Santa Claus is comin' to town

As of December 2016, EMI will lose the rights to John Frederick Coots’s 1934 seasonal earworm ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town’. The three-year copyright battle between the record label and the deceased musician’s family ended in the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in October.

The case is a reminder that there are billable hours to be made out of Santa. But are there Santa ©laws? And is there a hidden clause behind being Santa? 

Father Christmases 

The first question must be: ?who does the law recognise ?as the real Santa Claus? 

In re Name Change of Handley, 107 Ohio Misc 2d 24, 736 NE 2d 125, 126 (Prob Ct 2000) concerned the application of the petitioner, a ‘rotund gentleman’ of Franklin County, Ohio, ‘with a full white beard and wear[ing] wire glasses’, for his name to be changed to ‘Santa Robert Claus’. He had played the role of Santa for 40 years since appearing as ?St Nick in a school play at 14. Giving his reasons for the name change, Handley said: ‘I don’t want people to say “you look ?like Santa”, I want to be Santa.’ 

The court was not, however, in a giving mood. For public policy reasons, Handley could not go by his chosen name: ‘The history of Santa Claus – the North Pole, the elves, Mrs Claus, reindeer – is a treasure that society passes ?on from generation to generation… [and] it would ?be very misleading to the children in the community… ?to approve the applicant’s ?name change petition.’ 

The Supreme Court of Utah was in a more festive humour ?in 2001 when it overturned a refusal to allow a petitioner to be dubbed ‘Santa Claus’ (In re Porter, 31 P3d 519 (2001) 2001 UT 70). But as the court in Porter concluded, becoming Santa ?‘may be thought by some to be unwise, and it may very well be more difficult for [one] to conduct [one’s] business and [one’s] normal everyday affairs’. 

The Santa clause

The impact of being Santa on ‘normal everyday affairs’ was raised in 2001 when an Ohio municipal criminal court had to decide whether use of a driver’s licence bearing the name ‘Santa Claus’ constituted an offence of presenting a ‘fictitious’ ID document. At trial, the defendant relied upon a series ?of Ohio identification cards and evidence of a bank account, all of which bore his name – ‘Santa Claus’.

The Ohio court, rather ?like Judge Harper in George Seaton’s 1947 classic Miracle on 34th Street, had to determine whether Santa was ‘fictitious’ ?and wryly acquitted Claus: ‘The fact that Santa had an ongoing relationship for 20 years with the [Department of Motor Vehicles] is not indicative of “artificiality or contrivance”, for, in fact, under the publicly held records of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Santa has been a “real person” since as early as 1982.’

Santa suit

The law, then, can prove Santa to be ‘real’. But can the law be used against those who doubt his reality? 

According to Woman’s Day, in October this year, a US law firm threatened to slap a suit on a southern California mom after her son told his classmates that Santa wasn’t real. The ‘well-known, local, elite law firm’ alleged that ‘emotional damage’ and a ‘loss of innocence’ had been caused to the plaintiff parents’ tender offspring by the boy’s ‘flagrant disregard to parental rights’. The irate attorneys demanded just satisfaction for their clients in the form of a ‘fully interactive Santa experience’ that would ‘re-spark the childlike wonderment that surrounds the holidays’. 

St Nicked

There was little evidence of ‘childlike wonderment’, however, during the infamous ‘Santa Claus Bank Robbery’ on 23 December 1927, when Marshall Ratliff, dressed as Father Christmas, ?and three accomplices entered the First National Bank of Cisco, Texas.  

Ratliff received a folksy ?‘Hello, Santa’ from the teller. Santa Ratliff’s response was to order the assistant cashier to open the safe. The satanic Santas made off with $12,400 in cash and $150,000 in securities but were eventually apprehended following the largest manhunt ever seen in the Lone Star State. 

Ratliff was convicted of armed robbery on 27 January 1928. ?He was later sentenced to death. After Santa Ratliff’s appeal failed his behaviour became markedly odd. His mother, Rilla Carter, pleaded for clemency on the grounds of lunacy before a court in Huntsville. Ratliff’s fake insanity then took on a pseudo-psychosomatic hue: he feigned paralysis. While being treated ?as an invalid, Ratliff stole a six shooter from an office desk and, after killing a guard, was beaten unconscious by a warder.

By now, Texas’s citizenry ?had tired of Ratliff’s exploits. ?A 1,000-strong mob surrounded the jail and demanded that Ratliff be handed over. His jailors refused but were subsequently overpowered. Ratliff was hogtied and then hanged behind a nearby theatre where, ironically, Willard Mack’s play The Noose was being performed. 

Santa Ratliff’s lynchers were never tried, though a grand jury was formed to look into the… sleighing.

Richard Easton is a solicitor at Sonn Macmillan Walker @SMW_Law www.criminalsolicitor.co.uk

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