If justice is truly blind, and if we are all equal under the law, then every single case that staggers into court is treated with the same degree of attention and respect.
Of course, it can’t really work that way. Especially at the lower-court level, the judges and attorney combatants understand the importance of making cases go away, because, well, we don’t really care whose fault it is when some little old lady slips and falls on a wet floor in a grocery store. Write her a check and be done with it.
Business law, family law, criminal cases — they must be treated with the scorn they deserve and be settled quickly and quietly, without littering the courtroom.
For certain administrative law and regulatory nightmares, an even more popular approach is to never even enter the courthouse; to meet in an oak-paneled board room and settle the complex, tedious stuff. With the possible exception of Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal, who can’t wait to get to a microphone and threaten litigation hand grenades, almost everyone favors making the dull stuff go away.
The conspiracy can work the other way around, of course. ‘Friendly’ lawsuits are popular with government bureaucrats and social service agencies. Both sides collude to manufacture fake litigation, with the end result being that a big, bad judge is nudged into ordering millions of extra dollars spent on the poor, the hungry and the naked and, of course, on the new social workers needed to perform the services.
But occasionally, when all the stars are aligned, a case emerges from the muck that really, really should go before a judge or jury — not necessarily because an important legal issue is at stake, but just because it’s recreational fun and interesting.
And so it is that we wait with glee and giggles for the Clinton, Conn., pizzeria owner to knock on the door of the federal courthouse and demand justice. We don’t want this one to go away.
It was May when the SWAT team from the state Department of Labor descended on the Nuzzo Grand Apizza Shoreline in Clinton, to sternly lecture Mr. Nuzzo on the error of his ways: allowing his children to “work” at the restaurant. It’s right there in the statutes: if you’re under the age of 16, there’s a bunch of stuff you aren’t allowed to hire yourself out to do — including, presumably, helping Dad at his pizza restaurant.
Mr. Nuzzo — who says he doesn’t pay the kids; who says the family tradition is to teach the kids the family business; who says the kids are not allowed to engage in pepperoni-slicing knife fights with each other — believes that the law as applied to him is unconstitutional. He’s marching off to federal court and he doesn’t sound in the mood for an out-of-court compromise.
On the surface, this has the trappings of regulation-run-amok overreach, but the case is actually a bit more nuanced than that. The limitations on youth employment go back many decades in most states — based on some hideous examples of exploitation and real danger.
The pizza guy and his kids probably don’t match up well to meatpacking plants or railroad yards in terms of offending the public good, but the state might well be able to make the case, however embarrassing, that there is a ‘compelling state interest’ in bossing around the bosses — even when the young laborers call him ‘dad.’
A constitutional principle at stake? Maybe not. But, it’s fun. Order a slice of cheese and pepperoni and stay tuned.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
