Thor's Day: The Act of God defense

A lawyer's windfall

By James T. Carney

[Editor's Note: Our friend Jack Cover wrote us last week that he had had his big Christmas present early—the weeks of Christmas and New Year's Day off from the Torisel chemotherapy that had been holding in check the tumors of his renal cancer. The cancer was entering its 33rd year, but Jack and his doctor had decided against a birthday party now to wait until the cancer's 50th, when everyone could have a real blowout. Our friend James T. Carney responded to Jack's good humor in such good humor of his own, we asked him and Jack whether we could publish his response. They said we could.]

Hi Jack, have you ever considered the possibility that you're a hypochondriac, what with all these complaints about cancer? By my reckoning you should have been dead two years ago. I am glad you never entered hospice care, for the government would be suing you to collect all costs expended after the first six months.
    Given our religious persuasions, I would propose to defend you on an Act of God defense. There is no reason why you should be responsible for screw-ups by the Almighty. You will outlive me, I am sure, if I am not bopped off by my wife or some other relative. Mo and you are convinced that I will die of cirrhosis. My wife, on the other hand, is convinced that I will fall off a cliff on the Pyrenees. (I am checking her emails to my companion for that upcoming trip just to make sure he is not being offered any financial inducements to ensure that I Fall from Grace.) Any life insurance agent who sold you life insurance should be thanking his stars, since he will continue to collect premiums and delay payouts for the next couple of decades. If you had a choice in pensions between a lump sum and an annuity, you should have taken the annuity.
    Given your extreme position on gay/lesbian and other nontraditional marriages, I am not sure that I ever told you how I explained to his Grace (the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America ) why I differed with the Church's position on gay marriage. I said,

Well, Your Grace, you have to recognize that from your standpoint this is a religious matter, but from my standpoint it is a trade union matter. Years ago, lawyers made no money from matrimonial law. Then with God Save the King Henry VIII, divorce became lawful and lawyers began to prosper. The high point was in the last century, when equitable distribution became the rule and every divorce case became a fruitful opportunity for litigation. Often lawyers' fees would outweigh the amount of property in dispute. (Of course, if one were a careful lawyer, one would never make this mistake.)
    Then disaster struck: marriage started going out of style. The American Bar Association favors strict enforcement of the laws against fornication for this reason. The bar, in a major intellectual advance, came up with the idea of palimony suits, but the courts were not sympathetic. The legal community has sustained a major defeat in this area. Now, the only group that is really interested in marriage these days is the gay/lesbian community.
    The great thing about marriage is that half of the couples involved get divorced. And that is where we lawyers come in since we have a fundamental interest in promoting gay/lesbian marriage. So, Your Grace, I understand where you are coming from, but on this point trade union interest must prevail and I respectfully dissent from the position of Mother Church opposing gay/lesbian marriage. The reality is that when we are both dead, this issue will have become a non-issue and gay/lesbian marriages will be accepted without question.

    Now, Jack, I recognize that there are some mistaken elements in the New Testament that suggest our Lord was not totally sympathetic to business interests (e.g., throwing the money changers out of the temple), but I am sure that these incidents occurred because of inadequate regulation by the financial authorities. As I have told my local priest on more than more occasion, I am convinced that a group of communist sympathizers in the Middle Ages distorted the texts of the Sermon on the Mount to make it appear that the Lord was a socialist as opposed to a sound business man, which he obviously was. I am sure what he really said was,

You need to work hard and live on whatever low minimum wage the authorities set. After all, remember to render unto Caesar what's Caesar's and unto God what's God's.

Someone who founded an organization that has lasted two millennia and encompasses two billion people makes Warren Buffet look like a street peddler.
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Copyright © 2014 by James T. Carney

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