quote:Rhyming judge throws out suit against Eminem.
The Detroit area that spawned Eminem is apparently so thick with aspiring rappers that, in a court case targeting the artist occasionally known as Marshall Mathers, both the plaintiff and the judge were would-be hip-hoppers. On Friday, Judge Deborah Servitto threw out a defamation lawsuit filed against Eminem by DeAngelo Bailey, who claimed Slim had defamed him in a song and thereby hurt his own plans to become a rapper. In her ruling, Judge Servitto included a 36-line rap of her own, the Macomb Daily and the Detroit News reported.
Bailey, a sanitation worker from Roseville, Mich., had filed a $1 million suit in 2001 over ''Brain Damage,'' the 1999 song from ''The Slim Shady LP'' in which Mathers names him as a childhood bully who used to ''shove me into the lockers'' every day and ''banged my head against the urinal 'til he broke my nose.'' According to the News, Eminem's legal team filed a motion to dismiss Bailey's suit on the grounds that the plaintiff was trying to ''cash in on the fame of another.'' Besides, his legal team said, the allegations in the song were true and were backed by a lawsuit filed by Eminem's mom in 1982 against the Roseville school district for failing to protect her son from Bailey. (That suit, which was dismissed on the grounds of governmental immunity, is posted online at .
Servitto's ruling stated in part, ''The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact/ They're an exaggeration of a childish act... Any reasonable person could clearly see/that the lyrics could only be hyperbole... It is therefore this Court's ultimate position, that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition.''
One critic who didn't appreciate Servitto's mad rhyming skills was Bailey's attorney, Byron Nolen, who said the couplets might aid his client in an appeal. ''I don't know how the Court of Appeals would look at something like that,'' he told the News. ''I'm shocked that a judge would do that.'' Maybe Bailey, Eminem, and Servitto should just have it out in an ''8 Mile''-type freestyle rap battle.
I suspect the attorney is blowing smoke. There may be an appeals court out there that would do more than raise an eyebrow at the form of her ruling, but I doubt it.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I like that judge. Glad to know that there are judges out there with imagination and a sense of humor.
And as for the attorney who would appeal becuase of the form of the decision: good luck to him, 'cause he'll need it. I don't know of any sort of judicial rules which demand that the decision be in prose.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Little do you realize that when the Supreme Court gave their final comment on the 2000 Election, it was done in the form of a Shakespearean Sonnet.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Finally, Presiden Bush has announced that his next State of the Union Speech will be done as a Rap.
Many pundits believe that this is to help garner a larger vote by young voters. Others believe its a bold move to begin planning a career after the Presidency. Most, however, see it as a way of saving himself embarrasment. If some fact that he announces at next year's State of the Union Speech turns out to be wrong, he can blame it on "Artistic Differences".
Or, realizing that nobody could sit through a Rap by President George W. Bush, he can say anything he wants because no body will be listening.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Dan
