Lawyers are often asked to litigate over cars, cats, and every form of chattel. However, the attorney representing Daniel Bennett is seeking damages over his client’s loss of an invaluable bag of giant lizard dung. Bennett spent years collecting the dropping of the rare Butaan lizard, only to have Leeds University throw the bag of poop in the trash. The University has offered £500 for the 35kg bag. Bennett insists that that is an insulting offer for the loss of my “bag of lizard shit”.
Bennett the poop from remote areas of the Philippines. He won a scholarship to research the long though extinct animal — a close relative of the Komodo dragon.
He said that it took department 18 months to apologize. The offer amounts to $732 for 77 pounds, or roughly $10 a pound. Osetra or Siberian Sturgeon caviar can go for $100 per ounce. Even American hackleback caviar goes for $10 to $30 an ounce. Notably, even in the drug trade, the best drugs are called “good ****.” Well, this is the ultimate such product.
The greatest problem with being the lawyer in this case: the one-third contingency fee if the university simply makes restitution with a fresh bag of lizard dung.
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This oughta’ teach them PhD fancy boys to go back out to the field, leaving their research material behind!
“Technicians” clearing space in a lab, eh? that the new word for janitor at Leeds? And, was the girl at his desk somebody’s girlFRIEND getting a boost with her work?
I hope he gets a nice healthy number, something for each of the 7 years he spent, and full recompense for 7 years of travel to the Philippines. AT LEAST.
(PS Leeds is notorious for a lackadaisical attitude about research… it’s continually taking down archaeological pages used by the public.)
“The greatest problem with being the lawyer in this case: the one-third contingency fee if the university simply makes restitution with a fresh bag of lizard dung.”
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However, lizard dung (like bat guano) is an excellent fertilizer that will grow you some prize-winning tomatoes (stay away from underground vegetables like carrots and tubers, though).
I have heard that contingency fee lawyers have brown noses; however do they have green thumbs?
Irony. The Butaan is referred to as the “lost Dragon.”
I think I liked this book better when it was called “Who Moved My Cheese?”.