When he died in 1924, Quinn bequeathed his letters to the New York Public Library, but the courts construed his will as barring publication in any form until 1988. Scholars who have been permitted to read them in the library's Manuscript Room have to sign a special form agreeing not to use direct quotation, and are forbidden to take notes.

But to Kavanagh, these restrictions were outrageously unjust...

In the Manuscript Room, he had no compunction about signing the pledge not to quote from the letters. "To me," he explains, "that paper had no more validity than posting a sign in my flat, 'Not responsible if the roof falls in.' I was driven and had no choice."

For 13 days Kavanagh pored over the letters. Unable to take notes, he simply memorized salient passages, then rushed outside to jot them down. When he had all he wanted he went on to the most arduous task of all: hand-setting the book and printing it...

Kavanagh had not sold a single copy of the Quinn Letters when the library served him with a restraining order, preventing him from distributing the edition and demanding its confiscation. At that point, Kavanagh made a heartbreaking decision.

"I don't want their bloody hands on my book," he said, and on the morning of the hearing he systematically hacked 117 volumes with a shoemaker's knife, shearing them down the middle. "It's like tearing my heart out," he said...

Kavanagh arrived in court with a briefcase crammed with the literary remains. He approached the bench and addressed the judge as "your lordship." Then he upended his briefcase and scattered his shredded copies as evidence that he had obeyed the injunction. The judge explained that he was not "his lordship" and gave Kavanagh permission to keep two unshredded copies of the book for himself.

[The trial] started with a large group of women dressed in navy power suits, clad in pearls and wearing red lipstick marching into the hearing to support Ms Kaechele...

As the parties sparred, the museum's supporters were somewhat stealing the spotlight. They had periods of complete stillness and silence, before moving in some kind of subtle, synchronised dance - crossing their legs and resting their heads on their fists, clutching their hearts, or peering down their spectacles. One even sat there pointedly flipping through feminist texts and making notes...

the museum's posse left as conspicuously as it came in - dancing out of the building in a conga line as one woman played 'Simply Irresistible' by Robert Palmer off her iPhone.

Eggermann just wanted to leave his money to a boy who would be about 10 years old at the time he drew the will. Mrs. and Mrs. Eggermann were childless.

The defendant argues that the policy and practice of the DOC not to recognize and credit the additional day in a "leap year" is incorrect. He argues that a "year," as imposed by the sentence of ten years to ten years and one day, consists of 365 days each, not the 366 days contained in a leap year.

What they had done was place an A-frame ladder across an intersection of property boundaries, the location where four parcels of land meet at a point. They climbed up one side of the ladder from public land, and down the other side of the ladder, stepping kitty-corner onto a different parcel of public land. But in doing so, their bodies also crossed through the airspace of the other two parcels meeting at that point, which were private.