Extra Credit

At ten o’clock one morning on Telegraph Avenue, Dirty was reclining against the roll-down steel fencing in front of the empty Rexall store-front. Dirty was minding his own business, cleaning his toenails with a fragment of broken glass and muttering about helicopters. Suddenly, Pisser came down the street, leaned face-forward against the fencing, and began to urinate onto the windowframe. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing,” demanded Dirty!

“I have to piss somewhere,” replied Pisser, “I live on the street.”

“I live on the street, too, asshole,” exclaimed Dirty, “and I’m trying to sit right here.” Pisser ignored him. “Oh my God, you really are one fucking disgusting individual,” Dirty said, when Pisser had finished. If Pisser sues Dirty for defamation, which of the following is MOST probable?

A. Pisser recovers nothing, because public urination is a matter of public concern.

B. Pisser recovers nothing, because by the time Mayor Bates and his Stalinist goons finish flushing our rights down the toilet, you’d damned-well better believe that Pisser’s conduct will constitute negligence per se.

C. Pisser need not prove special damages, because Dirty’s defamatory statements concern Pisser’s trade or business.

D. The doctrine of unclean hands.