Fallen From Thy Lips

Courtrooms are popular settings for various literary works, some of which qualify for the genre “law in literature”. Fallen From Thy Lips is the converse. It explores the judicial adaptation of literary works in judgments – literature in law.

By way of illustration:

This missive must have been as welcome as the visit of Jacob Marley to Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve.

The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on and the court, unlike Proust, is unable to transform time lost into time regained.

This is not so much a case of “Hamlet without the Prince” as Hamlet without any of Polonius, Gertrude or Laertes (or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern without Hamlet, Claudius or the Player).

Reference to the great works is leavened with some lighter observations:

Where there’s a will, there’s a relative.

The facts of this case could only have taken place in Australia.

“Purposive construction” is not a mechanism for demonstrating that the glass slipper actually does fit on Cinderella’s sister’s oversized foot and thus Cinderella’s sister is Cinderella, when it does not and she is not.