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Law Blog Magistrate Judge of the Day: Wallace Dixon

By Ashby Jones

Plaintiff's promissory estoppel claim, which was not argued in his brief, brings to mind Carl Spackler's analysis from the movie CADDYSHACK (Orion Pictures 1980): "He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron, I think." North Carolina does not recognize affirmative claims of promissory estoppel; thus, Defendants are entitled to a judgment on the pleadings.

– Federal magistrate judge Wallace Dixon, in his May 19 opinion which recommended the dismissal of Andrew Giuliani’s lawsuit against Duke University.

For all of you who haven’t seen Caddyshack in a while — or for the six people, all of whom were presumably born within the last year or two — who haven’t seen it at all, let us give a brief translation of Judge Dixon’s point.

First: Carl Spackler, played in the movie by Bill Murray, is the slightly deranged — and possibly delusional — groundskeeper at the Bushwood country club.

Second: The scene Dixon is referring to is one in which Spackler is fantasizing about winning the Master’s golf tournament. In the scene, Spackler swings a golf club three times, imagining each is a shot on the 18th hole at Augusta National (he holes out in three, of course). With each swing, Spackler also destroys a flower.

Translation of Judge Dixon’s above statement: Giuliani’s promissory estoppel claim is pure fantasy. Great stuff.

The very brief backstory: In July of last year, Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York mayor, sued Duke, alleging that he’d been improperly dismissed from the Duke golf team. Click here and here for previous LB posts. Giuliani claimed that Duke's golf coach trumped up a series of allegations to force him out and turn his classmates against him.

Giuliani alleged that the previous golf coach at Duke, who died in 2007 and was replaced by the coach that cut Giuliani, had essentially entered into a binding contract with Giuliani.

But Dixon on Tuesday rejected the claim. As the Smoking Gun writes, “Though no longer on the golf team, Giuliani graduated this month from Duke, so he’s got that going for him.”

Law Blog YouTube Video of the Day: You’ve done good work today, LB readers. We can sense it. Now you get to watch this piece of comedic genius.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).