Of turds and torts

<Warning: Vulgar language ahead!>

Lately I have been doing research on "bad language" in anticipation of the Lenny Bruce conference that will dedicate his archive to Brandeis University libraries (see Comedy and the Constitution, and join us on October 27-28!).  A couple of sources have taught me that the vulgar word "turd" shares an origin with the legal term "tort."  As explained by Professor Geoffrey Hughes in his Encyclopedia of Swearing (2006), page 467:

TURD. This ancient term has followed the same basic semantic route historically as shit, being first recorded in Anglo-Saxon times in a plain literal sense, leading to various metaphorical extensions of coarse abuse from the medieval period onward.  Etymologically the word turns out to be a distant relative of legal tort, both rooted in the concept of being twisted or crooked.

So the next time I'm told, "You're full of shit," I will say, "Why, thank you.  I am indeed a torts professor."

Now that's a savory re-tort.

SOL in Mass.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court adopted the continuing treatment exception to the state medmal limitations period (three years) and reasonable discovery rule in Parr v. Rosenthal, published this week, http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/sjc/reporter-of-decisions/new-opinions/12014.pdf.  The opinion offers a worthwhile review of the language and standards of Masschusetts common law interpretation of the statutory limitations periods.

Bonus tracks include (1) the problem of a minor plaintiff; (2) interaction with statutes of repose; (3) role of the jury in fact-finding; and (4) a dissent (from p. 37) that doesn't necessarily disagree with the rationale but thinks the upset to settled common law invaded the policy-making prerogative of the legislature.

Saliently for the litigants, the Court ruled that the limitations period ran despite operation of the continuing treatment doctrine, because the doctrine ceased to operate when the defending physician left the treatment team.

(Cross-posted to Obligations Discussion Group.)