the later case is called a County of Allegheny versus the ACLU. And it is one of these multiply fractured opinions in the same way that Planned Parenthood versus Casey was, it was a fractured opinion. And so as a result of that, you actually have the counterintuitive result that a more conservative court five years later winds up, from the language in Lynch, and they strike down a five four opinion in which O'Connor switches. It's why I read part of her concurrence. She switches from being, from voting to uphold the creche, to striking

0:28:48 Thomas: What?

0:29:36 Thomas: In

0:29:36 Andrew: It down in County of Allegheny. And the reason, there's a little bit of distinction on the facts about how there's sort of less stuff around it, and it just seems less like a secular of the roots of the holidays, and it seems more overtly religious. I will tell you, there's not a whole lot of difference, the facts that that makes it considerably more of religion in Allegheny County. But nevertheless, sort of what they did was the court endorsed a lot of the language from O'Connor's concurrence in Lynch versus Donnelly. They struck down the little baby Jesus in the manger. But there was a second display, and that second display was a public Hanukkah menorah that was placed outside of a city building that was next to a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty. OK. The Supreme Court in that same opinion held that the overall context of the menorah made it permissible under the Establishment Clause in a way that the creche was not. Okay.

0:29:36 Thomas: The world huh Well,

0:30:51 Andrew: And as a result, the reason I kind of went through the history of that is we now have this view of, you know, if you want to put up a little baby Jesus over the holiday, you got to stick a menorah and you got got to have a little Kwanzaa candle and you've got to have, you know, other, uh, you know, secular signs. And basically, like, if you put a whole bunch of crazy crap on the lawn, then uh, that meets the constitutional test. Um, it, it's not, yeah.

0:31:20 Thomas: That certainly makes more sense to me. I mean, at least it means you're not prioritizing one religion over the others.

0:31:25 Andrew: But I, I don't think, I mean, I think it's, it it's kind of an accident of jurisprudence that we've gotten there, right? Like the, and the reason that it, the reason The reason that we got there because, I mean, this is, you know, one of our recurring themes on the show is the question of stare decisis. And I think what the Supreme Court looked at in 1989 was looking at a decision that was pretty far reaching in 84 in Lynch versus Donnelly that said, oh, come on, like, let's let courthouses put up little baby Jesus. And I think the justices kind of went back and revisited that and thought, you know what, we probably messed that up. And they didn't want to go so far as to directly overrule Lynch versus Donnelly. But I think they wanted to severely walk it back.

0:31:32 Thomas: Okay.

0:32:17 Andrew: And I think there was a recognition that, yeah, we were probably too hasty and we were considering this from the perspective of majority of Christians on the court. I don't know the breakdown of their religious belief. We have we have had of the court who are Jewish, but I I think they were an entirely Christian Supreme Court in in 1989. I don'T know that for certain. But they went back, looked at it and said, yeah, maybe we messed that one up. And so when When you're trying to walk it back, you that results in sort of drawing a distinction that is, you know, drawing distinctions that can be pretty hairline and that may not have contained sort of the original, you know, sort of thrust of that that lemon decision.

0:33:05 Andrew: Right. Because there's nothing in the lemon decision, right? Remember, the question here is, does this action serve a secular purpose? Right. That's why I read the bit from O'Connor's concurrence in Lynch versus Donnelly, uh, because intuitively, right, to somebody like me or you, we might say, well, I don't understand how ever putting a religious symbol up can serve a secular purpose. But what the court has has adopted is O'Connor's analysis. It said, no, you know, look, like having sacred symbols up in our public buildings is a way of conferring solemnity. And it can be done in a manner that is secular and open. But just putting a little baby Jesus isn't enough to do that. Right. And so that's that's how we've developed this kind of test that I don't know how much longer, it will be viable as a Supreme Court test.

0:33:53 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I was gonna ask, is that the last we've heard on this in the Supreme Court? Have there been any other cases that have influenced this or is that where we stand?

0:34:04 Andrew: Well, great, Great question, especially because we didn't prep this out in advance. There haven't been other cases. So the last case involving little baby Jesus is Allegheny County versus ACLU. Um, but there, there have been a large, yeah, large monuments that have been put up, um, and I could walk you through, I had a fun game that we were going to play, um, but instead I'm just going leave it as an as an exercise for, maybe we'll do a deep dive for patrons. But there are two cases. I will link them in the show notes. One is Van Orden versus Perry, which, that's Rick Perry, so that's Texas. And the other is McCreary County versus ACLU of Kentucky. Those cases were heard on the same day. They were decided on the the same day, which is June 27th, 2005. And they're both 5-4 decisions. But one case upheld the legality of a Ten Commandments monument, guess I could give it away, in Texas.

0:34:27 Thomas: That's right. Oh

0:35:14 Andrew: And the other said that the display of the Ten Commandment monument in Kentucky courthouses was unconstitutional and lacked the secular purpose. And I would defy any of our listeners to come up with any kind of sensible difference on the facts between these two cases that makes you that, you know, that could support, in a rational basis, saying, oh, well, no, yeah, clearly this Ten Commandments monument is perfectly fine, but this Ten Commandments display is is ridiculous.

0:35:46 Thomas: Man.

0:35:47 Andrew: It's it's it'S a mess.

0:35:47 Thomas: Now these cases drive me insane because I think that maybe to the lay person, or maybe even to the casual Christian, or just people who are not too deep into this stuff, they think, oh, well, 10 commandments courthouse, like, oh, it's just, you know, it's kind of a law theme going. Like, I get how that's not necessarily, but if you actually look at the 10 commandments, it is absurd that you would want them anywhere near a courthouse. Half of them are about recognizing a God, no other God before this specific God that we're talking about. You know, uh, Muslims would have a problem with that, obviously. Uh, and, and they're about, uh not, not making idols and doing all this crap that has nothing to do with our law. Sure. It's got, don't steal and don't murder, you know, but I I mean, that's that's a that's pretty flimsy. That's like two out of the 10 that are even closely related to our law.

0:35:49 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:36:38 Andrew: Where I think it holds up is the display of the Ten Commandements that is at the Supreme Court building itself. And that is prominent on several freezes in the, you know, sort of neo-Roman architecture in Washington, D.C. And that ist when you have the carving of Moses with the two tablets in his hands. Right. And sometimes they'll even have, You different than these 10 Commandments monuments, which are, you know, a giant hunk of rock with "thou shalt have no other gods before me" carved into it.

0:37:25 Andrew: Right. And I, and I think that, I think the difference is, uh, I wish there was Supreme Court jurisprudence on this that, that uh, made sense that that tackled it in a, in a way that was consistent with, um, you know, sort of actual analysis. To me it's very, very clear, right? Like, when you have word for word the religious, uh, quotations from the Bible put in a prominent way that is designed for people to read it, that's very different than, you know, a picture of a Charlton Heston looking guy carrying, uh, slabs of rock around. Right? Like, I get the idea, I mean, you know, our listeners may know, uh, talked, talked about it before, I'm homeschooling my son. And this year we did Origins of Law and Government. We're still doing it in our homeschool humanities class. And we looked several examples from the book of Deuteronomy as examples of historical law, right?

0:37:04 Thomas: Hmm. All right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? I

0:38:19 Andrew: So alongside talking about the Code of Hammurabi and Salon the Lawgiver and other things. So I can recognize that there is There is a historical component to this. But yeah, I mean, it just as a judge, you have to infer intent sometimes. And it seems to me that there is just a clear bright line test for inferring intent here. And that's the difference, you know.

0:38:41 Thomas: Don't, I mean, Do you even really need to infer intent? Like, you've got words and depicted from one book out of however many, you know, religions there are in practice in this country, in a way, in a print, of an important place, a courthouse, a point where clearly it's, it's, that would have some influence. I don't know, I, you don't even need intent, to me, but I'm not the lawyer, I'm the one failing the bar exam, so I guess that's why answers, yeah.

0:38:45 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So No, but look, I agree with you, and I would say there is a tremendous amount, we are talking about how these cases are kind of confusing on, you know, little baby Jesus crash cases and Ten Commandments monuments. There is a significant amount of jurisprudence that argues that the Lemon Test itself is outdated and is confusing and is not giving us helpful guidance. And, given the direction that the Supreme Court is likely to go in the next couple of years, I would hope they would stick with the Lemon Test rather than abandon it, because the folks who are on Donald Trump's shortlist all tend to be state Supreme Court justices that have expressed, you you know, rather expansive accommodationist views that would minimize establishment clause jurisprudence.

But I would say that the Lemon Test has been under attack from left academics as well as sort of giving insufficient guidance. So for example, you know when you're talking about like a voucher program, right, like directly giving money to parents to send their kids to a religious school. Um, there seems to be an easy way to analyze that under the first amendment and throwing it in a lemon test, you know, well, let's, what's the, what'S the purpose?

0:39:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:32 Andrew: Could you argue that there's a secular purpose? Sure, you can argue there's secular purpose to that. What's the effects? Well, I don't know, I mean, we're a court, like, are we really, well, uh, the and courts are really poorly positioned to evaluate the effects of legislation, right? Like, I mean, that's, that's a basic Scalia complaint, right? That, you know, the courts are not, not in a position to do that. And then the excessive entanglement, right, like there are a dozen cases, you know, that sort of talk about, like, well, you know, is it excessively entangling to require the school to, uh, submit reports back, and, you know, I mean, it's just, um, it seems a lot less clear than a bright line rule that says if you have an establishment clause, it, it should mean that taxpayer money shouldn't go to institutions, right? I mean, I would just be, a, you know, we saw that in the Minnesota state constitution, you know, when we were talking about the case, right?

0:41:27 Andrew: Like, like that seems to me to be considerably cleaner as a kind of jurisprudence in terms of giving guidance to, you know, legislatures as to what they can do while still remaining constitutional.

0:41:40 Thomas: You're saying that this test has been under attack kind of from both sides, but with the direction the Supreme Court might be headed, you almost wish maybe just keep it. Just Just because it's not as bad as it could be. Yeah, man.

0:41:50 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, and that's also I would be urging caution even if it were a Clinton presidency and there were, you know, there was an impending ninth justice, you know, who would presumably be left of center coming up, you know, I mean, we've we've talked about the importance of precedent and stare decisis and the Supreme Court's religion opinions, you know, I mean you saw we just went through sort of the the potential difficulty in backtracking from Lynch to To Allegheny County. So, And you know, there is some value in, remember the introduction to Planned Parenthood versus Casey that, you know, this has not proven unworkable, right? And that's kind of the practical test of when it's time to go back and say, okay, it's It's time to depart from star exercises. It's it's time to overturn a particular decision because it has proven unworkable as

0:42:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, really interesting stuff. So thanks for taking us through that. Certainly appropriate this time of year. Maybe that'll answer some, pre-answer some listener questions. We'll see. Or maybe it'll inspire more. Either way, I'm happy. And thanks for taken us through. Thanks for that, Andrew.

0:43:03 Andrew: Me too.

0:43:04 Clip: He who questions training, only trains himself at asking questions. What?

0:43:12 Thomas: Right. Second listener question for today. Two for one. Skeptic Sarah asks, so apparently a band called The Slants has a case coming in front of the Supreme Court on January 18th. The quick non-lawyer way, I believe the case is about, this is a summary from her, I guess, is about the band not being able to get a trademark for their name because it is a racial slur. Oh, interesting. Okay. I was surprised to see that they were also crowdsourcing their legal fees. So three questions for you, Andrew. What do you think of the case? Is the $10,000 goal for their crowdsourcing for the legal fees, is that a reasonable goal? Sounds low to me. But maybe it's just because, you know, Andrew charges me so much. No, just kidding.

0:43:58 Thomas: And how successful do you think they are going to be crowdsourcing their legal fees.

0:44:03 Andrew: So, yeah. So this case is called Lee versus Tam, L-E-E versus T-A-M. And it is presently pending before the Supreme Court. They're going to hear oral argument in a couple of weeks. And And it raises a really interesting question, which is that the Lanham Act, which is 15 U.S.C. 1052(a), that governs, among other things, trademark registration in this country. And there is a provision called the disparagement clause that says the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office will not register and will not recognize the validity of a trademark that, quote, may disparage persons living or dead institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute. And you may recall that this provision was used recently to deny presumptive protection to the Washington Redskins on the same grounds.

0:44:04 Thomas: Okay.

0:44:59 Andrew: But this is a really, really neat case because Because the band The Slants is a band of Asian-American musicians. And

0:45:10 Thomas: I was actually going to ask if it was just a coincidence, but clearly it was meant to be a play on that, I guess.

0:45:11 Andrew: Yeah, no, it was meant to. And their brief to the Supreme Court argues that, hey, look, like we are taking back slants as an insult for Asian-Americans and others of Asian descent. And turning that into a badge of honor. And so that's why that's our trademark. And that's why you, the U.S. government, ought not to enforce the trademark, the Lanham Act's disparagement clause, because it infringes on our First Amendment rights. And so I think this is a really, really neat case because, because you're not, you You have sort of the best possible sympathetic facts, right? Like this is not, you know, the neo-Nazis saying, you know, we want to make fun of Asian-Americans or whatever. There has never been a Supreme Court case that has addressed the issue of whether trademark protection is itself a kind of speech, right. There are a lot of cases that talk about commercial commercial speech, uh, being a form of speech, but it has less protection, right?

So for example, um, can write a fiction novel and I can say all sorts of untrue stuff in my novel and nobody can sue me over it. I can even write a book, call it nonfiction. Uh, and as long as, uh. I have not engaged in fraudulent advertising, which I'm about to discuss in a second.

0:45:16 Thomas: Okay, yeah, that's really interesting.

0:46:43 Andrew: Uh. People can't sue me over that, right? Like even if I get stuff wrong. But if I engage in fraudulent advertising and it meets the criteria, you can sue people over speech that is incorrect where if it were just sort of mere expressive speech, they would have greater rights. So the idea is commercial speech carries with it less rights than sort of pure political speech. And how the Supreme Court will characterize uh the trademark for a band is is interesting right because the government's argument on the other side is hey look like we're not saying you can't call yourself the slants right Go nuts, sell your albums, have your concerts, have your shirts, we're just saying we're not going to recognize the additional protections that registering a copyright, excuse me, that registering a trademark has uh under the law. And you know, that's you Know, You kind of, yeah, so It's A tough

0:47:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that is kind of convincing. That is interesting. I mean, yeah, I think that is a great case and a great question, Skeptic Sarah, because that sounds really fascinating, and it is like you said, it is very sympathetic. It makes sense. I definitely definitely can appreciate like where both sides are coming from, but it does seem like you wouldn't want to give trademark protection to a term like that. I don't know. I could see it going either way. Do you have a prediction?

0:47:40 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, Um, I think the safe prediction is uh the way in which the respondents have have written their brief, um, and the way in which it's good lawyering, their brief is good, um, is uh, you know, you sort of, you discuss the First Amendment issues and then you also application of the disparagement clause itself. And you give the Supreme Court the opportunity to say, look, this trademark, this individual trademark is not disparaging because of the, know, both the subjective intent of the person who registered it plus the surrounding facts.

0:48:39 Andrew: Right. And so you givethe court the opportunityto take kind of a very, very narrow path out and say, yeah, you know what, we're not ready to tackle the free speech issue. But, you know, we are willing to say in this case, we'RE going to rule very narrowly and give you an out. You know, if that happens and remember that because they won at the federal circuit.

0:48:38 Thomas: Oh, okay.

0:49:05 Thomas: I was going to ask that actually.

0:49:06 Andrew: Yeah. So, so if it's a 4-4 decision, the lower court's ruling will stand. So I can court reaching kind of a very narrow result that allows the lower court opinion to stand and sort of punts on the, yep.

0:49:19 Thomas: Well, do you think that this is a, a political issue in any way? Like I'm trying to think why would this even be

0:49:27 Andrew: Well, it's political because if they come out very strongly and say the Lanham Act's disparagement clause is void for uh violating the First Amendment then that throws out the Redskins case too right like that says it's perfectly okay to register uh the Redskings trademark and you I will point out that uh the brief which will link in the show notes uh is uh you know points out that whenever you have a subjective standard like this. You wind up with some interesting results. So, you this is from page 16. The respondents say applying the disparagement clause, the PTO, the Patent and Trademark Office, has registered think Islam, but has refused registration to stop the Islamization of America.

0:50:12 Andrew: The PTO has registered National Republican Senatorial Committee, but has refused registration to Republicans shouldn't breed. The P. The PT was registered celebrations and Asian efficiency, but refuse registration to the slants. The clause forbids the registration of Democrats are terrible, but allows the registration if Democrats are wonderful. Yeah, I could go on. But, you know, so you do have, think, a very intuitive argument on, you know, your vesting power in a government agency to sort of pick and choose and say, you know, what counts as disparagement and what doesn't. It's not impossible, in my view, that you would get a get five justices. Uh, that would be everyone except, um, Alito, uh, Thomas and Roberts, uh to join in on an opinion that says, uh we're going to give a first amendment, uh protection, uh in an expansive way here. Uh but I think I think the easy way out is kind of the the narrow

0:50:30 Thomas: Interesting yeah the narrow way, yeah.

0:51:12 Andrew: Application. So there was.

0:51:13 Thomas: So second question then Um, what you just said yourself, this was a good bit of lawyering, uh, this is what seems to be a well-written brief. What do you think about that $10,000 goal for that for the legal fees? That's that seems a little low from to me, yeah.

0:51:15 Andrew: Yep.

0:51:25 Andrew: I hope I think they got a real break. A good Supreme Court brief like this probably took a solid month of attorney hours. You know, I would say at least 100 attorney hours of work. And to get that for $10,000 is a good price. So there's no doubt in my mind that they got a break because of the public interest in it.

0:51:49 Thomas: Well I wonder who knows, maybe if they're, huh. Maybe they're just being modest in their fundraising goal or something, but yeah, that's, wow. That's yeah.

0:51:59 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And you might contrast that with a prominent legal case we discussed six months ago where private parties were saying they were raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for an ordinary lawsuit, which struck both of us as perhaps a little overreaching.

0:52:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:15 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Really cool question. Uh, when did you say, when will that end up being decided?

0:52:21 Andrew: Be heard at oral argument on January 18th, and then the justices meet after that. And so we'll probably get a written opinion sometime in the fall of 2017. 17, uh, but it, but you can discern some uh of how the court may be going based on you who asks questions and how those questions are framed at oral argument, so uh, that's real soon now.

0:52:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That is really cool. I am excited for that decision. That will have to be another episode because, uh, I, I am really curious to hear how they will, I guess if they take the narrow way that you mentioned, then it will be pretty, pretty short episode, but, but it will, be it'll be interesting to talk about Great question. All right, time for, here we go, oh my gosh, so nervous, uh, time for question four of the bar, here we go. This is really, yeah, I said the last one was a turning point, you know, this one is is really a turning point. Will I go one for three, or will I even it up with the two two?

0:53:05 Andrew: Nope Nope.

0:53:07 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam., No kidding., Thank you.

0:53:30 Andrew: All right. So homeowner buys a new leaf blower and is so impressed with its power that he gets carried away and blows large amounts of large amounts of his work onto his next door neighbor's yard. In addition to leaves, he also blew large amounts of pest infested plant debris onto the neighbor's property. The material has accumulated into large unsightly piles and cause damage to the neighbor's healthy plants. He has to pay, he meaning the neighbor, has to paying workers to haul the material away and incurs expenses to replace the infected perennials. The neighbor sues for the tort of trespass. The homeowner files a motion to dismiss because the neighbor cannot prove that the homeowner acted with intent to trespass or to do harm. Will the court grant the motion to dismiss?

0:54:16 Andrew: So, clear on the question, right? Leaf blower, I blow all this crap into your yard. You have to pay to take all of it away. And then you sue me for trespass. I move to dismiss and I say you can't prove that I intended to trespass onto your property. Will the court grant my motion to dismiss? So, four answers.

0:55:05 Andrew: And he acted without malice or ill will. Or D. Yes, because the homeowner expected the wind to carry the debris away and did not think that it would accumulate on the neighbor's property.

0:55:16 Thomas: This is a hard one for me, oh. My inclination was to pick a yes answer. I feel like trespassing. So I'm guessing, okay, so here's the thing. Since I'm not actually a lawyer, I don't know that that requires an intent. I don't even know if the premise of the question is true. So that's going to be the kind of thing that I'm not able to answer. But if the promise of the questions, which is that it does require intent, is true, then, and my, I was leaning toward a no answer because I don't know, you, you leaf blow everywhere, who you don't necessarily know where stuff is going, and so my inclination is C, but then when, when the fact that C and D were kind of in a weird way, sort of similar, that made me less inclined to pick a no. No answer because, oh man, we're

0:56:06 Andrew: Well, C and D are that. Remember, the question is, will the court grant the motion to dismiss? No trespass. Right. So C and E were yes. The court will grant the notion to dismiss.

0:56:15 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I, yeah, yeah. C and D were yes answers. That's what I meant to say. I was leaning toward a yes answer.

0:56:17 Andrew: Yeah. Right, got it.

0:56:20 Thomas: Thank you. Uh, good clarification. Can I, can I get A and B one more time?

0:56:24 Andrew: Yes. A is no, the court will not grant the motion to dismiss because the infected debris constituted an abnormally dangerous condition and the homeowner could be held strictly liable for the trespass. B is no because trespass is based on an intentional act of entering the land or sending something onto the land and the actor does not have to intend harm to be liable. For the tour all.

0:56:50 Thomas: You know, I're going to go with B. I'm going with B that's my answer. All

0:56:53 Andrew: Right. So, Uh, remember, all of you who are playing along, uh, we will answer this in next week's episode on OA 31. Uh, what you need to do is quote out uh our tweet announcing OA 30, this episode, uh, and include your answer. You can do a screenshot, you can go to our website, and do all sorts of crazy things that people have done to try and get around the 140 characters. Pick your answer, and we will take the best response and recognize and shower accolades on that person on the next episode of Opening Arguments.

0:57:31 Thomas: Right. So, and for the record, uh, my second answer is C. So B, then C, just to clear it up. So it'll end up being C. You're going to want to guess C because that's going to be the right. My second answer is always right. I don't know. I got a good feeling about B. I feel like that's the right answer. So looking forward to the answers for that. We've got once again, so many new patrons to thank We'll try to make it as quick as we can, but we don't want to, you know, shortchange people for being such amazing supporters. But we've got to thank Michaela. Big $10 pledge. Thank you, Michaela, David Stout, Emily Fuller, Micah, Glenn McDaniel, Ian Goodale, Dan Beeler, Izu Spielman, Nathan W. Garner, Robert Vanishek, Mike Glodeck, Ryan Neal, Nathan Gagnon.

0:58:17 Thomas: I'm just making these pronunciations up let's face it or Gagnon uh Felicia Entwistle Carol Ball Sam Nope thank you for you know what Sam thank you für having that name Sam Nope easy he's gonna tell me it's no pay or something like that Russian election hacker oh finally we got our first Russian election hacker Jason Abels, Thanatopsis, Ryan Lake, Keith Lowdon and thank you Brian Schwimmer Thank you, Anna Owen and Alan Waldron.

0:58:36 Andrew: Yep.

0:58:48 Thomas: You

0:58:48 Andrew: And Thank you to Jeff Peterson, Abel J., Sinecure, Matthew Hillier, Kristin Sanchez, Niall O'Donnell, Tim Dill, Eric Royer, uh, Russell Bulmer, Ira Green, SQuark, Mark, Aaron Rabinowitz. Thank you to Todd Steinlage, to Pretheist, to Owen Williams, uh, to Kate Hadley, to Emma McClure, and to Haukur Ísleifsson. Uh, thank you all so much for pledging, and we wanted to send a special thanks out to Dan Friend, a a patron of the show who has purchased a subscription to Opening Arguments as a Christmas gift for his sister, Aaron Friend. So hi, Aaron, welcome to the show. Be sure to thank your brother for such a thoughtful gift. And, uh, cash Thomas, maybe we should have mentioned that this is a good idea before Christmas. Uh, but either way, no, we re we really appreciate it.

0:59:37 Thomas: Yeah. Hey, New Year's is coming up. Those New Year'S gifts that you need to buy.

0:59:40 Andrew: That's right. Thoughts that lots of people have January birthdays too. So, so,

0:59:45 Thomas: Yeah, hope something like one twelfth of people, I would think. Also, you're going to have a lot of time on the holidays. You wantto listen to The Firm. You want to listen to Miracle on 34th Street, that's a lot of good content coming at you. Another two hour plus recording. So I hope you enjoy it. And now, of course, we've got to thank our all time greats, our Hall of Fame patrons. And that is Roger Metcalf, Danny Rosari, Eli Bosnick, Dave Nichols of Positively Doubtful Podcast, Steve Sigmund, Jim Grove, Desecrator, Patrick Fussell, Amanda Lipnack, LaBibliotecatrice, Heather Loveridge, Geeker41, Sean Pitty, Ian and Ali, Lee, Matthew Vernon, Violet Page Hall, John Bodley, Heath Enwright, Jeffrey Maynor, The Wayward Willis, Matthew Maxson, Detective Maxson still on the case, Leon Hartley, Chrissy Kay, Matthew Hillier, Hillier or Hillier either way, and Skeptic Sarah. Thank you guys so much.

1:00:42 Andrew: Kylie Reiser, Jeff S., Sakashite Fukasumi, ProPanic, Philip Stromberg, Michael Schaefer, Michaela, Rob V., Michael, Zabby, Frederick Alstromer, Sammy, Conrad Michaels, and the Inciting Incident podcast. Thank you all so much for being our Hall of Fame patrons and for your continued support of the show. We really couldn't do this without you. We appreciate it.

1:01:03 Thomas: That's right. And if you want to become one, patreon.com/law is the place to go. You get that bonus feed with the bonus features and early episodes and most importantly, A lot of awful movies. Really, it's really been a hit with everybody. So thanks so much for that. And I got to say, thanks for another great show, Andrew.

1:01:20 Andrew: Yeah. Thank you, Thomas. This and we'll see next week if you've uh pulled back even on thomas takes the bar exam

1:01:26 Thomas: I'm going to be stressing all week about this. All right. Thanks. And we'll see you next time.

1:01:38 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments with Andrew and Thomas. If you love the show and want to support future episodes, please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/law. If you can't support us financially, it'd be a big help if you could leave us a five star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever podcast delivery vehicle you use. And be sure to tell all your friends about us. For questions, suggestions, and complaints, email us at openarguments@gmail.com. The show notes and links are on our website at www.openargs.com. Be sure to like our page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. Until next time. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC. All rights reserved.