Yiddish in Federal Court

When English fails, Yiddish may come to the rescue. Arguing in a summary judgment motion in U.S. District Court in Boston, the defense counsel for Sherwin-Williams wrote, in a responsive pleading:

"It is unfortunate that this Court must wade through the dreck of plaintiff's original and supplemental statement of undisputed facts."

Plaintiff's attorneys responded with a motion to strike that could serve as a primer on practical Yiddish for lawyers:

PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO STRIKE IMPERTINENT AND SCANDALOUS
MATTER

Plaintiff, by her attorneys, hereby moves this Court pursuant to Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure to strike as impertinent and scandalous the characterization of her factual submission as "dreck" on page 11 of Defendant's Rule 56.1 Supplemental Statement of Disputed Facts, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit A.

As grounds therefore, plaintiff states: For almost four years now, plaintiff and her attorneys have been subjected to the constant kvetching by defendant's counsel, who have made a big tsimmes about the quantity and quality of plaintiff's responses to discovery requests. This has been the source of much tsuris among plaintiff's counsel and a gontzeh megillah for the Court. Now, that plaintiff's counsel has, after much time and effort, provided defendants with a specific and comprehensive statement of plaintiff's claims and the factual basis thereof, defendant's counsel have the chutzpah to call it "dreck" and to urge the Court to ignore it.

Plaintiff moves that this language be stricken for several reasons. First, we think it is impertinent to refer to the work of a fellow member of the bar of this Court with the Yiddish term "dreck" as it would be to use "the sibilant four-letter English word for excrement." (Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish, Simon &Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 103). Second, defendants are in no position to deprecate plaintiff's counsel in view of the chozzerai which they have filed over the course of this litigation.

Finally, since not all of plaintiff's lawyers are yeshiva buchers, defendants should not have assumed that they would all be conversant in Yiddish.

WHEREFORE, plaintiff prays that the Court puts an end to this mishegoss.

We enjoyed reading it, but the story ultimately ended poorly for the plaintiff, against whom a summary judgment was rendered (Santiago v. Sherwin-Williams Co. (D.Mass. 1992) 794 F.Supp. 29) and affirmed Santiago v. Sherwin-Williams Co. (1st Cir. 1993) 3 F.3d 546.

Comments

[Jon-Erik G. Storm]

Well, if that happened to me I would have a nikhpe and tell the judge that I wish a mageyfe im in di zaytn. (I have been told that I shelt vi a mark-yidene.)

I recently filed a Motion to Strike accusing the pleading of containing a "kvetch" not a relevant fact. The goy judge didn't seem to be impressed.