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Xerox vs the photocopier

I don't know how to characterize this story except as a stubborn (and hilarious) philosophical debate.. That this is a real life event and tax payer funds are involved, makes it excruciating. (h/t Leo Lincourt)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — What is a photocopier?

That seems like such a simple question.

But last year, a lawyer in a public-records case being heard by the Ohio Supreme Court had a hard time getting a $64,000-a-year Cuyahoga County worker to say whether the county recorder's office had a photocopier.

The effort consumes nearly 10 pages of a court transcript.

The overall case is about whether deeds and other records at the county recorder's office — records that were collected and are maintained with your taxes — should be readily available at reasonable cost.

The lawyers involved in the case say the question about the photocopier is technical, getting at an arcane point of law.

You be the judge.

For the transcript of the exchange, see here.

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7 responses to “Xerox vs the photocopier”

  1. Dean C. Rowan

    Hollywood has skewed our understanding of how–and where–the justice system operates. For every Al Pacino righteously ranting at a packed courtroom, there are dozens of depositions not depicted where the real drama ensues. In addition to this marvelous story about what the meaning of “photocopier” is, there are plenty of doozies out there. Take this famous one from Texas. (Warning: strong language.)

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  2. Ruchira

    Dean, can you ever “post” something here on your own other than to always be reactive to my posts and e-mails? That was hilarious and you as usual buried it in the comments section. And the language is par for the course for us Texans.

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  3. Dean C. Rowan

    Ruchira, In a word, no. Put another way, neither you nor anybody else wants to know the free floating free association that rambles and drones in my brain most of the time. Spelled out in a post it would be another “case of incipient verbal diarrhea.”
    I often encounter material to which I have reactions and I ponder crafting a related post, but as I’ve lamented in the past, I find creating a blog post inordinately time-consuming. And things are just crazy lately.

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  4. Ruchira

    Okay, don’t need to know the “drones” of association in your brain. But to address the second point, as this particular post illustrates, a blog post does not always have to be inordinately time-consuming, nor be a “case of incipient verbal diarrhea.”

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  5. Dean C. Rowan

    I’m working on one now. Been meaning to post it for some time.

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  6. Dean C. Rowan

    An email from the administration here arrived a few minutes ago. It begins, “Copier training for faculty and staff on the new Xerox copy/print/scan machines has been scheduled for…” It takes discipline not to reply, “What’s a copier?”

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  7. Cyrus Hall

    Hilarious deposition video. Any idea what the vintage is?

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