Dear Editor:
I enjoyed Bryan Pattison's article, "Henriod, Dissenting" in the May/June 2006 issue, on the flamboyant and humorous dissents by Justice F. Henri Henriod.
When I clerked for Justice Henriod part-time as a law student in 1974-75, I found him always decent, courteous, and sensitive to the rights of litigants and their attorneys. He believed that legal precepts often could be conveyed best through a unique phrase.
My own favorite Henriodism was not a dissent but a concurrence. In a divorce appeal, he joined the majority opinion which disallowed testimony from a mother who attempted to show that a child born during the marriage was not the legitimate offspring of the husband. The husband acknowledged paternity but the wife disputed it. The majority was critical of the attempt by a parent to subvert the interests and welfare of the child. Justice Henriod added: "[I]n cases like this the children are not the bastards, but you know who." 518 P.2d at 690.
Roger Bullock