Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs is the Disney movie version of every 1L class combined.
A #lawtwitter 🪡 🧵:
The movie opens with disparagement. But is it defamation?
Queen: Am I the fairest in the land?
Mirror: Nope. Snow White is fairer.
Cut to Snow White, cleaning the castle & singing. “I’m wishing for the one I love to find me today.”
Here she meets the Prince, who sings back to her.
They shared part of one song together. Clearly, this is true love. (Contractual loophole: foreshadowed.)
Queen calls Huntsman, contracts him to kill SW & bring her heart back in a box. Huntsman accepts.
(Presumably this is in exchange for a salary, but the consideration is unclear.)
He draws a knife on SW, assaulting her. But no battery/murder; he can’t go through with it.
Huntsman tells SW to hide in the woods & she flees. Meanwhile, he brings the heart of a pig back to Queen, fraudulently representing it is SW’s heart, in an attempt to avoid a contractual breach.
(Possible defense for Huntsman: duress. Also, if no consideration, no contract.)
SW meets forest animals, they encourage her to check out a cute little cottage, fraudulently inducing her to break & enter & trespass on the 7 Dwarfs’ property. SW detrimentally relies on the animals’ representation, though I suppose it’s ambiguous since the animals don’t speak.
Once in the house, SW realizes it is occupied by what she thinks are children. She stays anyway. She proceeds to dust & clean. Is this conversion of property?
The animals help: conspiracy?
The 7D’s are away at work, mining for jewels. They head home & see their home has been broken into! They’re afraid! They enter cautiously & nervously.
Is this intentional infliction of emotional distress? If not, is it negligent infliction?
In the fear & chaos of inspecting their home, 6 of the Dwarfs mistake Dopey for the intruder & attack. Assault & battery. But can they raise self-defense as an affirmative defense?
Sneezy comes upon flowers that SW put on the dinner table & sneezes. Another instance of battery?
7Ds discover the intruder is SW. They give her a pass because, well, she’s the fairest in the land. (Don’t tell Queen I said it.)
They enter a contract: SW can live there if SW cooks & cleans, & contingent on SW’s rep that Queen will never find her there. (I hope they got RWI.)
SW immediately unilaterally modifies the contract by making supper contingent on 7Ds washing up. They seem to accept the amendment by compliance.
Grumpy refuses & the 6Ds batter him into compliance.
Queen has a plan: use black magic to create an apple that, once SW takes a bite, will take away SW’s breath & make her sleep forever…
She neglects, for now, to read the footnotes.
Once the apple is made, Queen makes herself look like an old woman. (Query why she couldn’t just make herself fairer?)
She double checks if there’s an apple antidote. Oops, there is: true love’s kiss. But Queen is racing a filing deadline & decides the plan is good enough.
Queen sees SW & makes some more-than-puffery false representations about said apple. SW accepts, makes a wish, & takes a bite. She drops to the floor.
Fraud? Attempted murder? Battery? Take your pick.
Meanwhile, animals tell 7Ds, 7Ds chase Queen up a mountain, Queen attempts to roll large boulder the size of a small boulder onto 7Ds, & (spoiler alert) lightning strikes causing Queen to fall off the mountain to her (presumable?) death.
Lightning commits battery as to Queen?
Contractual loophole exploited: Prince finds the sleeping SW & kisses her, then carries her off to his castle? Or is it a castle in the sky, so… heaven? Does SW die?? It’s a matter of murder vs. attempted murder for Queen (who, for all we know, may have survived the fall).
Snow White squeezes Contracts, Crim, Property, & Torts all into one film.
And it leaves us with a few employment law Qs:
1️⃣Is SW permitted to subcontract her cooking duties?
2️⃣Are the animals employees or contractors?
3️⃣Is Queen entitled to claw back whatever she paid Huntsman?
One lesson every new attorney can learn from the Queen’s big mistake: always read the footnotes & always read the full case, not just the part that you think supports your cause. You never know what “true love’s kiss” caveat may be lurking in the next sentence.
And one big-picture question:
Sure the Queen in Snow White is the classic & obvious villain. But is the *true* villain the patriarchy?
What other legal issues do you see here? /🧵
If you enjoyed this nerdy Disney movie legal analysis, you may also enjoy the Cinderella 🧵 below ✨
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