Okay, so it is not amusing to the Court hearing the case or to the attorney(s) responding to the brief, but bad grammar can be amusing to disinterested parties. It is especially amusing when the Court takes issue with the bad grammar and makes a note of it in the decision. Check this article out from the 5th Circuit, courtesy of the ABA Journal’s online edition…
“Usually we do not comment on technical and grammatical errors, because anyone can make such an occasional mistake, but here the miscues are so egregious and obvious that an average fourth grader would have avoided most of them. For example, the word ‘principals’ should have been “principles.’ The word ‘vacatur’ is misspelled. The subject and verb are not in agreement in one of the sentences, which has a singular subject (‘incompetence’) and a plural verb (‘are’).”
“In particular, Smith criticized this sentence in the plaintiff’s opening brief: ‘Because a magistrate is not an Article III judge, his incompetence in applying general principals [sic] of law are [sic] extraordinary.’
“Smith said the meaning of the sentence is unclear, though it appears to be making an ‘unjustified and most unprofessional’ attack on the magistrate judge in the case.”