Sov: "All Rise" Summons Zombie Apocalypse

[wserra]

Entertaining one here, folks.

Apparently certain new parents (identified in the opinion only as "M" and "F") refused to "register" their child's birth, as the law requires. I put the word in quotes because - while it is the word the judge uses - it sounds a little strange on this side of the Atlantic. I suppose the equivalent here is obtaining a birth certificate or Social Security number.

"F" - who seems to speak for both parents - cites the chief legal justification for his position as the "Cestui Cue Vie Act 1666". I can't claim familiarity with what is obviously seminal law, but the court quotes it: "if a title or living being does not prove themselves alive after 7 years they are considered lost at sea". Registering a birth, of course, is therefore "entry into a ship’s manifest", and allows the state to claim him after seven years, whereupon he becomes "a dead entity in the eyes of the law". When a clerk intones "all rise", the dead arise and attack Winterfell. Or something like that. The Hono(u)rable Mr Justice Hayden - obviously a remarkably patient man - for some reason did not accept this. It did not help that "F’s previous behaviour towards HHJ Atkinson resulted in both he and his partner receiving a custodial sentence" - polite judge-speak for "both parents went to jail for being assholes to one of my colleagues".

Register, and prepare for the Army of the Dead.

[notorial dissent]

FWIW, in the UK, the parents, or someone, is supposed to go to the local registrar and report the birth as per the law, here they do it while in the hospital by completely the birth affidavit. The whole Cestui Cue makes my head hurt it is so marvelously misconstrued and read. I don't think we have anything similar in the US although sovcits insist on quoting it.

[Burnaby49]

Already being discussed by the Brits here;

http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtop ... 56#p276749

[Siegfried Shrink]

I don't think we have anything similar in the US although sovcits insist on quoting it.

You probably do, actually, but I have no idea where to find it; any lawyer should know.

It is in reality a simple legal procedure for people who are 'missing persons' to be declared legally dead after a certain number of years from last sighting or contact.
The purpose is to facilitate winding up estates, declaring widow or widowerhood, and other legal processes such as inheritance, determining leases, whatever.
It is only used in the course of court proceedings specifically brought to hear a relevant case, not to everyone, as the loonies declare, and is still valid law in the UK although slightly amended from the 1666 version. There is provisoon for a legally dead person to be declared legally alive again and to unwind whatever was dissolved or settled by the death, which could be complicated and which is an insurable risk.


I cannot image the US and most countries do not have similar provisions.

The original act was so clearly wriiten and so short it has always baffled me why anyone misconstues it, for any reason other than to cause mischief and deception among the simple minded.

[Gregg]

I know of a directive from a major Motorcar Company that warns technicians to shut off the engine before attempting to change the fan belt.

Some people need more instruction than others.

[Burnaby49]

"Cestui Cue Vie Act 1666"? Been there, done that. The very first sovereign court report that I did, way back in 2013, involved the Act. Bernie Yankson tried to get the government to cough up his daughter's secret birth bond. He wanted the money and the way to it was through the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

The first hitch in his brilliant plan was that he was dead so he couldn't enter the courtroom. Or at least one of the Bernard Yankson's was dead and he was trustee, or executor or something. The judge cut through that Gordian Knot by having the sheriff tell the Bernard Yankson loitering about outside the courtroom that unless someone identifying himself as Bernard Yankson got his ass into court immediately the lawsuit would be dismissed. Judge didn't seem to care if it was the living or dead Bernard but he needed one or the other in front of him to get things moving. As I wrote;

The rest of his argument was to do with the fact that there were two Bernards, the legal man who was dead, and the flesh and blood man who was rambling in court. Don't know why this was important to him. He hauled out a few lines of some 1666 statute, I couldn't make out which, that had something to do with when a "supposedly dead man" isn't dead he gets to reclaim his estate. Since he was supposedly dead but actually wasn't that proved that the law recognized two Bernard Yanksons and he was entitled to an estate of some kind. There was a lot more but I really wasn't following at this point. Judge recessed at noon and said he would give his decision at three.

http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtop ... =48&t=9597

[wserra]

I don't think we have anything similar in the US although sovcits insist on quoting it.

You probably do, actually, but I have no idea where to find it; any lawyer should know.

It's a matter of state law in the US. Here (NY) it's covered by EPTL § 2-1.7: after three years and a "diligent search", for certain purposes one is presumed dead.

Already being discussed by the Brits here;
http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtop ... 56#p276749

Yep, I see. Guys, something to consider: I don't start a thread without searching the board to see if the matter is already covered. The court did not name these numbnuts, so couldn't search on that; searching "register" would be quite broad, and "child" even broader; "cestui" itself would yield a good number of hits. So the thread title would be the best way to see if it had been covered. The only way one would ever find it in a 150-page thread is to know it was there.

Believe it or not, a lot of people reference Q. I have a dropbox which contains several hundred docs to which I've linked here over the years. I can readily see the clicks on those docs, not infrequently ten or more in a day. If you want your words of wisdom to be findable, a 150-page thread is pretty useless.

[Burnaby49]

I'd forgotten where the story was reported so I searched using the judge's name. I'd take Wes' advice and start new threads for each new topics. You'll note that every topic I start has the subject's name in the title bar. That's for exactly the reason Wes has noted, to make it more easily found in a search. For example I just added a massive post to this discussion;

http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtop ... 50&t=10834

Millar is just an insignificant local tax evader but the topic has over 7,000 hits. Much of that is due to my making it easily searcheable. His partner in crime Keith Lawson is just as obscure but he has over 12,000 hits.

The British forum is by far the most active one on Quatloos but is also the least useful for finding actual information because of the searching difficulties.

[ArthurWankspittle]

The court did not name these numbnuts,....

Unfortunately for searching and reference, the family is not named to protect the child. Very reasonable in this case otherwise the child would face a lifetime of internet hits showing his or her parents to be nutters.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

The court did not name these numbnuts

And there-in lies the problem. I could have thrown bread crumbs to direct you to their appearance in the The comedy court of Common Law thread but that would have been contempt of court. And whilst our colonial cousins can say "pah!" in the face of English jurisdiction, my cat likes to be fed!

[KickahaOta]

It's a matter of state law in the US. Here (NY) it's covered by EPTL § 2-1.7: after three years and a "diligent search", for certain purposes one is presumed dead.

Likewise in the wilds of Washington state it's covered by the numerically-abundant RCW 11.05A.050(5): "An individual whose death is not established under this section who is absent for a continuous period of seven years, during which he or she has not been heard from, and whose absence is not satisfactorily explained after diligent search or inquiry, is presumed to be dead. His or her death is presumed to have occurred at the end of the period unless there is sufficient evidence for determining that death occurred earlier."