Fact Check

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Vacation

Seussian response to a lawyer's contested request for Christmas vacation.

Published Jan. 31, 2013

Claim:

Claim:   Law firm issues Seussian response to a motion by opposing counsel for the court to ignore a lawyer's Christmas vacation request.

Status:   True.

Origins:   A PDF document

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entitled "How the Grinch Stole Christmas Vacation" was forwarded to us in December 2004. It purportedly documents a disagreement between two Dallas law firms (Lynn Tilltoson & Pinker and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld) on opposing sides of a case (Jenkins & Gilchrist and L. Steven Leshin v. Stuart D. Dwork and Roger Maxwell) over a request by plaintiffs' lawyer, Mike Lynn, for time off for Christmas vacation.

Evidently, on 17 December 2004, the defendants' lawyer, Alfonso Garcia Chan (and the above-identified "Grinch," attorney Michael Shore) filed a motion to compel the plaintiffs to produce certain documents related to the case at hand. Mr. Chan noted that opposing counsel, Mr. Lynn, had already filed a vacation letter with the court that same day, but he found the letter to be "untimely and unreasonable" because it was "filed the afternoon before [Mr. Lynn's] vacation and after he was informed that we would be filing the foregoing motions and setting them for hearing," and Mr. Chan accordingly asked the court to ignore the vacation letter.

Apparently, Judge Bill Rhea acted on the plaintiffs' response, acknowledging Mr. Lynn's vacation letter and granting his request for time off (or, more specifically, took no action when his clerk declined to set the defendants' motion for hearing), which prompted Mr. Lynn and others to pen a sardonic rhyming brief in Seussian style as displayed in the PDF document linked above.

Last updated:   23 December 2004


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  Sources Sources:

    Viner, Brad.   "Let Me Tell You a Story About a Friend of a Friend."

    The [London] Independent.   21 December 2000.



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David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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