It could be. Let me offer three examples, or at least
parallels, in increasing degree of outrageousness. All
are, to the best of my information and belief, true
stories:
1. When I was at an American university a long time
ago, J. (who didn't go to that or any other college)
wanted to take a charter flight restricted to students
at that university. He reprinted the directory of
students with his name and "student number", and put a
copy of the fake directory on the shelf at the charter
flight agency.
2. Jacob Stein, who writes a column in the Washington
[DC] Lawyer magazine, wrote some time ago that he'd
picked up a copy of Fed.Supp. (I think it was) in a
second-hand bookstore, and got to reading a case that
seemed somewhat odd. Come to find that the case had
been privately printed and substituted in the binding
of that book. (OK, maybe that was before LEXIS, I
don't know.)
3. My dissertation advisor in Belgium told me some
years ago of a somewhat more shocking story that could
happen only because many European jurists don't cite
check (and don't have students or clerks to do it for
them). One of his colleagues, an adjunct professor,
was reading a student essay when he came across a
Brussels Civil Court decision that was exactly on
point for the case of a private client. Now in civil
law countries, precedent doesn't count for much, but
it does count for something; and the lawyer cited it
to the court ... and won his case. Some months later,
after the student had graduated, he was writing an
article on the subject and came to look up the case.
Only to find that the student had invented it: there
was no such case.
With modern hacking, anything is possible.
Andy Grossman
University College London SLAIS
--- "Karen H.Mahnk" <karenpdo@gate.net> wrote:
> Is it much worse than the disclaimers on the front
> page of say, any
> commercially produced statute annotated book?
> There's always the
> possiblility of error in any medium,IMHO.
> Karen Mahnk
=====
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