Driving a Legal Principle Too Far

Reading “High Court to Rule on Dispute Over Car Advertising” [Feb. 6] gives a better understanding of why, on ethics, lawyers are consistently rated below most professions, including used-car dealers.

Lawyer Brian Donovan proves the point by wanting to take unfair advantage of an advertising misprint to purchase a Jaguar at an extraordinarily low price and is going to the courts “over a consumer principle.”

His “consumer principle” fear is that if the car dealer “doesn’t have to honor those [honestly misprinted] prices, then we will be back in the era of bait-and-switch that California car dealers have been famous for.” It is a long stretch to believe his scare tactic or that the issue will drive us back to that era.

BOB BALL

Anaheim