Willett v. Harrell: The Battle for Appellate Pop-Culture Dominance

By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)

Last week, Justice Don Willett of the Supreme Court of Texas made news by citing extensively to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in a dissent from denial of review. Receiving much less media attention was a September 3, 2014 opinion by Maryland’s own Court of Appeals Judge Glenn Harrell, who similarly began a dissent from denial of certiorari by quoting Otter from National Lampoon’s Animal House: “I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile … gesture be done on somebody’s part.”[*]

It’s a slow week for appellate blogging, so let’s play the feud!

At least from my biased perspective, Judge Harrell is the narrow winner of this fake contest. A poll is below for you to tell us who won the battle of movie citations in opinions dissenting from the denial of discretionary review.

[*] In 2013, Judge Harrell was on the dissenting end of a 5-2 vote to adhere to strict contributory negligence. Two members of the majority were retired judges sitting by designation, leading some to speculate that the Court might soon revisit the topic. But when a new petition raised the question this year, Judge Harrell found himself alone in voting for review, and he took the unusual (in Maryland) step of penning a dissent from the denial of certiorari. He found inspiration in Otter’s famous line.