by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Court Writer
The palimony trial between Jane Doe (not a pseudonym - her real name) and General Motors Corporation took a dramatic turn this afternoon when Doe was accused of infidelity.
"Ain't it true," Marcello Defibrillatore, lead counsel for General Motors Corporation, demanded, "that for the final six months of your alleged relationship with General Motors Corporation, you was actually involved with McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited!"
"It's a lie!" Doe sobbed. "Me and McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited, we...we were just good friends!"
Pandamonium broke out in the courtroom, forcing Judge Veronica Tederoscoe to order a recess until the Chinese bears could be removed and order could be restored.
This, the second day of Doe's testimony, was in marked contrast to that, the first day of her testimony. During that, exchanges like the following were not uncommon:
DEFIBRILLATORE: How is it possible that you had a child with General Motors Corporation?
DOE: We were young and in love. Or, at least, I thought we were.
DEFIBRILLATORE: But, General Motors ain't a human being. It's a corporation.
DOE: But, a corporation is a human being. The Supreme Court said so.
DEFIBRILLATORE: For, uhh, purposes of the law, Miss Doe. For purposes of the law. That don't make it possible for you to have a child with it.
DOE: Are you prejudiced, Mister Defibrillatore?
DEFIBRILLATORE: Wha?
DOE: You don't believe in mixed human/corporation relationships, do you?
DEFIBRILLATORE: It ain't about what I believe in! You can't have a child with a corporation! It ain't natural!
DOE: Oh! You are! You are prejudiced!
Try as he might during that, Defibrillatore could not shake Doe from her position that she had had a child with General Motors Corporation. Obviously, he met with his team overnight, and, after they decided on sushi, artichoke and anchovy pizza with a side vat of Tums, they decided to take a different tack on this.
When the court returned from its recess, Doe's lawyer, Jeremiah Icky, wiping the dirt from the playground off his otherwise immaculate suit, objected to Defibrillatore's new line of questioning.
"Ms. Doe's relationship with General Motors Corporation was well documented in the tabloid press," he stated. "Is my colleague trying to argue that Ms. Doe is not allowed to have any friends outside of the relationship? Your Honour, Judge Landers determined this to be "the sign of a weak and controlling ego" in Doe v. Smith (not his real name, but as good as we're going to get, so suck it up)."
"I got three words for my esteemed colleague," Defibrillatore responded. "Alienation of freaking affection!"
Judge Tederoscoe ruled that she would allow the line of questioning, but that she would keep it on a short leash because she was really into S/M.
The stakes are high in Doe v. General Motors Corporation. Although conceded by most economists and surgical interns to be bankrupt, General Motors Corporation is in line for a honking large sum of bailout money, rumoured to be in the tens of billions. Since Jane Doe is asking for half of General Motors Corporation's earnings past and present, real or imagined, fiduciary or...whatever the opposite of fiduciary is, this could turn into a fight for a tweeting large sum of money.
The government has filed an amicus (literally: "Am I allowed to swear?") brief with the court, siding with General Motors Corporation. Boiled down to its essence, the brief asks the court to consider that it is already embarrassed by how much the bailout is costing and would the court please, please, please not make matters worse by giving a private citizen such a tweeting large amount of money, money that by rights should be going to bad corporate managers.
This is just the latest in the strange twists this case has taken.
Defibrillatore had asked for a DNA test of Jane Doe's child, Janet Doe (not her real name, but an amazingly lifelike recreation), but experts say he isn't likely to use it. For one thing, General Motors Corporation doesn't have a physical body, which makes testing it for DNA problematic. For another thing, Janet Doe's DNA showed markers of greed, arrogance, short-term thinking and disregard for the natural environment; although having no scientific validity, the jury may have seen these things as evidence of General Motors Corporation's paternity.
The rest of the afternoon's cross-examination degenerated into a "she said/it said" argument over who picked up the tab for dinner at Sardis 18 months ago. Court watchers agreed that it was one of those exchanges that doesn't add anything to either side of the case, but does allow lawyers to pad their fees.
The trial continues.