Are you a personal injury lawyer who can’t resist adding a foreboding “Winter is coming” to the end of your demand letter? Or perhaps you’re a bankruptcy lawyer who wishes that more Chapter 7 debtors would be like Lannister and always pay their debts? Maybe you couldn’t resist bursting out at the retirement party of a colleague, “And now his Watch has ended.” If so, then you’re not alone! It seems all of society is eagerly awaiting the April 14 debut of the eighth and final season of the iconic HBO series “Game of Thrones.” And, it seems, judges are no exceptions.
By that, I don’t mean that some judges channel their inner George R.R. Martin by taking a ridiculously long time to issue rulings (although let’s face it, some do). No, I’m talking about those judges who proudly let their geek flag fly by incorporating “Game of Thrones” references into their judicial opinions. Take, for example, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum. In her 2017 opinion in the case of Rodriguez v. City of Doral, Rosenbaum and her 11th Circuit colleagues dealt with the case of a city of Doral (Florida) police officer who had been pressured into resigning after openly supporting a political opponent of the mayor. Rodriguez filed suit, claiming that he had been effectively terminated and that his First Amendment rights had been violated. Although the trial court granted summary judgment for the city, the 11th Circuit reversed. In her opinion, Rosenbaum quoted Tyrion Lannister (from Season 6’s episode “Oathbreaker”), saying: “A wise man once said the true history of the world is a history of great conversations in elegant rooms. Whether or not that may be accurate, a true history of the United States would be incomplete without a history of great political conversations. … And great political conversations could not exist in the absence of the First Amendment.”
