From: jhoskins@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James M Hoskins)
Subject: Cat Court Case
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:46:56 GMT

STOP     STOP       STOP          STOP       STOP      STOP


I would like you to read the facts of the following legal case
involving a dispute over the ownership of a cat and reply to
me by email with a one-word answer of whom you find for--the woman
or the man in the story.  I will then post your name and your vote.
I will not "CATegorize" you according to "pro-AR" or "anti-AR"
philosophy, but simply publish your name and finding.  Draw your
own conclusions.  I seek the first response which comes to you,
uncolored by reactions others may have to the fact-set.

I would like responses from, but not limited to the following
persons:

Rich Young       Martin Hulsey     Paul Roberts   Rosemary Waigh
mary.rita.otto   anyone named Ted or ted or Dan or Greg or Steve
Jeff Achenbach   Anyone residing or working in Berkeley, CA.
Russell Lawrence Tim Rigg  Mike Linan  Bob Black  Anyone else.



*****************************

A woman and a man lived in separate homes close to one another
on a populated island off the eastern seaboard of the United States.
They did not know one another.  The woman obtained a cat from an
animal shelter.

She took good care of the cat.  The cat was an "indoor/outdoor" cat.
Soon the man noticed that a new cat was coming around his home.  He
started to feed the cat.  Months passed.  He considered the cat his
own.  The woman's initial alarm at having a cat that would spend almost
exactly 50% of nights without coming home soon abated.  This was,
she thought, the unique nature of this tough shelter cat.  This
"joint-ownership" persisted--unknown to both the man and woman.
It suited the cat quite well as in any given day the cat ate double
food rations.

After a year the woman moved away.  She moved 10 miles away--on the
other side of the island--and took the cat with her.  After two
months she noticed that the cat was gone.  About a week later, the
cat returned to the man's home--the cat he thought had left him two
months earlier had reappeared.  The woman was distraught, the
man was overjoyed.

Two months pass.  The woman had occasion to return to her old home
to meet with the new owners of her former house.  While there,
amazingly, she looked into the yard and saw her former cat.  She took
the cat back to her new home.

The man, by chance, happened to run into the new neighbors the next day
who asked him how he was doing.  "Well," he said, "I'm ok but I did
lose my favorite cat again."  The new neighbors filled him in on the
fact that the woman was recently around and had taken a cat with
her of the very description of the one he said he lost.

After wondering what to do for a couple of weeks the man called the
woman.  "You have my cat..."  "Like hell I do..."  The man and woman
screamed and yelled at one another.  Several days later the man called
the woman again and said, "I'm going to sue you for possession of my cat."
The woman said, "Go ahead and sue me buster, but for your information I
don't see much point in legal action--one, I have papers that will show
that it was me who obtained the cat from the animal shelter and two
I haven't seen my cat for several days--the cat ran away again."

Well, four days later the cat appeared at the man's house.  It occurred to
the woman that the cat might have gone back to its old place.  While
the man was at work one day she went to his home and looked in his windows
and sure enough noticed the cat sitting contentedly on a chair in his house.

The next day the man was served with court papers.  If he wins the trial
decision he has told friends that the cat will be converted to an
"indoors-only" cat, because he has a feeling that the woman will come
around to take the cat.  Letting the cat outside is a chance he won't take.
The woman has told her friends that if she wins the decision she will
make sure the cat never gets gets out of her home.


You are the judge sitting at the ownership trial.

Whom do you find for, the man or the woman?

I will post answers Wednesday, January 13th.  Hold discussion of the
case until after the 13th.




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