A landmark ruling continues to reverberate.
California’s most powerful legal minds have been riveted, this past week, and not by proceedings in Washington D.C. or the fine state of Alabama but rather by drama up near Montecito where Oprah Winfrey and Princess Meghan rub Ozempic. Yes, a case has been ruled on there definitively declaring that kooks are free to drop in and maim wherever and whenever they please.
You certainly read about it one month ago, here, but as quick refresher….
The precedent centered around one Mark Olson who decided to go for a surf, one morning, at Miramar Beach. He paddled out with a pal and, as it happens, a wave came steaming in. Mr. Olson paddled for it, dropped in on the surfer behind him though “believed they were a safe distance from each other.”
In an instant flash of karma, though, a longboarder named Patrick Saville dropped in on Mr. Olson and bingo bango WIPEOUT!
Mr. Olson popped up and felt his back. “I immediately stood up in pain,” he recalled. “I put my hand in through my wetsuit that was sliced open and inside the flesh of my torso that had been cut wide open.”
He started crying like an itty bitty baby then saw Mr. Saville’s longboard floating all by itself.
Leashless.
Mr. Olson’s pal had heard his public weeping and paddled over, examining his back and saying, “It was a very deep, long, open wound that looked like he had been cut open by a filet knife. It made me nauseous and feel like throwing up. The cut was through his wetsuit. It looked like his guts were hanging out.”
An ambulance finally came and took the two tender li’l things to a hospital.
The story does not stop there, however. Mr. Olson was infuriated by the leashless business and sued Mr. Saville for damages. Each rallied a bonafide surf star for to make surf etiquette explanations to the judge. Mr. Olson rolled out none other than Shaun Tomson who shared the rules of surfing are 1) don’t drop in on surfers already riding a wave, and 2) don’t lose control of your board. Also, “Wear a surf leash to control your surfboard in the event you lose control of it.”
Mr. Saville countered with the testosterone-spitting father of professional surfing, Ian Cairns who mocked the lily-livers before him and stated, “Etiquette is fluid depending on a variety of factors” while defending the God given right of longboarders to lose the leash.
In the end, the judge sided with Ian Cairns.
I really don’t have more to add other than the mainstream media has now picked up the story and is aghast that Mr. Saville didn’t lose. Also, continually let down by the system is Ashton Goggans who once called the police in order to file an assault charge after becoming pushed during a podcast.
The law laughed directly into his portly face.
And there is your sordid turn.
