Annoyance

Just how annoying do you have to be to be considered a harasser? How can you tell when annoyance is serious enough to warrant a restraining order? Isn’t annoyance subjective?

I’m not going to answer these questions because I have no clue and a recent California Court of Appeal ruling on the issue doesn’t help. It’s a headshaker.

I direct you to an unpublished opinion called Saenz v. Martinez , in which an appellate panel upheld a trial judge’s ruling that a lawyer’s actions were “milliseconds away” from qualifying as harassment.

Milliseconds!

What more could or should have happened in that tiny fraction of time? How can you know when you’ve hit the harassment threshold?

Beats me. The appellate panel took the easy way out and said the trial judge got to decide.

In case you’re wondering, the respondent was a lawyer who, for some reason, decided to repeatedly yell at another lawyer, cornered her once in the courthouse, and even pretended to serve her with fictitious papers. It was very weird but apparently not quite (though almost) weird enough for harassment.

The petitioner lawyer was mad/annoyed enough to take this to a higher court. The state Supreme Court may be next.

If you’re looking for a legal basis for this, the California Code of Civil Procedure says that harassment is conduct “that seriously alarms, annoys or harasses.”

Does that help any of you with this?

We need objective standards. I have a few suggestions.

Saliva. If enough spittle reaches the annoyed person to warrant the use of multiple tissues, that’s harassment. Accidental sweat dripping does not count.

Profanity. Creative profanity should never be considered harassment. In fact, it should be appreciated as an honest exercise of First Amendment rights. Yo Momma jokes, however, cross the line.

Violence. All real time violence is harassment. Symbolic violence, such as stabbing voodoo dolls, is not — unless it works. It doesn’t matter if the reaction is psychosomatic.

DM invasion. There’s a slippery slope from slipping into DMs and crashing into DMs. If the unwanted messenger is not hot, then it’s harassment.

Tickling. Another fine line. I would find harassment if the victim falls off furniture or spits up.

Litigation. Most lawsuits are harassment but you probably can’t get a restraining order against them. You’ll have to content yourself with harassing back in court.

Weird faces. Most odd expressions are not actionable since you can defend yourself with your own grimaces. An excessive amount of tongue, however, should be frowned upon.

Literally.

Old news. Things may have changed by the time you read this, but, as of this writing, much of the country is debating whether there ought to be an age limit for public office.

Those of you not debating this are probably too old to realize what’s going on.

I don’t understand why there’s a question here. The solution is obvious: Anyone who can’t consistently complete coherent sentences should be immediately disqualified from running for office. That should be in the Constitution.

We’d lose both current major party presidential candidates and get a do-over.

Congress would have some much-needed vacancies too.

MASA!! Make America Sane Again!

In other inexplicable old people news this past week, courts ruled on whether an ancient judge can keep doing her job and whether an old guy can sue a city and a cop for serial fake DUI arrests.

Neither of these stories makes a lot of sense.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit by Pauline Newman, a 97-year-old federal appellate judge who refused a special committee request that she undergo neurological testing. She was suspended from getting new cases and then she sued to be able to keep working.

You might think a 97-year-old would appreciate some time off, but, being somewhat old myself (though not presidential old), I can relate. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I didn’t have work to do or at least a lot of good video games.

What the Federal Circuit judges should have done with Judge Newman is give her stuff to do. It doesn’t have to be real stuff — just make it look important.

Years of litigation could have been avoided.

The DUI case is weirder and it’s not the old guy’s fault. For some reason, a cop working for the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, arrested hundreds of people for driving under the influence even though a whole lot of them were not under the influence and got their cases thrown out after taking blood tests.

The only reason I can think of for this behavior is that DUI arresting was a hobby, or maybe a bet was involved. If there was a contest, he was clearly winning.

Nobody at the police department seemed to notice this or bothered to look at the cop’s body camera footage. (Does anyone regularly look at body camera footage? Someone probably should.)

This phony DUI arresting finally stopped after someone complained to a local TV station.

Where the cop really went wrong was when he pulled over a 74-year-old for driving 30 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone and then doing the DUI thing.

The old guy sued and now the city is on the hook too for not paying attention.

This is what happens when you harass people who have time to sue.