Judge Carnes Continues Trend of Discursive Opening Paragraphs

Judge Carnes is sure on a roll.

Yesterday we wrote about the opening of his opinion in Stein, which crisply distilled the entire history of American real estate into a single pithy and readable paragraph.

Today the Judge starts an opinion by likening a debt collector's efforts to rely on the "bona fide error" defense under the FDCPA to America's bloody involvement in the Vietnam War:

In an oft-repeated statement from the Vietnam War, an unidentified American military officer reputedly said that “we had to destroy the village to save it.” That oxymoronic explanation may be apocryphal, but the debt collection agency in this case offers up much the same logic to explain why it violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: it was necessary to violate the Act in order to comply with the Act.

Ok, it's a bit of a reach but I really like this opinion -- it's well-organized and written in very simple, short, declarative sentences. The opinion flows logically and makes perfect sense both legally and intuitively.

What's next -- a short primer on Alexander Graham Bell before he rules in a TCPA case?