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Reviewed by Doug Salvesen February 27, 2000
Last night's episode of The Practice was a drastic departure from the course the show has charted over the last few years. It was not set in Boston. It was not about the practice of law. And, worst of all, it did not star a pouty Lara Flynn Boyle. In truth, The Practice was stayed (a legal term meaning to put on hold) for a week and ABC ran with a movie-of-the-week about the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys, as far as I can tell, have no connection to Boston. Although there has been some legal wrangling amongst the band members and between them and their record labels and their biographers, there was not enough to write about. Lexis revealed one case, Alvey v. Rayovac Corp., 922 F. Supp. 1315 (W.D. Wis. 1996), that had a Beach Boys connection. The plaintiff worked for Rayovac in Madison, Wisconsin as an accountant/analyst. She sued Rayovac on the grounds that she had been subjected to sexual harassment and had been fired for filing a sexual discrimination complaint. The very first instance of this loutish behavior occurred at a 1989 Christmas party. It seems that while music by the Beach Boys (note the connection) was playing, some male employees stood on their wives' backs and pretended to "surf" while their wives lay face down on the floor. I couldn't make this stuff up. I asked my wife if I could try this out, for research purposes of course, and you can imagine the reaction I got. While there is no Boston connection with the Beach Boys, as far as I can determine, we do have some beaches around here. And, like most other things, the beaches have been a source of litigation. In the mid-1600s, the Massachusetts colony enacted legislation that provided its citizens the right to use all of the beaches to fish, hunt or navigate at the low-water mark. Over time, most beachgoers have limited their fishing, hunting and navigating, replacing those activities with lying around and chasing after their kids. As the property values of beachfront property went up, the owners of those properties sought to kick the common people off their "private" beaches. One beach property owner made the mistake of chasing William Bulger, the President of the Massachusetts Senate, off of his beachfront property. Bulger responded by enacting the 1991 Beach Access Law. The Beach Access Law opened private beaches to the public by allowing the public to walk across private beach property between the high and low water marks to reach a public area. You can imagine the litigation that this law produces every summer. One footnote. I remarked previously that politics in Boston is a spectator sport. Bulger, a classic Boston Irish pol in the mold of James Michael Curley, was one of its superstars. He had that odd combination of wit and ruthlessness that was as entertaining as it was repugnant. Bulger was a Yankee-baiting populist who once, with a straight face, suggested that a sewage treatment facility be constructed in the exclusive neighborhood of Weston. His brother, James "Whitey" Bulger ran the Irish mob and is now on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. I really could not make this up if I tried. Bulger retired from the Senate and is the president of the University of Massachusetts. I do not know if he is a Beach Boys fan. I tend to doubt it. Doug Salvesen is an attorney with the law firm of Yurko & Perry in Boston. In his practice, Salvesen represents a mixture of clients, including businesses and individuals. A significant portion of his time is spent on pro bono matters, including law suits seeking to vindicate the civil rights of prisoners. He writes out each of his reviews of The Practice in long-hand. |
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