Fun, fizzy dispatches from the city and beyondORAL ARGUMENTS: Acme could invoke the doctrine of foreseeable misuse. “There’s an argument that his use of the rocket shoes to chase a roadrunner was not foreseeable,” Levine said. On the other hand, he went on, “I think Acme knew the products were going to be used for nefarious purposes. They bear responsibility if they’re selling dynamite without knowing who the purchaser of that dynamite is. It wasn’t like the purchaser was a mining company. It was a goddam coyote.”PRECEDENT: Are there any anvil-related decisis to stare? “Literally hundreds,” Levine said. “I’ll show you one.” He pulled up a video, in which a construction worker is standing on a steel beam, twenty feet off the ground, as another beam is hoisted via crane above his head. “My client is a union worker,” Levine said. “That I-beam, by the way? Sixteen thousand pounds.” Suddenly, something snaps, and the hoisted beam falls. It somehow misses the worker. But the crane fell on the beam he was standing on and knocked him to the ground. Levine shook his head. “People suffer,” he said. Rocket skates had precedent, too. “E-bikes,” he said.“Madeline plays strictly for her own amusement.”Cartoon by Edward FrascinoCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copiedShopShopPERSONAL BIASES CONSIDERED: Levine feels for the coyote. His line of work has taught him that danger lurks everywhere. “When I drive my car anywhere on Long Island, I’m, like, O.K., I sued that company over there, I sued that landscaper over there. That municipality? Sued them,” he said. “I’ll tell you a story. I’m driving to work seven years ago, in a really nice Porsche Turbo. I stop at a light. I wake up in the hospital four days later.” A woman going sixty miles an hour rear-ended him and launched his car three hundred feet. “The police thought I was gonna die,” he said. He had twelve broken bones and a bleed in his brain. His bowels were resected. He was back at work seventeen days later, without a spleen. “It’s like an appendix,” he said. “You can live without it.”JUDICIAL MUSINGS: “The attorney’s advertising in the movie was really effective,” Levine said. The key is to be short and memorable without being unserious. “It’s really easy to remember ‘Call Motorcycle Mike.’ My firm advertised a little bit over the years, but if we advertise on TV as ‘This is Rappaport, Glass, Levine & Zullo,’ who the fuck’s gonna remember that?” There are some exceptions, like Cellino & Barnes. “They had the jingle. And Cellino & Barnes is a two-name firm, so it’s not that hard to remember.”LEGAL ANALYSIS: “The coyote’s got to have a theory of liability, and he’s got to have severe injuries.” The biggest question, jurisprudentially speaking, was whether the coyote’s injuries warranted compensation. An incident that for others might be fatal—a free fall from a high bridge—affects the coyote for only a brief moment. “He is very resilient,” Levine said. “He goes right back to his old habits. Maybe the damage was psychological, like P.T.S.D. But I think the jury’s gonna say, Give me a break.”DECISION: “I don’t believe you, coyote. You’ve got to have an injury. Otherwise, you’re wasting my time.” ?