Santa Claus in the Courts

Given Santa Claus’ presence almost everywhere we look these days, I thought I might see if Santa has also graced our courtrooms.  Behold!

“Santa Claus” has ceased to be a name descriptive of kindness and benevolence, but a libel associated with corruption and abuse of power.  One gentleman, accused by a letter-writer to be “playing Santa Claus with taxpayers’ dollars”, was awarded $5,000.

Santa and Mrs. Claus better not split up or he will never get custody or access to the elves. In family court, being a “Santa Claus parent” is not a good thing.  It means that you are very permissive and not very good at disciplining the children. 

In another case, a person was accused of committing a murder in a Santa Claus suit.  In what must have been the only funny moment of the trial, his defence was that he had an alibi!  (Was he at the mall?)

In a case last year from Newfoundland, a local charity was running a weekly bingo.  In an annual tradition, Santa Claus arrived on the last bingo before Christmas and was invited to call two games.  Unable to resist his generosity, Santa decided (without discussing his intention with management) to increase the jackpot for the two games.  Unbeknownst to ol’ Kringle, his increase to the jackpot took the nightly pot over the allowable limit.  Management admitted that it didn’t have the courage to veto the increased pots.  Apparently, one Ebenezer Scrooge was playing and (obviously, as he did not win) he filed a complaint with the regulators, which suspended the licence.  In a court case heard the week before Christmas the following year, the court took great pains to give a legal reason to overturn the suspension.

And finally, from 1925, Justice Lennox of the Ontario Supreme Court, defining an injury sustained “in the course of an occupation”:

 “I cannot think of any one who has so consistently and persistently followed a definite occupation, or for so long a time, as Santa Claus; and he, as well as any one, may be taken to illustrate the distinction between occupational and non- occupational hazards within the meaning of an accident insurance policy. Now if, upon a Christmas Eve, as he heroically strives to bring gladness into every home, a chimney coping should give way, and, falling to the ground, Santa Claus is seriously disabled, or if he should have "a dreadful fall" in ascending or descending an ill-built chimney in some other home, or if, through the crass negligence of a thoughtless parent, the hearth fires are left burning on Christmas Eve, and the picturesque raiment of "the grand old man" is consumed, and his classically magnificent beard sizzled to the size and semblance of a mere goatee (all of which world-circling disasters may Heaven forfend!), these accidental happenings I would solemnly adjudge as hazards of Santa Claus's occupation, and exempted hazards within the meaning of an accident insurance policy framed as the policy here is. But, on the other hand, if Santa Claus-resting from his labours "in the off season"-although possibly even then dreaming of greater surprises when Christmas comes, should casually wander through Toy Land in Eaton's or Simpson's or drive about the city in his Rolls-Royce to do honour to the 999 mothers of "Canada's Most Beautiful Child,"-the reindeers being also out of commission till winter comes-and, in either case, sustained an accidental injury, this would not be an injury sustained in the course of or arising out of Santa Claus's occupation; the accident would be attributable to a common non-occupational hazard, and nothing else.”

Merry Christmas to all my wonderfully loyal readers!