People all over the world seek help from law professionals to interpret and understand legal statutes and legislative history — and with good reason. Legal English is very different from standard English, with its own dictionary and a very different set of grammatical rules. Laws oddities and peculiarity do not stop there, however. What are some of the strangest state laws and/or federal statutes and regulations in the U.S.?
Illinois Students Demand “Sip and Spit” Allowances
Food service and culinary arts students who are under the age of 21 (and 18 and up) may be able to legally sip alcohol in the state of Illinois. The proposed bill aims to allow young studies to sample alcohol, but not to swallow it. “Wine plays a major role in the industry in cooking and serving,” a culinary director explains. “It is important for our students when they are cooking in a class that they taste the food. To explain the complexity of a wine, it is important that they’ve tasted and experience the wine themselves.” Others are rigorously combating the law, stating that there is no conceivable way to prevent students from swallowing provided wine and liquor.
Florida Law Has To Get Specific About What Constitutes A “Motor Vehicle”
Bad news, Floridians. The latest legislative news agrees on at least one point: the law no longer recognizes swamp buggies as legitimate motor vehicles. While this may sound like a negative thing, this particular legal statute may actually benefit swamp buggy owners and/or enthusiasts. According to the new law, swamp buggies don’t have to abide by traffic laws — and owners don’t even have to register them.
Is It Illegal To Get Drunk In Utah?
The Utah Department Of Public Safety gets right to the point: “Yes, it is. Utah Code Annotated 76-9-701(1) states, ‘A person is guilty of intoxication if he is under the influence of intoxicating liquor, a controlled substance, or any substance having the property of releasing toxic vapors, to a degree that the person may endanger himself or another, in a public place or in a private place where he unreasonably disturbs another person.'”
Whether you are filing a lawsuit or doing a bit of legislative research, realize laws change — and often.