Trivia / Uncommon Law

• Defictionalization:
  • The scenario in "The Negotiable Cow" (paying with a cheque written on the side of a cow) has sometimes been staged for publicity purposes.
  • Having written "Sauce for the Goose", in which a judge rules against the House of Commons for ignoring the rules about permitted drinking hours, Herbert couldn't resist taking the issue to a real court. The judge ruled that the issue was covered by parliamentary privilege; so when the cases were collected in Uncommon Law, "Sauce for the Goose" was replaced by "Crime in the Commons", in which Mr Justice Wool decides that other crimes such as murder, arson and burglary are also lawful in the House of Commons.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • An endnote to Haddock v Thwale relates how the fictional case (Mr Haddock was hit by a car and ruled not to be negligent for trying to cross the road) was reflected by real-life road safety legislation, such as the Road Traffic Act 1934.
  • The fictitious Urban District of Burbleton v Haddock prefigures the real-life case R (on the application of Newhaven Port and Properties Limited) v East Sussex County Council and another in considering whether there is a common law right to cross a beach for the purposes of bathing in the sea.
• Referenced by...:
  • "Far-Cited", an article in the Alberta Law Review, refers to Suet v Haddock as an example "which I hope is still imaginary" of the problems that can arise when an article is submitted to a court.
  • In the UK House of Lords, Viscount Bledisloe cited one of Mr Haddock's clashes with the Inland Revenue, in which Mr Haddock argued successfully that because judges' salaries had been reduced until government finances improved, they now had a personal interest in any case involving government finances and so could not try it.
  • The real-life case Messing v Bank of America opens with a comparison of the case to "The Negotiable Cow".
  • In another real-life ruling Victor Chandeler International Ltd v The Commissioners of Custom and Excise and Teletext Limited [1999] EWHC 214 (Ch), Mr Justice Lightman notes that a document must be inanimate - "neither a person nor A.P. Herbert's 'negotiable cow' can constitute a document".
  • In Moore v British Waterways Board Lord Justice Mummery ruled in favour of Moore on the grounds that the British Waterways Board couldn't say what unlawful act Moore was supposed to have done. In a footnote, he compared the case to R v Haddock, in which Haddock is prosecuted for jumping off Hammersmith Bridge, but no-one can actually prove he did anything unlawful.
  • One column by David Langford is a pastiche case in this style, in which a software company sues "Alfred Halibut" for non-payment, while he contends that their user-unfriendly Copy Protection has rendered the game he bought worthless.