I'm not a lawyer, but I am interested in the law.
The interesting thing about the law is that it is often very precise. That means that it is possible for something to "obviously wrong", but still not in contravention of the law.
Laypeople like to deride these as "technicalities" or "loopholes", but nonetheless, that's the way the law is written. If a defendant or lawyer happens to notice that, it's not "obviously wrong".
And now for my favourite "loophole" story.
There was a lawyer here in Toronto, probably long dead now because he was pretty old even in the 1980s. Anyhow, once upon a time he noticed that all of the parking bylaws were based on distance measurements -- "Legal within 250 feet of the intersection of Pine St. with such-and-such street", etc.
But he noticed that many of the parking signs were on telephone poles.
And he realized that it was incredibly unlikely that the poles aligned perfectly with the measurements in the bylaws.
So armed with a bylaw book, he spent a few afternoons walking around the main courthouse in Toronto, which is right downtown and has terrible parking. And he found places which had "No Parking" signs that did not line up with the blyaws -- the bylaws said ""Parking is legal within 250 of X" but the sign was only 220 feet away from X. The resultant 30 feet were signed no parking but were completely legal under the bylaw.
And he then had a fine set of parking spaces that were completely legal, but where nobody else would park because the were signed "no parking".
Brilliant!
When he got a ticket, he'd just show up with a photograph, a measurement, and a copy of the bylaw.
Read other answers by Scott Welch on Quora:
- Is a secret recording admissible in court?
- As a lawyer, can you help people?
- What is a legally effective form for a cease and desist letter to send a website and ask them to remove defamatory postings?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2do1vmY
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