Great case name...or greatest case name?

As you may know, the Dicta loves cool case names. Well I think we have an all-time winner, courtesy of the good folks over at Decision of the Day. The case is...

U.S. v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins, 05-56294 (9^th Cir., March 17, 2008)

Hang on, I'll wait for the hilarity to sink in...

Done laughing? OK, we will continue. The reason for the bizarre name is that this is an asset forfeiture case where the defendant listed is the property that has been seized. Why? Because lawyers should never be allowed to invent new systems (see, e.g. The Bluebook).

So this case involves shark fins. A company chartered a boat out of Hawaii that picked up the shark fins from other boats in international waters and transported them to Guatemala. That is illegal under the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 (don't you love how Congress spends its time?).

The case reached the Ninth Circuit, and guess what? The Shark Fins won! The Court ruled that the company making this transaction was not given adequate notice that its conduct was prohibited under the Shark Finning Prohibition Act. Thus the federal government is not entitled to seize these assets.

Sounds like good news, right? Well this litigation has been in the works since 2002. I am not an expert in shark fins, but wouldn't they have gone bad over the past five years?

But that's not the point. The point is that Shakespeare was wrong when he questioned, "What's in a name?" My response: everything that matters!