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South Park Cited in Appellate Court Opinion

To quote Lewis Black, I have neither the time nor the energy to make s#$% like this up.

First, a very grateful hat tip to Decision of the Day.

Here's a little context. The case involves a federal employee dismissed from her job for testing positive for marijuana. The Merit Systems Protection Board upheld the dismissal because of a zero tolerance drug policy, but the defendant claims that her employer bypassed the discplinary process by mandating dismissal for a failed drug test. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed that the defendant is entitled to discovery to present this (somewhat bizarre) claim, so they vacated the MSPB ruling and remanded.

Judge Randall Rader dissented:

Baird v. Department of the Army, 2007-3046 (Fed. Cir., Feb. 26, 2008)

Moreover, this court should not unnecessarily interfere with the federal government?s purview to implement and enforce zero-tolerance policies for illegal drug use with respect to federal employees. The record shows that Ms. Baird had marijuana metabolites in her system while working as a psychiatric nursing assistant for the United States Army. The record also shows that Ms. Baird had notice that she could be subject to random drug tests. Removal thus seems a highly appropriate remedy. As Mr. Mackey from South Park would say, ?drugs are bad, mmmkay?? By labeling this routine evidentiary call as an abuse of discretion, this court will serve only to force Ms. Baird and the government to expend further resources on remand to reach the same result. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

This is the first time a quote from a cartoon has been utilized in an appellate court decision in over a decade. Who can forget that legendary piece of dicta in Romer v. Evans when Justice Kennedy advised Justice Scalia: "Don't have a cow, man" after reading Scalia's blistering dissent.

Of course, the Supreme Court settled the controversy in Chef v. Morisette, which granted 6th Amendment relief to Chef after his incompetent lawyer was unable to overcome the dreaded Chewbacca Defense.

And finally, few legal scholars have noticed an important part of the Bush v. Gore, where in the per curiam opinion, the Court instructs the Florida Supreme Court to "respect my authority," and first stating: "seriously, you guys."

Full post as published by Supreme Dicta on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).