Thursday, September 3, 2009

Legal Hoaxing and Its Remedy

Problem.

Legal hoaxing is a term that had to be invented to describe the conduct of the PA DOT. It refers to repeated lying by government to the public about the wording of a law.

1) If a patient is not reported within 10 days of a list of diagnoses, the doctor becomes the legal proximate cause of any accident of his patient. This threat repeatedly made in a widely distributed pamphlet cannot be found in the statute. What can be found are footnotes about cases where doctors were sued for injuries caused by their patients, and were found not liable (see Notes of Decisions; Doctor Liability).

2) The doctor has notice of the law, and the law is not in violation of due process (void for vagueness) because the doctor reports the patient after clinical assessment of ability to drive. Clinical assessment is notice, and rebuts the void for vagueness problem. The law states reporting is mandatory after the diagnosis of a listed condition.

3) The state continually threatens prison sentences. It has never prosecuted a doctor. It preserves all laws with a law prohibiting desuetude. If this law itself has never been enforced, does the law against desuetude apply to itself?

Remedy.

A Rule 11 sanction against individual lawyers, albeit agents of the state, does not seem enough.

The best remedy is a per se summary judgment. If a state has to lie about its law, it constructively admits to its invalidity, ineffectiveness, and inability to pass constitutional muster. To deter legal hoaxing.

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