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.