Genie Follow-Up: How Do You Throw The Book At Them?

We posted last night, about the Saudi family suing a "genie" for making their lives miserable.



Somewhat surprisingly, or happily discovered, such nonsense is well legally-represented.

Alex Knapp, over on Outside The Beltway;

I’m also not aware as to whether such cases are taken seriously in Saudi Arabia, though it appears at first glance that it is. Here in the United States, there are a number of people who believe in angels, demons, etc., and believe it or not, lawsuits are filed against such creatures. These are, obviously, routinely dismissed. My personal favorite lawsuit of this kind is Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, in which a suit against Satan was denied on the grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to provide instructions to serve process. Funny as that is, this opinion is now routinely cited in judicial opinions regarding jurisdiction and I read it on two separate occasions in law school.

While, over on PrawfsBlawg, Dave Fagundes expresses optimism that new law will emerge;

The mind boggles at the legal difficulties raised by the case. How will the family serve process on the genie? If the genie fails to show up in court, and the family gets a default judgment, how will they collect? (Presumably the genie can use his magical powers to conjure up plenty of cash to satisfy the judgment.) Or does the suit seek injunctive relief? This case represents good news for legal academics, too. The field of genie law is significantly under-written (no articles on Westlaw based on a very cursory search), so the lawsuit should provide lots of fodder for novel scholarship.

And, we had to give ourselves a slap-upside-the-head this morning.

We could have made last nights' post a "Retro Garlic";

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Problems With Suing God