“Christmas is not a time, nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”
— Calvin Coolidge
“A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”
— Benjamin Franklin
This is never a time of year that people want to have to go to court for anything, and certainly not a season where people think much about court cases. But this is a legal column, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t use the space, two days before to Christmas, to highlight some Christmas-related cases that might bring a smile to your face as you’re wrapping gifts or baking cookies this weekend.
In New York, a Manhattan lawyer named Nick Wilder sued a neighbor in 2016 over a case of Christmas noise pollution. “I like a Christmas song on Christmas Day. But I’m tired of hearing ‘Jingle Bells’ like 700 or 800 times a day,” he told the New York Post in 2016. The neighbor, whom the Post described as a “socialite,” owned three townhouses across the street from Wilder’s apartment. One of her decorations was a plastic reindeer, that Wilder claimed loudly played Jingle Bells from 7 a.m. until midnight. He ultimately won his case, and the offending reindeer is now purely an indoor ruminant.
Twenty years ago, a man by the name of Warren Hayes obtained an Ohio driver’s license, a registration from the BMV, and a AAA card under the name of “Santa Claus.” But when he had a run in with the Warren Police Department, they charged him with using a fictitious name. Warren Municipal Court Judge Thomas Gysegem (who is still on the bench there), ultimately dismissed the charge because the State of Ohio had issued Mr. Hayes state identification under the name of Saint Nick. In dismissing the case, Judge Gysegem noted that in Ohio at least, Santa Claus has been a “real person” since 1982.
The concept of a “war on Christmas” still gets raised occasionally these days. The phrase dates back a century to a series of horrifically anti-Semitic essays by Henry Ford, and in modern parlance to a 2004 segment on the O’Reilly Factor TV show. But the only time Christmas has been explicitly banned in the U.S. was in the 17th Century in Massachusetts. Following similar actions in England in the 1640s, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, through their General Court, decided to levy a fine against “whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” The ban was in place from 1659 to 1681.
Switching gears to Hanukkah for moment, the 80’s heavy metal band Anthrax was sued seven years ago for stealing the design of an “ugly Hanukkah sweater” and selling it on the web for $28.99. The band, and the website selling the sweaters, were ultimately ordered to destroy all of the merchandise and the equipment used to produce them.
We don’t want to leave our northern neighbors out of the fun. Eight years ago, Canadian Tire sued Walmart Canada in Canadian federal court alleging that the retail behemoth had stolen their design for clip-on Christmas lights. Not only was Canadian Tire alleging infringement on their trademarked design, but according to a CBC news report, they also alleged that Walmart was “deceiving” customers into purchasing an “inferior product.” I could find no reports of how the lawsuit ended, which is not surprising since suits like this between two major corporations are often settled out of court and without much fanfare. Further evidence of that can be found in the fact that the lights in question, made by NOMA, can now only be purchased in Canada through Canadian Tire (but can be purchased in the U.S. from Walmart).
In the U.K., an animal technician at Cancer Research UK sued her employer when a guest at the company Christmas party had too much to drink, attempted to lift her on the dance floor but lost his footing and dropped her, resulting in her sustaining a serious back injury. According to The Guardian, she lost the case because the court concluded that the party was akin to a “family gathering” and that it was not the company’s responsibility, but that of the individual who dropped her.
If you’re buying your Christmas tree from that state up north, be mindful of their Environmental Protection Act of 1994, section 324.52901 of their Compiled Laws, which says that if you’re going to “cut, remove, or transport” any of several types of trees – specifically including, “Christmas trees,” without having in possession a bill of sale from the owner or other evidence of title on a form prescribed by and available from the department or the department of agriculture or the federal agency that has jurisdiction, you could be guilty of a misdemeanor criminal offense and subject to fines or jail time.
So enjoy those cookies and candy canes, but keep the volume down on the Christmas tunes, make sure you have proper ID, buy only licensed sweaters, keep the receipt from that Christmas tree purchase, and please, if you’ve had anything to drink, stay off the dance floor (and most definitely off the roadways).
David Hejmanowski is judge of the Probate/Juvenile Division of the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, where he has served as magistrate, court administrator, and now judge, since 2003. He has written a weekly column on law and history for The Gazette since 2005.
