LEX FUGIT

MATCHBOOK TWENTY TWENTY-THREE

While prepping for a bit of remodeling, we cleaned out a few cupboards, including a little one above and sort of behind the refrigerator.  Most kitchens have a cupboard like this.  Pretty hard to reach, unless you have the wingspan of an NBA center, and a stepladder.  If anything ends up there, it is something you know you aren't going to use often.

In our cupboard was a long-forgotten plastic bag full of commemorative matchbooks.  And for our Generation X,Y,Z, and Alpha, audience, matchbooks were small remembrances of family and friends' weddings, restaurant meals, hotel stays and tourist attractions.  Also, matchbooks were cheap advertising for all kinds of businesses, from plumbing supply companies to, ironically, life insurance companies.  We have our collection, even though neither my wife nor I smoked cigarettes-at least not during our marriage.  And, when we picked out our wedding invitations, napkins etc, we also picked out matchbooks, complete with names and date of marriage.  We still have a few, but identity protection concerns preclude posting a picture here.  Yeah, we're going with identity protection here vs the disclosure of ancient history.

And another interesting category of matchbooks-election campaigns.

Matchbooks were really a genius advertising move.  Way back, lots and lots of people smoked (watch any 40s movie).  So, while business cards and election handbills were easily thrown away, matchbooks were useful, 20 times in fact, and you carried it with you at all times.  And at one time you could smoke everywhere.  Offices, bars restaurants.  I once watched a 50s vintage movie wherein the patients in a male hospital ward were smoking in their beds.  I don't have a memory of smoking ever being allowed in courtrooms, but I would bet money that it was.  I have certainly been in judges' chambers wherein smoking was allowed, starting with the judge.

A recent search of eBay featured the matchbooks shown in this post.  I appeared before Judges Strong, Dingeman, Jr. and Bashara.  I tried a paternity case before Judge Harry Dingeman, Jr. in his courtroom in the Old County Building, back in the days before DNA testing.  I refer to Judge Dingeman as Junior as his father was also a Wayne County Circuit Court judge.  

Judge Strong retired from the Circuit bench just 2 years ago.

I found another interesting matchbook this week, shown below.  Judge Helene White is currently sitting on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, just one step below the US Supreme Court.  I appeared before her many times in Wayne County Circuit Court.  Her campaign matchbook was unique.  In addition to her photo on the outside, the inside contained a mini-curriculum vitae.  Genius.

THE END OF AN ERA: MAX NEWMAN AND SONS

On March 29, 2023 I received the letter, below, from a friend.  Dr. Steven Newman, the last member of the Detroit Institute of Physical Medine and Rehabilitation, located at 25811 West Twelve Mile Road, Ste. 200, Southfield Michigan, was retiring, effective March 30, 2023.  I hope this is not health related for Dr. Steve.  I think he has reached normal retirement age, for most.  

According to the letter, the Insitute has been in existence for 70 years, started by the legendary Dr. Max Newman, around 1953.  

The Newmans, father Max, and sons Steve and Don were, over that time, as reliable a source of pro-plaintiff medical opinions as Medical Evaluation Specialists continues to be for pro-defense opinions.  

In my plaintiff days, at Bernstein and Bernstein (not Sam) I had quite a bit of contact with Don and to a lesser extent Steve, though I did meet Max once.  I am not in a position to relate any of the many stories about Max, which include a kidnapping.  I hope someone has.

B&B used Don and Steve, not for treatment, but essentially for a plaintiff's IME, to at the very least counteract any defense IME.  If the jury said, "Curse all IMEs", that was a measure of success, as the jury would then decide the case based on the opinions of the client's treaters-hopefully favorable.

But I have had Don win me trials, especially my first at B&B, which happened 2 weeks after I started there.  More of that a little later.  The Newmans had an advantage the defense IMEs didn't.  The defense had to disregard the plaintiff's complaints, often calling them malingerers, frauds and/or liars (motivated by "secondary gain").  If the defense docs had to find the complaints credible, they might have to admit there was something wrong with them.  That was not helpful.