Over the course of the year, different seasons tend to beget particular types of cases, but it is around Christmastime when some of the most unique and surreal cases seem to come up.

Whilst most businesses wind down over the festive season, many solicitors are hard at work navigating uniquely strange legal cases that only come once a year.

Liability On The Dance Floor

Office Christmas parties can be a particularly strange time to work anywhere, and the most common day to hold them is often so disproportionately filled with strange shenanigans that the police and the NHS call it “Mad Friday”.

However, there was a legal case that, had it succeeded, may have caused many employers to think twice about holding a party for their employees.

The case of Shelbourne v Cancer Research UK [2019] concerned a Christmas party the charity held where a drunk and particularly exuberant scientist tried to lift the plaintiff but fell over and dropped her onto the dance floor, causing a serious back injury.

She sued CRUK, but in what has become a landmark case for company events, vicarious liability was not ultimately proven.

Merry Copyright Theft

There is a long tradition of music artists looking back to the past for inspiration for Christmas songs, with many traditional favourites getting new life by being sung by new artists.

However, there has been at least one case where this nostalgic inspiration was not authorised, nor allowed thanks to expiring music copyright.

Allan Caswell was a songwriter signed to Sony ATV who wrote the Lynne Hamilton song On The Inside that was used for the popular Australian soap opera Prisoner In Cell Block H in 1978.

Four years later, the country band Alabama released Christmas in Dixie, a country-themed Christmas song that sounds remarkably similar, only released across the Pacific Ocean.

Mr Caswell launched legal action against his own label but ultimately lost a decade-long copyright infringement case.

For more information and advice from solicitors in Epsom, get in touch today.