Claim: Court document includes embarrassing typo about the medical condition of plaintiff's counsel.
Origins: In mid-September 2005 we began receiving copies of a PDF produced from faxed versions of court documents. Usually titled something like "Why proofreading makes sense . . .", the e-mailed file contains no explanation, just a reproduction of two
documents.
The first document is a motion filed in Miami-Dade County Court in the matter of Davant Development Corp. vs. Southeastern Freight Lines, Inc., with the plaintiff's requesting a continuance on the grounds that "counsel for the plaintiff is recovering from dick surgery and because of continuing pain is unable to properly represent plaintiff in a trial."
The second document reveals why no explanation is necessary: it's a letter from a physician stating that aforementioned counsel for the plaintiff is currently under his care and suffers from a "Disk Herniation L4/L5 which does not allow him to sit for long periods of time."
We don't know whether the goof was the result of a mishearing, a mistake in transcription, or an unfortunate typographical error, but it likely produced more than a few chuckles around the courthouse and some chagrined faces at the law firm of plaintiff's counsel.