Where no mouse has gone before - Accountability

There's a great story in The Last Whole Earth Catalog about an old-time retail (General Store) marketing trick. The store owner would cut a series of round holes in a big piece of plywood and screw glass Ball Jars in from the back. With a frame around the edge and a screen cover over the top, the set up was ready for the mouse.

Each hole would have a different percentage marked next to it. Several were marked 5%. Fewer were marked 10% and maybe only one was marked 20%. On Mouse Sale Monday, or whenever, the deal was when the store owner released the mouse, which hole the mouse ducked into was the percent price discount the customer received.

 The store owner always placed a few mouse turds in the 5% holes and a drop of cat urine in the 20% hole.

The mouse almost always steered away from the cat urine and tended to go toward the sent of other mice, and the customer was happy to get 5% off.

Humans, like mice, generally prefer the familiar and friendly and avoid the strange and dangerous territory.

So it goes with lawyers and judges.  If you have any doubt about that reality, just try something no lawyer or judge has ever seen before. You will be about as attractive as cat piss to a mouse.

Consider KRS 424.990 relating to criminal and civil penalties imposed upon certain public officials..

Any person who violates any provision of KRS 424.110 to 424.370 shall be fined not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500). In addition, any officer who fails to comply with any of the provisions of KRS 424.220, 424.230, 424.240, 424.250, 424.290 or 424.330 shall, for each such failure, be subject to a forfeiture of not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500), in the discretion of the court, which may be recovered only once, in a civil action brought by any citizen of the city, county or district for which the officer serves. The costs of all proceedings, including a reasonable fee for the attorney of the citizen bringing the action, shall be assessed against the unsuccessful party. 

Did you ever see that one before?

Cat piss.
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Tom Fox, J. D.
Southern Specialty Law Publishing Company
Louisville, Kentucky

A division of Accountable Kentucky Incorporated
a Kentucky Non-profit corporation
AccountableKY.org

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This is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer.