Hallowe’en 2024
As words ‘law’ and ‘lore’ can sound pretty much alike. And as things they are also very similar: that is a theme of this blog.
But from time to time the courts are asked to deal with (what we can call) capital-l Lore – that is (what we can call) Folklore.
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One of the greatest examples is the (ahem) hallowed 1991 New York case of Stambovsky v Ackley – the case that provides us with that priceless quote above.
Here is the quote in context (broken into one-sentence paragraphs):
“Plaintiff, to his horror, discovered that the house he had recently contracted to purchase was widely reputed to be possessed by poltergeists, reportedly seen by defendant seller and members of her family on numerous occasions over the last nine years.
“Plaintiff promptly commenced this action seeking rescission of the contract of sale.
“Supreme Court reluctantly dismissed the complaint, holding that plaintiff has no remedy at law in this jurisdiction.
“The unusual facts of this case, as disclosed by the record, clearly warrant a grant of equitable relief to the buyer who, as a resident of New York City, cannot be expected to have any familiarity with the folklore of the Village of Nyack.
“Not being a “local”, plaintiff could not readily learn that the home he had contracted to purchase is haunted.
“Whether the source of the spectral apparitions seen by defendant seller are parapsychic or psychogenic, having reported their presence in both a national publication (Readers’ Digest) and the local press (in 1977 and 1982, respectively), defendant is estopped to deny their existence and, as a matter of law, the house is haunted.”
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I am not an American lawyer, but on the basis of the fuller quote above, one gets the sense that the judge is being playful. The rest of the judgment affirms this view.
There are many ways the judge could have worded the point without saying that “as a matter of law, the house is haunted”.
(And as an English lawyer, the true Hallowe’en horror of the passage is that estoppel is a matter of equity and not a matter of law, but we shall let that pass.)
The judge could have simply said that the defendant was “estopped from going back on previous statements” or something similarly bland.
But the judge saw their chance to end their point with that wonderful wording, and the judge took it, much to the amusement or puzzlement of many American law students since.
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For more on ghosts and the law, please see this absolutely superb paper by Canadian lawyer Michael Shortt – and a hat-tip to William Holmes at Legal Cheek for pointing to it.
(The Shortt paper is something I would love to have written, but I would not have done such a good job. It is brilliant.)
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Happy Hallowe’en to all my readers.
This does place people selling a haunted house in a difficult position. If you don’t advertise is haunted and the buyer discovers that it is haunted, you can be taken to court. But then if you advertise the house as haunted and the buyer discovers it is not (with testimony from meddling kids and a dog), you might also be taken to court. Of course one can hope for an honest buyer such as Mr Hiram B. Otis, who acknowledged but disbelieved the warning, took the furniture and the ghost at a valuation, and was willing to accept the consequences.
Happy Halloween, and thanks for an entertaining post.
David Allen Green ‘s Halloween blog reminds me of an English case which offers a loose reverse parallel. This concerns Chingle Hall near Preston in Lancashire.
The house – supposedly the most haunted in Britain – was bought by a Canadian academic, Professor Kirkman, and his wife, from a barrister called Bruce in 1988. They bought it for its haunted quality (and paid over the odds for it) and were persuaded by Bruce that it was a going concern as a visitor attraction and capable of expansion. In 1994 they sued Bruce for misrepresenting the likely income from the business (and not, apparently, for the failure of the ghosts to appear). It is not quite clear from the press reports whether the sale had gone through: Bruce was still living in the house. Kirkham won damages against him of £71,000.
‘His Honour Judge Mark Hedley was quoted as saying that claims that he moated manor house was haunted “may well be a classic example of Estate Agents licence’. It is fairly clear that Kirkman’s interest in the house was for its ghosts – which included a martyred seventeenth-century Roman Catholic priest – so it is a matter of regret that the court case centered on purely financial matters and Judge Hedley was not asked to rule on the performance of the ghosts. Which, you have to agree, would have made for a much more interesting case.
I have fond memories of several childhood trips to Chingle Hall, even though, to my disappointment, I did not see any ghosts. It is a pity that it is now, so I read, closed to the public, since it would be nice to visit again with my wife.
The judge’s definitive statement, with its air of ex cathedra finality, reminds me of one of A. P. Herbert’s “misleading cases” in which a judge, on hearing counsel pronouncing “ultra vires” as “ooltra weerays”, instead of “ull – tr’vyrees” rules that the New Pronunciation is illegal.
Luckily, Arthur Kipps, junior solicitor was not called upon to decide legal matters at Eel Marsh House but merely to endure the mysterious machinations of the Woman in Black.