Discretionary Interlocutory Appeals, 0711 COBJ, Vol. 40, No. 7 Pg. 95
| Author | Andrew M. Low, J. |
| Position | Vol. 40, 7 [Page 95] |
Appellate Practice
Andrew M. Low, J.
Somehow, Susan Victor had done it again. Last year, she had talked me into doing the Courage Classic, the three-day cycling fund raiser in the mountains for Children’s Hospital. Yes, it was beautiful, and yes, it was for a good cause, and in retrospect, I even had to admit it was fun. But Victor’s drill-sergeant training rides in the weeks preceding the event had been almost more than I could handle. After that experience, I promised myself I would never again let her talk me into something that required that much physical training.
This time, though, her approach had been much sneakier. She and her husband Rod had invited my wife and me to dinner at an Italian restaurant. After several courses and more than one bottle of wine, Victor began telling my wife about a one-week hiking trip they were planning in the Alps. Days would be spent frolicking through fields of wildflowers past Swiss shepherds in lederhosen, and nights would be spent in cozy but charming mountain inns. The meals would be Michelin Guide three-star, and it would never rain—guaranteed. At least that’s how Victor made it sound. The clincher, for my wife, was three days in Paris before heading home.
Pretending that she had just come up with the idea, Victor innocently suggested, “Why don’t the two of you come along?” When my wife turned to me and said it sounded like fun and she’d love to go, I noticed the mischievous glint in Victor’s eye.
“But the Alps are big,” I protested. “And steep. And you haven’t said when you’re planning to go. Whenever it is, I have a trial scheduled that week.”
“We’ll schedule it around your calendar,” Victor assured me, “—and little old ladies in tennis shoes do this trip all the time. The passes are all lower than 9,000 feet. Coming from Colorado, you’ll have no trouble.”
“I have no sense of direction,” I objected. “I’ll get lost in a blizzard, and they’ll have to send a St. Bernard out to find me. And the only foreign language I speak is Latin for lawyers. Res ipsa loquitur. A fortiori. I don’t know how to ask ‘Where is the nearest emergency room?’ in Latin.”
“No problem,” Victor said confidently. “There’s an excellent trail, it’s well marked, and I already have the guidebook and maps. We’ll go in August, when the daytime temperatures will be in the 60s and 70s. And, don’t worry about the language barrier—I speak both German and French.”
Outmaneuvered by...
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