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RIP Joseph Wapner
Topic Started: Feb 26 2017, 02:51 PM (69 Views)
George K
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Finally
Died at age 97.

Arguably the first "Reality Show" star.
Quote:
 
Joseph A. Wapner, a retired California judge whose flinty-folksy style of resolving disputes on the show “The People’s Court” helped spawn an entire genre of courtroom-based reality television with no-nonsense jurists and often clueless litigants, died Feb. 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.

A grandson, Gabriel Wapner, confirmed the death but did not know the immediate cause. Judge Wapner had several strokes in recent years.

“The People’s Court,” which the silver-haired Wapner hosted from 1981 to 1993, was a syndicated half-hour show that turned private arbitration of small-claims cases into highly engrossing entertainment.
...
The parties, selected from the dockets of Los Angeles-area small-claims courts, agreed to have their matters settled outside a normal court of law and to sign a legally binding arbitration contract. Each litigant was paid about $250 to appear on TV.

The courtroom set — the only fictional component of the show — was presided over by a seen-it-all judge who had spent 18 years on the bench of Los Angeles Superior Court and brooked little tolerance for unpreparedness and interruptions.

When a litigant told him, “I’m not through, your honor,” Judge Wapner replied, “Well, now you are.”

“It’s a case that requires proof, and you didn’t even tip the scales,” he told one woman seeking redress for damaged furniture and stolen underwear during a move.

He brought basic judgment and a sense of perspective to thorny legal feuds. Evidence such as receipts and written contracts were often a deciding factor. The judge decided that a litigant who bought three “Cartier” watches out of a cigar box in a restaurant for $75 got exactly what he purchased.
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Copper
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Shortstop

RIP your honor
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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brenda
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..............
97. Wow!

He seemed like a fun man. RIP
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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