Despite my best efforts (see “A Note From Kevin (Hereinafter, ‘Me’) to All Attorneys (Hereinafter, ‘You’)” (Feb. 20, 2020)), this keeps happening:

Defendants the National Football League (“NFL”), New York Football Giants, Inc. (“Giants”), New York Jets LLC (“Jets”), and New Meadowlands Stadium Company, LLC (the “Stadium,” and, collectively with the NFL, Giants, and Jets, the “Defendants”) respectfully submit this Memorandum of Law in Support of their motion to dismiss, with prejudice, the Class Action Complaint (ECF No. 1) the (“Complaint”) or “Compl.”) filed by Plaintiff Abdiell Suero (“Plaintiff”) pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) (the “Motion”).

That is the first paragraph of the motion to dismiss Suero v. NFL, et al., which as we have discussed is one of the dumber lawsuits of recent times. See “Plaintiff Alleges He Didn’t Know Jets and Giants Play in New Jersey” (Jan. 12, 2022). And this motion will almost certainly succeed, not just because of the dumbness of the lawsuit but because the motion itself is generally very good. And yet it is marred by this paragraph, which clings to the head of the document like a remora latched onto a shark. No, wait—like a hagfish latched onto … well, whatever hagfish latch onto, because hagfish seem worse. No, they are worse.

Like hagfish, I think, first paragraphs like this are extremely common, although they take up critical space in an introduction and convey no information at all that isn’t already contained in the document’s caption. (Well, hagfish are common, at least, they don’t do the rest of that.) On the bright side, doing this will suggest to the reader that you think he or she is an idiot, assuming that’s what you’re going for.

Here’s my translation of this paragraph—not what it is meant to say, of course, but what I always think when I read one of these:

Hi. We’re [firm name redacted], and instead of using this critical first paragraph to tell you something about our case, we’re going to devote it to repeating information you already know because you saw it in the caption on the first page, which after all is what that caption is for. Yes, it’s true: every word of this paragraph conveys information you have already seen! Except maybe the word “respectfully,” but even that is something you would assume we meant to convey because we are lawyers and you are a judge. But ironically, you would have been wrong, because what this paragraph really means is we think you are an idiot! You would never have been able to figure out what “NFL” means if we didn’t define it, much less understand that by “Complaint” we meant the complaint in this case or that “Plaintiff” refers to the person who is the plaintiff in this case. And who knows what you would have made of the word “Giants”! Is this a case about giants?! you might have thought, and asked all the other judges to come over and look at your new case about giants. That would have been embarrassing for everybody. But now you know. Dummy.

So anyhoo, here are our legal arguments.

I hasten to add again that there’s nothing wrong more generally with this motion and certainly not with the firm that filed it. Think of this motion like a nice filet that has a giant hunk of fat on top, or maybe a hagfish. The filet itself is fine. Just take off the damn hagfish before serving it, please.

Is that too much to ask?